Jack Ashore is a retired navy sailor obsessed with politics, comic books, salt water aquariums, and the intersection of science, religion, skepticism, and culture.  Awkwardly balanced between a desire for an adventuress life and the quite comfort of a financially secure beach condo existence, a full time RV lifestyle is exaclty what he neeed to balance this yin and yang, and hopefully spur a bit of creative writing as well.

Ramblin’ Rose is an inveterate natural born traveller ready to cash it all in, strap on a backpack and travel the world couch surfing and crashing in youth hostels.  A New York City transplant to Miami Beach, half Boricua-half Ecuadorian child of immigrants, lover of all things aquatic, photographer, life of the party and yet also an excessivly shy artist, she has been driving this adventure train for years and is ready for the next phase.

Check out her Handmade Jewelry at:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/QueVidaDesign

Jack and Rose are in their late 40s early 50s, retired just a few short years and now living on the road in an RV. They found each other on the roof of a Miami Beach condo under the glow of July 4th fireworks in 2002, and were maried exactly two years later, thus allowing the nation to celebrate their anniversery every year.

Us, golden canyon behind

Pad Kee Meow is the newest member of the Shell On Wheels family.  We adopted her from a Siamese Rescue organization as an (approximately) one year old spayed female.  We really lucked out regarding her temperment; she is incredibly calm, not prone to dart out the door, and took to a harness and leash immediately.  Her name is a a play on words, derived from the Thai dish “Pad Kee Mao,” AKA drunken noodles.

Serenity is a 2007 Four Winds Hurricane motorhome.  Built on a Ford chassis with a Triton V10 gasoline engine, we purchased her in December, 2015 after finally realizing that we lacked the mechanical knowledge and patience to maintain our previous RV, The Big Kahuna.  We are loving the modern conveniences and extra space afforded by the slide out sections, but remain a bit worried about the sturdiness of what is basically a plastic and press board shell on a truck chassis.  Here’s hoping we have better luck keeping her on the road than we did with our last RV

Loki is our “toad,” RV speak for the vehicle we tow behind our motorhome, also referred to as a dinghy.  He is a 1997 Geo Tracker with 4 wheel drive, an automatic transmission, and a removable soft top.  We selected this vehicle based on six criteria: afforability, convertible top, four wheel drive, automatic transmission, light weight, and “flat towable” (meaning that it can be towed with all four wheels on the ground as opposed to on a trailer or dolly.)  Considering it was an 18 year old vehicle when we got him in mid 2015, and we felt pretty fortunate to find one with less than 90K miles, a lot of which was under tow behind the previous RV owner’s motorhome.  He has been rock solid for us.

The Big Kahuna, our previous RV, is a 1963 GM PD4106 bus converted into a motorhome a few decades back.  He’s powered by a Detroit Diesel 8V71 engine that was rebuilt about 80,000 miles ago.  He was our home for nearly all of 2015 during a 14,000 mile journey around the US. We put a lot of money and times into upgrading the house systems and redoing the decor, and even more into repairing various engine and system problems.  Here’s hoping the new owner is better prepared to keep him running.  Old (left) and new (right) paint pics:

The Barracuda was our first motorhome, which we refer to as our “trainer” RV.  He is a 1978 GMC 26′ motorhome powered by an Oldsmobile Tornado V8.  These classics were produced for a handful of years in the ’70s, and changed the face of what an RV could be or look like for a lot of people.  Now collectibles, there are a dozen or so clubs around the country dedicated specifically to these vehicles.  He got us started as part time RVers before we decided to go full time and recognized the need for a larger home on wheels.