Our journey started back in 2012 when we began longing for a change from our what seemed to us as a mundane life of 60 hour work weeks barely scraping by paycheck to paycheck. Our real dream was to be able to travel the country in an RV but knew without a remote job or a way to sustain that lifestyle it would not be possible. So we started researching other options and stumbled upon expediting.
Expediting is, in a nutshell, a division of trucking hauling time-critical and specialized freight.
We spent the better half of 2012 obtaining our CDLs and researching whether expediting would be sustainable for us or for anyone else. After researching nearly every night after work for a good six months we met a person who owned a truck and was looking for drivers.
Once we made up our minds to move forward we sold our “sticks ‘n bricks” home and everything in it to begin our life on the road. We hit the road in January 2013.
That first year was a rough one for us not only having to acclimate to living in a smaller space but trimming the fat in our lives as we made very little money and had to learn all the regulations and how to be profitable in trucking. All this while actually living and working on the road!
Sleeping in a moving truck was probably one of the toughest parts we had to get used to.
Because our freight was time sensitive we had to keep moving to our destination. There was no real dinner, Netflix, sleep 8 hours, wake up to hot coffee, sort of schedule like so many are used to.
In fact, sleeping while bouncing down the road was very challenging. 18-wheeler trucks are not built like Cadillacs and some of our nations roads are less than desirable.
Even though we had to overcome a lot of challenges in our first year we really enjoyed the lifestyle of living on the road and getting paid to travel the country in an expediter straight truck.
One of the biggest things that drew us to expediting was the ability to have a larger sleeper and more amenities on the road. While we do have a home base in Texas and an Airstream we live in full time when not hauling freight, we spend the majority of time living in our truck. We usually spend 11 months out of the year hauling freight around the country so being able to have more space and more creature comforts while en route was becoming very important to us.
During our first four years of expediting we drove a truck for a fleet owner but in early 2016 made the leap to owner-operators purchasing our first truck.
We decided on a Freightliner M2 business class with a 96-inch custom sleeper and a 22-foot box on the back to haul freight. Being this was our first truck purchase we really wanted to keep costs low and while our sleeper was still much larger than a traditional tractor trailer truck it was really just a cookie-cutter custom sleeper.
By the time the truck was in our possession we had truly started to embrace tiny house living on the road and became more “crafty” on how to live and function in this type of tiny space. Even though our first truck had most all the amenities we needed there were still some amenities we were lacking and were glad to now have in our Freightliner.
After spending two years on the road and in our M2 we knew we were going to be doing this lifestyle for the long-haul and started making
plans in 2019 for our next truck making it more customized to fit our needs.
Having a custom truck and sleeper built is a long process and took almost a year to finish. Fast forward to January 2020 our new truck was finally finished and ready for us to move in.
Our new truck is a 2019 Freightliner Cascadia with 120-inch AA custom sleeper and has a 20-foot box for hauling freight. Essentially we took two feet off of our box and added it to the sleeper to allow us more living space. To most people two feet doesn’t seem like a lot but in a tiny space it makes all the difference in the world.
We have managed to incorporate everything an RV has into an 8×10 space. We have a 48×75 inch Murphy bed along the back of the sleeper that folds up and has a dinette table with bench seating.
It provides plenty of room for us and our two Chihuahuas to sleep on comfortably.
On the passenger side we have a 66-inch countertop with a built sink and induction cooktop. There is a microwave/convection oven. On the driver side there is a 7.0cf Norcold refrigerator and perhaps one of the biggest upgrades from our last truck. We now have a full size shower/toilet combo. Talk about convenience and luxury! We also have several cabinets around the sleeper to store things.
To power our tiny home we have shore power hookups, a generator, and two 100-watt solar panels. We have all the comforts we need.
You can find a video tour of our entire truck on our YouTube channel.
While we do stay at a lot of truck stops we enjoy being able to stay at RV and state parks when we aren’t hauling freight.
We love our tiny home, the freedom it gives us, and our ability to get paid while we travel and see the country. We love this lifestyle so much we started a YouTube channel four years ago specifically to document our travels and share the expediting lifestyle.
Written By: Jason and Heather Hutchens for Tiny House Magazine Issue 89
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The post Expedite : 2 Humans : 2 Chihuahuas : 1 Amazing Home first appeared on Tiny House Blog.
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