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Lifestyle 'Reset' with only a mountain home and a brand new Rubicon. True Jeep Life Story.

Kangy

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Linden, AZ
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2023 Rubicon 392 & 2021 Ram 1500 Rebel
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Technology Consulting (Automation & Data Analytics)
Background: We were living in a big city working professional careers and raising our kids. You know, the dealing with traffic, noise, and worst of all people, commuting hours a day but building that retirement account right... We drove a 2018 Tacoma and a 2018 4-Runner that never left the pavement due to being so busy with life... We decided one day "fuck this" and moved across the country to the mountains... Flew around to find the right location and bought a 30 year old home on same land in a small community. Traded in both trucks for a 2019 Rubicon 4-Door then we wrapped up our affairs in the city, put 1k miles on the Jeep to break it in, did an oil change, got a 15' U-Haul and told the wife "if it fits it ships" flat rate style. Liquidated literally every other piece of personal property and all furniture and hit the road.

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Right off the factory floor in our city cul-da-dac where we could hear the neighbor flush his pooper

Jeep Convoy from Florida to Arizona: The Jeep did amazing on the open road, not much to say here. We did have some of the dead spot on TDC of the steering but no major issues. I drove the U-Haul with one puppy and the wife drove the Jeep with another puppy

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Arrival in the Mountains: We only have one vehicle living up here and it's the 2019 Rubicon, mostly stock but we have since added a Rhino-Rack Pioneer Platform and a Warn Zeon 10-S. A few other minor accessories like a Hi-Jack mount, overhead gun rack (we have predators here), and some custom rigging for the idiot (we love them) dogs. They are boxer-mastiff mix and brothers, 7 months old now and about 70lbs. The dogs pretty much own the cargo area hence the roof system.

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Summer time fun, naked in the mountains, fully stock at this point.

Jeep Philosophy: Our Jeep is a tool not a show piece, to us it's lifesaving equipment and our life-line to the outside world. It transports my family in/out through pretty much anything. It now apparently handles local recoveries for neighbors which scores us brownie points and increases our favor in barters for wood and other supplies. It's not a city vehicle, sure I drive it down the mountain 3 hours once a month to visit my office, but it lives and breathes the mountain air and back roads where Jeeps belong. I've yet to wash it in 11k miles but it's had 4 oil changes and a dozen mechanical checks if that shows my priorities. My wife put some mountain pin striping on it when she decided to drive down an ATV trail bordered in a bunch of manzanita bushes and we laughed then sent the video to the finance lady at the dealership and said "screw your paint protection, it's a Jeep". We no longer get flyers from them btw...

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Decided to let the wife take the wheel, it was shortly after that we got our first pinstriping lol

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Winch installed, took pic before hitting the highway for a road test

Now the winter has set in: We are about 2 miles off the local highway on a privately maintained roads outside of county purview. The main artery road is plowed pretty regular but the branches are not and the residents all just fend for ourselves. There are a few in the community with plows and tractors that lend a hand when it gets bad but most of us up here are of the mentality "screw you society, leave us a lone and we'll be just fine".

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This is standing in front of our garage entrance (the driveway is to the left and dog-legs down at a 15 degree angle)

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Sitting on the hill behind the house watching the storm roll back in. You can see we are located in a pretty remote area

Recovery 1: Yesterday morning my wife calls as I'm starting the fire, she's on her way home from dropping off the kids and she says her and a neighbor are stuck on our road. I walk down there to see what's going on, they were passing each other and the other driver in a Cube (yeah, a Cube...) had veered too far to the shoulder and slid into the irrigation ditch, she was STUCK. My wife simply ran into a 4' pile of snow and was spinning all 4 wheels on the ice). It was easy peasy to get out the jeep, threw down some traction pads and backed out. Got the Jeep turned around while wife and the other lady dug around the stuck car I hooked up the winch, (the recovery hook was actually very well thought on the Cube). Got her pulled out and followed her until dryish roadway. I wish we had gotten more pictures but we were rushed since I still hadn't started the fire and the dogs were in the front dog run, she got a couple of the second recovery though, sort of, she's fired from being photographer.

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Silly pest control trucks thought they could go ice skating.

Recovery 2: Sitting on the porch having a nice cold adult beverage watching the deer antagonize the dogs and here comes a loaded down F150 with a pest control company logo on the side. Goobers had 2WD and pretty bald tires. No idea how they made it as far as they did, they missed the driveway they intended and tried to turn around, well that didn't work and they too slid into the ditch across the street. I go walking down to see how bad it is. We tried the traction pads but they were still slipping back down so I pulled the Jeep out of the garage to find a patch where I could get enough traction and find a mounting point on their truck. Tried a rear pull first but the Jeep just got drug on the ice (picture of me walking the line back in). Moved the jeep up the road to try a front pull out (was the best approach for how they were stuck but the ice in that area was really THICK and slippery, literally like a skating rink. I got the jeep lined up then used a tree wrap and recovery strap to anchor the rear of the jeep to a tree in my yard (probably not the best of ideas but it's what I improvised at the time). Worked well enough, the Zeon pulled them back onto the road while the tether held the Jeep in place. Even then they could not get nor keep forward momentum lol, he ended up backing out the 1/2 mile to the artery road since it's slightly down hill that direction.
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DadJokes

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Yeah that sounds like what I’ve dreamt of doing BUT... due to work, a toddler, teenagers with roots here, the industry we work in...maybe we can do it a month or more at a time and have a small cabin retreat with some land out west. I guess I could wait until I’m pushing 70. lol
 
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Kangy

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Witness Protection is a GREAT program! Probably not smart posting on here though. Congrats on getting AWAY!
lol, it feels like that sometimes but no I assure you we are not in any involuntary hiding or protection program. We simply just got tired of raising our kids in the city and the opportunity to work remote for both of us fell in our laps so we decided to set out on a lifestyle adventure.
 
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Kangy

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Technology Consulting (Automation & Data Analytics)
Yeah that sounds like what I’ve dreamt of doing BUT... due to work, a toddler, teenagers with roots here, the industry we work in...maybe we can do it a month or more at a time and have a small cabin retreat with some land out west. I guess I could wait until I’m pushing 70. lol
Yeah I hear ya there, ours are young enough so it wasn't too bad uprooting them, they are still adjusting to the small town though.
 

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alphalife9

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lol, it feels like that sometimes but no I assure you we are not in any involuntary hiding or protection program. We simply just got tired of raising our kids in the city and the opportunity to work remote for both of us fell in our laps so we decided to set out on a lifestyle adventure.
An awesome shift of scenery for sure. Any tips on getting remote working opportunities falling into one's lap?
 
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Kangy

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Technology Consulting (Automation & Data Analytics)
An awesome shift of scenery for sure. Any tips on getting remote working opportunities falling into one's lap?
Depends on your profession. My wife works in psychiatry and her employer was wanting to tap the tele-psychiactry market so she said yes but only if she could live where she wants. I got lucky since my firm is national and the "local" office 3 hours away was amiable to me telecommuting so I only drive to the city once a month or so.
 
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Kangy

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Great story. Similar but different for us. Left Socal to a much smaller town and state. Not quite as remote as you but get it and life is so much better.
It truly is a much better life. I posted this here because the Jeep was a core component to making the drastic plunge.
 

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alphalife9

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Depends on your profession. My wife works in psychiatry and her employer was wanting to tap the tele-psychiactry market so she said yes but only if she could live where she wants. I got lucky since my firm is national and the "local" office 3 hours away was amiable to me telecommuting so I only drive to the city once a month or so.
That is excellent. I can telework and do sometimes, but it's somewhat frowned upon for appearances from an empty desk. I hope to post a cool story like yours someday from my own secluded sanctuary.
 
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Kangy

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Technology Consulting (Automation & Data Analytics)
What breed are your Pups ? Handsome pair ! GSDs, ears in transition ?
Thanks, they are Boxmas breed (Boxer and English Mastiff mix). Brothers but totally different personalities, we adopted them a couple weeks before the move. They were only 10 weeks old during the road trip. They are excellent travelers now and all around great dogs, very large but very smart and obedient. I'm thinking they'll hit around 120lb each full size. Good mountain dogs lol.
 
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Kangy

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Linden, AZ
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2023 Rubicon 392 & 2021 Ram 1500 Rebel
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Technology Consulting (Automation & Data Analytics)
That is excellent. I can telework and do sometimes, but it's somewhat frowned upon for appearances from an empty desk. I hope to post a cool story like yours someday from my own secluded sanctuary.
It has its ups and downs. I spent a couple days HR onboarding at the local office and IT sent me on my way with monitors, dock, and laptop with an info sheet for the VPN and a slap on the butt. I fully understand that it WILL limit promotion and professional opportunities since I'm not "client facing", it's up to me to network internally and maintain a supply of billable work to justify the remote work. That's a trade-off we were willing to make though, was tired of chasing the corporate ladder and we had a comfortable financial position before making the leap. The new lifestyle is an extremely low cost of living and much better for the soul, you'd be surprised at how much useless "stuff" suburban life comes with. We don't have cable or any TVs in the house, other than our work stations in the den/office it's minimal electronics, we work outside, play board games, build, fabricate, fix, and explore. I see more deer than people and regularly have to wait for a dozen of them to move off our driveway in the morning after dropping kids at school haha.
 

UpNorthJL

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Looks like a great place to live. We are looking to move far out of town to an area that is very secluded. I can not wait.
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