Horizon.

Buying Horizon.

I bought Horizon in 2024 in the parking lot of the Bass Pro Shops in Fort Myers, Florida. It had originally come from Minnesota, where it belonged to an older couple who had retired, moved on to sports cars, and no longer needed a full-size Suburban.

I handed over $4,500 in cash, climbed into a truck I barely knew, and drove it back across Florida to Windermere. At the time I had been living beside my storage unit in a financed 2017 Chevrolet Malibu. I was preparing to let the Malibu go back to the finance company, and Horizon represented something completely different. It was paid for. It had room. It could leave pavement. Most importantly, it could become a home instead of simply being a car I happened to sleep in.

The first version of the build was direct and practical. I removed every rear seat, laid out a full-size mattress, cut it to fit the interior, and supported it on top of rows of seven-inch-high storage containers. It was not elegant, but for the first time I could stretch out properly and keep the basics of my life organized underneath me.

The build changed as I learned what daily life actually required. I added interior walls and a compact kitchen directly behind the driver’s seat. A rice cooker and small portable oven handled simple meals. Later, an induction cooktop became the main cooking surface, powered by the Bluetti Elite 200 V2. At camp, the power station can charge from a 400-watt Renogy folding solar panel. While driving, a Bluetti DC-to-DC charger turns road time into charging time.

Water capacity grew from the original seven-gallon setup to a ten-gallon tank. An ICECO JP30 portable refrigerator replaced the center console, putting cold food within reach from the driver’s seat and using one of the most valuable spaces in the truck more efficiently.

Horizon still had its factory rear-entertainment system, including the small monitor and DVD player. I connected a Nintendo Wii through the auxiliary input, which means the same truck that crawls down forest roads can also become a tiny Mario Kart room when the weather turns bad.

Two storage boxes are mounted on the roof. They carry recovery gear, tools, a tarp, camping chair, grilling supplies, extra food, coffee, and the things that are useful at camp but do not need to occupy the living space. A Starlink Mini V1 sits ahead of them, giving the truck an internet connection from places where phone service disappears.

Horizon eventually carried me away from Florida, through familiar forests in North Carolina, across the Black Hills, and into Colorado. It is the room where I sleep, the kitchen where I cook, the office where I design, the communications station I keep expanding, and the machine that takes me to the quiet places where my nervous system can finally settle down.