A Roaming Couple Recalibrate a 1975 Argosy for Creative Work and Off-Grid Bliss

"We’re not really adventure people," says Caroline Burke, but only after she and her husband, Riley Haakon, have been explaining for almost an hour how they’ve been hauling a vintage trailer across the U.S. and down dusty Baja roads for several months. Once, in Mexico, they wound up serving coffee to a beachful of local families on vacation; in Washington’s San Juan Islands, they almost saw their broken-down truck burn up while it was parked outside a bar that had caught on fire. A pause, and then Caroline clarifies: "I can count the number of hikes we’ve done in the past two years on one hand."

Okay, so not outdoorsy types, but prone to adventure, say. A year and a half ago, they were feeling burned out near the end of a nine-month road trip in an Airstream they had spent months renovating, but they still couldn’t help but peruse listings for other project trailers. Then they saw their dream model for sale in Arkansas, an Argosy built in 1975. "Caroline said, ‘Do you wanna do another one?’ I was like, no," Riley remembers, laughing. "But we bought it, and this is it."

Today, the Argosy, glowing with a paint job Caroline and Riley managed to apply in a 40-mile-an-hour windstorm—in December, in Massachusetts—is parked in California’s Carpinteria State Beach campground. The weather is temperate, slightly overcast, and windless. The couple’s two cats, Pancake and Ophelia, and dog, Cowboy, who’s dressed the part in a red bandana, laze on the bed, which is surrounded by windows, a hallmark of this brand of trailer.