About Koda Kingdom

I have never lived a conventional life. And honestly, I stopped trying a long time ago.

I grew up on 80 acres in Washington with horses, goats, sheep, pigs, chickens, and just about every other animal you can think of. My mom could train a horse and cook a meal from scratch that would make you want to cry it was so good. My dad could build anything, fix anything, and was widely known as the best farrier in every area we ever lived. Together they ran a pony ring, hauling horses to local events and giving kids rides on weekends.

We didn’t have much money. My dad worked constantly. My mom ended up in the hospital more than once from the stress of keeping it all together. We moved to Arizona when I was 9years old and ee moved ten times before I turned 18. Most of our belongings spent more time in storage unit than in a house.

What I did have was a front row seat to what it looks like when capable people figure things out with very little, and a childhood that taught me how to make a home out of almost anything.

That turned out to be the most useful thing I ever learned.

I Left Home at 17

Not out of rebellion. Out of a fierce need to feel in control of my own direction for the first time.

My first place was a loft above a friend’s barn. I paid rent by mucking stalls and doing daily animal care. It was hard work, familiar work, and it was mine. That felt like freedom and everything I was hoping for at the time.

The Years I Won’t Skip Over

Even though the years to follow were not my fondest years, I am going to tell you about them anyways because it has shaped who I am today and how I got to where I’m at now.

At the barn I met a someone who seemed to embody everything I was drawn to. Adventurous, fearless, free. The relationship was turbulent from the start. He manipulated me in ways I never saw coming. My family saw it clearly before I did and I stayed longer than I should have. I’ll be completely honest about that.

Eventually we were living together in a non-running RV at my parents’ property in Arizona. It was August of 2016. For 4 years, I felt like we were on life’s treadmill getting absolutely nowhere. I work constantly but had almost no money to show for it, we lived in an RV that didn’t run, it was blistering hot and I had had enough. The heat was hitting 130 degrees when I suggested we just leave. The risk of staying where we were at was scarier to me than an unknown open road.

So we did.

We pointed the car north with barely anything in our pockets and just started driving. Washington first, where my aunt had work for us. Of course, I did most of the work because he procrastinated so much that the work was never going to get done. We got paid and kept moving, pitching the tent, sleeping in the car, pulling over at rest stops when we couldn’t find anywhere else to rest for the night.

It wasn’t always comfortable. It wasn’t always pretty. But I was finally moving and that mattered more than comfort.

The Campfire That Changed Everything

In South Dakota we pulled into a free campsite after dark. We set up the tent, built a fire, cooked dinner. Then it started snowing so hard I ended up sleeping in the car with the heat running because it was so cold.

The next morning I woke up to a lake, good people in the next campsite over, and an invitation to go fishing with them on their boat.

Those neighbors taught me how to clean and skin trout for the first time. They fed me dinner that night and when I told them my story, they offered me a job on a cattle ranch in Nebraska.

At the very next campsite on our way to Nebraska, I met two hunters who invited me along on their hunting trip at 4am the next morning. I said yes without hesitation. That was my first hunting trip!! We cooked fresh antelope and rattlesnake over the fire afterward. The antelope was incredible. The rattlesnake was very chewy.

I was hooked on all of it.

Ranch Hand Season

We were hired on as ranch hands and were given a room in the basement of the ranch in Nebraska. We worked through calving season. Night checks in winter storms and long cold hours making sure newborn calves survived. My boyfriend always had an excuse why he couldn’t work his shift, so I took on two shifts. When we pitched hay off the back of the pickup beds, he drove and I threw.

I didn’t complain. I just did what needed doing. That has always been my way.

At the end of the season the ranch owner sat me down and told me if I wasn’t with my boyfriend they would keep me on and let him go but because we were together, he had to let us both go.

I wasn’t surprised. That same senecio had happened multiple times before.

The Summer Everything Fell Apart and I Found Myself Instead

We got jobs at a nearby state park that spring because (at no big suprise) we still didn’t save any money from working at the cattle ranch and needed to find more work. I went to into housekeeping, him in maintenance. We were given a campsite and lived in our tent from April through August, cooking every night on a two-burner propane camp stove. Within a month I was promoted to lead housekeeper with my own crew.

That summer something changed. He stopped coming home after work, then he was gone for days at a time. Eventually he told me it was over. I saw the writting on the wall long before that final moment because I saw him with someone else. I honestly didn’t want to beleive it because I had no where else to go. He ended up taking the car and the only phone we had at the time. I had a tent, a job contract through November, and nothing else.

My coworkers showed up for me in ways I will never forget. A friend from the office paid for a hotel room. Then my housekeeping manager found me a cabin to use until my contract ended. The ranching family from the year before heard what happened and co-signed on a car loan so I could drive home.

Those last two months in Nebraska, I was completely alone for the first time in years. I got quiet. I sat with the hard questions about what I had accepted that I shouldn’t have, what I actually wanted, what I owed myself going forward. I came out of it with a new standard for how I would live and who I would let in. I also came out of it completely comfortable in my own company. That turned out to be one of the most important things I ever learned.

I left Nebraska in November with a car, my dignity, and a completely new sense of who I was.

I drove to Washington to be with family. I spent Thanksgiving there then drove the California coastline south through the Redwoods, along the ocean collecting seashells, all the way to LA where my uncle was living on a sailboat. That was my first time sleeping on a sailboat and I thought it was incredibly cool.

The Night I Met Curtis

I went back to the state park for a second summer, this time completely on my own terms. I arranged a room with the ranching family in exchange for chores and saved more money than I ever had.

One night I went to the bar to see friends. Nobody showed. The old version of me would have gone home. Instead, I ordered a drink and sat down.

Someone else had also missed the memo about the change in plans. A guy from the maintenance department I had seen around but never really talked to. His name was Curtis. I had seen him around from the year prior but he was a very reserved person. He was very quiet and seemed grounded in who he was. He wasn’t there to impress anyone.

That night turned into more nights. A working relationship that became a friendship. A friendship that became campfires and fishing trips. Then bowfishing, heading out in a canoe after dark with headlamps and bows, hunting carp on the water. We would finish a full shift, stay out bowfishing all night, come back just in time to nap, and go back to work.

Curtis was someone who made sure I was taken care of without ever making me feel small. He was an adventure buddy in the truest sense of the word. I fell in love with the lifestyle and eventually with him.

The School Bus and the Life We Built

In 2019 we bought a school bus and converted it into a home by hand. Cabinets, countertops, bed frame. All wood, all ours. Solar panels ran the fridge and outlets. A wood burning stove kept us warm. A two-burner propane stove handled cooking. A pump pulled water from jugs stored under the sink. Fully off-grid. Fully ours.

We worked a season in Keystone, South Dakota while we built it. We worked at Rush Mountain Adventure Park. I was promoted to retail and food and beverage manager. Curtis was the maintenance manager.

On our way to Arizona for Christmas one winter in the bus, we stopped at a free campsite in New Mexico. The next morning, we hiked up the mountain to overlook the valley before driving the last 6 hour stretch to see family. As we were sitting at the top, over looking the bus we built into our home and the valley below us, Curtis told me he loved me and asked if I would marry him. I honestly don’t know what he said after he pulled out his grandma’s wedding ring because I was in so much shock. He had told me he was never getting married again so that was the last thing I ever expected. I said yes without hesitation. We called each other adventure buddy after all, and I wouldn’t want to spend my life with anyone else.

We got married in North Dakota in 2022. Then kept moving.

Koda

In 2021, we got a dog and named her Koda because at the time we were still living in South Dakota. So, Koda was short for where she was born.

She was full of energy, full of life, and completely at home in the outdoors from day one. In the winter at Keystone, South Dakota, she would slide down a snow-covered hill on her belly, run back up to the top, and do it again. Pure joy on four legs.

She has been on every adventure ever since. Every campsite, every trail (except the ones where she wasn’t allowed), and every new place we have called home. The outdoors is our kingdom and it is hers too. That is where the name came from.

Koda Kingdom is not just a brand. It is the life we all live together.

How We Got to Yellowstone

After the bus started overheating we pivoted to looking for work that came with housing, until we can get the bus fixed at least. We spent a summer in Colorado at a campground overlooking a lake on top of a mountain. Views almost too good to be real. When the management friction stopped being worth the view we packed up and left.

It was June 2024 and too hot to stay in Arizona. So we loaded up our little 4×6 adventure trailer, put Koda in the back seat, and spent the summer exploring 16 national parks and monuments across the western United States. We stopped at our favorite bowfishing spot in Nebraska on the way back. Spent time in North Dakota with Curtis’s mom. Made it back to Arizona in September just in time for me to watch my niece come into the world.

When spring came and the heat returned Curtis accepted the maintenance manager position at Yellowstone National Park. The employer provided an apartment, inside the actual park. Not many people can say that have actually lived in the park, which is a pretty cool experience all on its own.

We have been here about a year now. We have hiked trails most people never get to. We have lived through a Yellowstone winter with our car parked an hour away and nothing but each other to keep us company. It has been beautiful, hard and sometimes beautiful and hard at the same time.

Why I Started Koda Kingdom

I started this blog because I wanted to build something we could take anywhere, so we would never have to stop moving just to make a living.

But over time it became something bigger than that. Because through all of it (the tent living and the bus and the ranch and the campfires and the road trips) I learned things that actually matter. How to feed yourself well with almost nothing. How to build a pantry that travels. How to keep going when the situation is not what you planned. How to find the beauty in a life that does not look normal from the outside.

I write for women who are out here doing the unconventional thing and figuring it out as they go. Women who bring their dog everywhere. Women who have made a home out of places most people would not choose. Women who feel most like themselves outside.

Real stories. Practical skills. Honest conversation. No highlight reel.

That is Koda Kingdom.

And if you found your way all the way to the bottom of my story, you probably love this lifestyle, and we would probably be great friend. I am so glad you’re here! You can comment below anytime or email us at: [email protected]. I read every single one of them because I genuinely love hearing your unconventional stories too. Don’t be a stranger!

With love and adventure, Mindy