A Year Touring America for Cable Show
By Bill Straub
It started innocently enough as a three-day excursion up the Pacific coast to visit friends in Vancouver, B.C.
Now Rob and Emily Hache, a pair of 30-somethings who found themselves growing stale in the entertainment industry, are on a perpetual road trip, having traded in their Venice, Calif., residence for a cramped, 25-year-old motor home that has taken them to Moosehead Lake in Maine, the horse country in Kentucky, the Florida Keys and, most recently, the Big Apple.
Needless to say, they are loving it.
"We had such a wonderful time when we took that trip to Vancouver that we seriously wanted to go on the road for good," said Emily, an energetic Indianapolis native. "So about three months later we hit the road in the beginning of April — around April Fools' Day. We had a wedding to attend in Florida but, other than that, we've just gone wherever the road has taken us."
The Haches aren't the first to travel the byways in search of America. De Tocqueville started the ball rolling in the early 1800s. More recently, Jack Kerouac set the standard in the 1950s and, of course, there was Captain America and Billy who met an uneasy end in Easy Rider during the uneasy '60s.
But Rob and Emily Hache are taking a different tact by simply drifting along like Huck Finn on the Mississippi, following the current wherever it leads them, from exploring caves in Indiana to visiting the oldest ballpark still in use in Birmingham, Ala.
It didn't start off as a media event. The couple saved a substantial amount of cash during the course of their careers and then sold off most of their possessions — including a sailboat — to fund what was planned as a year-long adventure.
"We made the decision to do this and we started telling our friends," Emily said. "One of them said it sounded like something that would be perfect for the Fine Living network. It was really serendipitous."
Their chosen mode of transportation is a 1977 GMC motor home they have named Murray that occasionally breaks down. And they are accompanied by their "small, brown rescue dog," Dudley, a breed of undetermined heritage that Emily saved off the streets of Venice Beach about three years ago.
"We had been in Venice Beach for nine years and both of us felt like we needed a change," Emily said. "We needed to see more — take a big jump out of our comfort zone."
Added Rob, "I like that phrase, 'Live life like you mean it.' This way we're doing that."
All the stops have been memorable, they say, but Emily is particularly fond of her adventure in Greenville, Maine, buzzing the heavily wooded region in the passenger seat of a Piper Cub.
"Flying over Moosehead Lake with the mountains in the background and the forest — everything was so green," she said. "It was really incredible. A real tearjerker for me."
Rob said one of his high points was exploring the Marengo Caves in Southern Indiana. The couple skipped the guided tour, passing through some of the passages while crawling on their stomachs with Dudley in tow. But he expects that to change.
"Yes I have a favorite but I don't know what it is yet," he said. "The best experience as far as I'm concerned is when someone comes up to you and says, 'Hey, you ought to do this,' then we go and do it. The spontaneity is great."
The couple's most recent stop was in New York. Arrangements were made to allow Rob and Emily to live on a small island about 200 feet off of Battery Park in the Hudson River. Dubbed Fine Living Island, they were equipped with the fixings of a luxury campsite — palm trees, a hammock, a heated hut, barbecue pit and volleyball court to inhabit for about four days until their next adventure.
"I'm just a country boy and, let me tell you, New York is a long way off from that," Rob said.
The original plan called for the Haches to stay on the road for a year. But Rob said it will take at least 10 times that long for them to find everything they're looking for.
"At the end of the year we'll check in with ourselves and see where we stand," Emily said. "We could end up just cutting all the ties."
"It's going to take longer than a year," Rob said.
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