Mark Avenius and Family Migrate Around America

By Erik Hansen

Mark Avenius has taken the concept of working remotely to an elevated level. In late June, he and his wife, Nadia, finished packing their three young sons and two dogs into their brand-new Highland Ridge “Open Range” 40-foot trailer and drove away from their recently sold Detroit-area home. They’re taking their lessons learned during the pandemic about remote work and school and applying them to a nomadic life. Over the next year their plan is to circumnavigate the lower 48 states. Most likely, the Avenius family will return to the same Detroit area and school district where their two oldest sons are still enrolled.

“If we’re ever going to do this, now is the time to do it,” Mark said. “We are still trying to stay socially distanced from people and still isolating.”

For the past five years, Mark, Nadia, and the boys have taken regular trips in a pop-up camper. However, that all stopped at the height of the pandemic due to the pop-up’s lack of a bathroom and the family wisely avoiding public restrooms with Felix being an infant. When they noticed things were improving with Covid-19, they started doing some camping in Michigan’s state parks close to home. This past April, these trips prompted them to trade in their 14-foot popup camper for a 25-foot travel trailer with a toilet and shower.

Out of necessity, Marc and Nadia started researching how to take care of the trailer for all the things they never had to deal with before, like emptying the septic system. Soon, the possibilities of doing something bigger began to grow.

“The people we were looking at to get information from are these YouTubers who have time to record videos about how to charge your battery bank, or whatever,” Mark recalled. “The people who have time to do that are the ones who live in their RVs full time.”

Also, both Mark and Nadia noticed these people had kids, too.

“That just kept poking us and saying, ‘Hey, this is something that people do,” Mark said. “We saw that they have kids, too, and having your kids in the RV and

Sailing and Teamwork are Lifelong Passions for Charley Rathkopf

By Erik Hansen

as partake in the races himself.

Charley motors out to a sailboat race location on the Puget Sound where he helped run the event. Sailboat racing has been part of Charley’s life, and that of his family’s, since his childhood in Florida.

For Platform Services engineer Charley Rathkopf, sailing has been deeply ingrained in his life since he was a young boy in Florida. Charley joined Skykick in February 2020, four weeks before the pandemic shut down our home office. While growing up in The Sunshine State, Charley learned to race sailing boats, a pastime he’s been active with ever since. He moved to the Puget Sound area in 1997 after a few years in the Peace Core and some time back in Florida. Once established here, Charley began helping organize and run sailboat races, as well

In fact, this is the fourth city Charley has lived in where he initially didn’t know anyone but quickly learned where and when people go sailing in Seattle.

“The teamwork is really fun,” Charley noted, who is practiced with sailing various sized boats. “Once you know what you’re doing and have some experience, you can get on a team anywhere.”

If you want to learn more about how to get involved, just let Charley know. Also, check out the full interview with Charley to learn more about the local sailing life.