How's it Going! I'm Austin Smith, this is my fire truck, or Micro Dojo.
"Give me a call if you get any issues, and ......"
Ok, thank you.
This is breakdown number..?
Six since, uh, we've been hanging out.
Yeah I never would of, I mean it's totally ridiculous. Kind of runs like shit.
Screams for way too much attention for me, too much character, too much
kinda too much everything. But my brother bought it and then it fell Into my lap.
Now I wouldn't change a thing.
Good luck finding another
1953 GMC firetruck though, I don't know if these ones can be mass-produced here.
I've never lived in a vehicle before, I've never
lived in a parking lot before. I wasn't sure if I'd like it.
There's a lot of variables.
So I finished the truck New Years Eve, December 31st,
and then I was up here at Mount Bachelor for the following six weeks.
It's super cold up here. I think the first week it was like minus five,
so that was as kind of part of the learning curve.
I started snowboarding when I was twelve years old. I started doing it as my job or
professionally, however you want to call it when I was like seventeen or eighteen?
So that's what I've been doing for the last ten years is traveling around,
snowboarding, jumping off cliffs. People take my picture, it goes in a movie or magazine or something and that's
essentially my whole life.
So for the last ten years I've just been traveling kind of non-stop.
I'm either traveling or injured. I was ready
for a change of pace. I moved here to Mount bachelor when
I was like fifteen or something and I love it. It's such fun mountain, but
I don't get to spend very much time here anymore 'cause I'm just
traveling. I built this little Micro Dojo to give me a reason to stay at home and to not travel.
So I built a house on wheels
to stay put.
So here's the fire truck. It's a 1953 GMC... firetruck.
I don't think they had a model for it then. I got a USA license plate
because it's actually hasn't been registered yet. Still been meaning to do that for the last like, eight months.
On this side we got my ladder and it may look like it's just a (an)
accessory for looks, but (with) this I access the roof
to get up to the solar panels and clean those off when they get covered in snow.
So I use the ladder almost every day.
The ladder's pretty sweet. My solar setup, everything is Gold Zero. It's two 90 Panels and then the Yeti 1250
underneath my sink and then those are lights throughout.
I was living up here in like January and February so there wasn't much solar to be had. Never got low,
never ran out, never had to plug in anything else. It was totally sufficient for off the grid living which was sweet.
Six snowboards for whatever the day is calling for, whether it's a big one,
medium one, a tiny one,
or whatever. We got lots of snow boards. That's the outside of it. It's actually just like an Old U-Haul box kind of style.
Ya know, it's not as cool as it looks. It's just a U-Haul box. I live in a U-Haul.
But the porch is the best part. So here's the porch.
Usually, I got a cooler out here right now, but I usually have a little lawn chair,
I have like my snowboard waxing rack right there. This is an old bed frame.
(rattling sound)
Super fancy. Alright, come on in.
That's my kitchen. Just
gravity-fed water to my sink, but then
most of the time it just drains out onto the ground, or
there's another tank down there that it can drain to. This is my grill that's on a
Cubic Mini wood stove. It has like a temperature gauge and everything on it. I made artichokes on here
uh, steamed veggies, I don't know
I was just learning how to cook, but if you knew how to cook you could probably make anything on this,
but I made everything that I knew how to make.
It's a nice addition/accessory to the Cubic Mini wood stoves.
This Is definitely the best investment,
best thing that I have going on in this place. Heats the place perfectly.
They make two sides. This is the big size, it's called The Grizzly and then the little one's called The Cub.
It fits seven inch pieces of wood,
which look like...
You know, it's only little pieces of wood that you're putting in there
and it doesn't burn all the way through the night but it burns
probably til like 3 a.m. or so. That's like four or five days of cold, cold weather.
That'll keep you toasty.
And then the best, best invention that I came up with my whole time living here.
I was trying to figure out how to dry the boots.
I was gonna put them under here on a little shelf,
but it doesn't get as much heat down there, and then I thought, "If there was only a way to
fasten boots to a ceiling." And then I just put some old snowboard bindings
on the ceiling. Just screwed directly into the ceiling and it works fantastically.
I start a fire in the morning and then it warms up my boots and then it like, preheat them a little bit every morning.
So that's pretty sweet. I got two pairs in case I have a guest.
A lot of hooks and storage everywhere. Hooks here,
goggle storage here,
sixteen coat racks between the two of 'em.
Everyone comes in and they all love 'em like, "Oh my god where'd you get these things!"
And I always wish I had a better story but I got 'em on Amazon.
Normally, I don't have it right now, but there's like a big Yeti cooler,
one of the big ones, and it serves as one of my benches and then it's all my food.
This is the couch/guest bed.
This, uh, we got a couple hooks here, and it folds flat into another bed.
Something like this. And so on my bed I went with four inches of foam.
It's like, medium density foam, and it's super comfy. It's perfect.
And then the guest bed I went with just two inches of foam so
it's comfortable but not too comfortable.
(So) people don't overstay their welcome.
You don't want any move-ins in your Micro Dojo.
It's not quite big enough for that, so
make it comfortable, accommodating, but not plush.
There's a lot of windows. There's seven windows, eight windows.
I've built curtains.
Think they're in my storage right now.
Hey I got more storage. This is -- this is all my closet. Three storage bins.
We're now in the dining room. Everything folds.
Chairs fold,
table folds.
Eat your food, do whatever you need to do and then it folds back down
because then there's like pretty good amount of floor space.
I can do yoga,
I can have dance parties.
You have, I think it's like 90 sq ft with the loft.
Oh, my fruit my basket is all,
got a little wonky in the drive.
Fruit basket I thought, was kind of
dorky. It Is dorky, but uh, it's actually kinda nice.
Ya know, put my bananas and avocados
and stuff, and gave it a little color.
I don't have anything to go in the fruit basket right now.
This is all my food.
This was always like tools, random junk. And...
wine. And that's everything.
I got heat, we got water, I've got a bed,
we got maple syrup on the side of this cabinet.
Oh man, my maple syrup went down again.
Still good though.
The best fire starter is toilet paper
with a little bit of sugary maple syrup.
Really goes up in flame then.
So my counter tops and my table are a material called paper stone, and it's like high-end
recycled kitchen countertops, but if you go to
I think it's greencountertopsdirect.com you can buy their
like seconds and kind of their like salvaged pieces for super cheap.
It's a super good product, super durable. So they're kind of fancy but also super cheap because
They're funky ones. But this whole place is kind of funky so it works.
(With) Any Micro Dojo, you're gonna want
one fire extinguisher. I almost -- check this spot out.
Right here,
see this little black burn mark? Almost burnt the place down one morning.
I was actually gone and a
friendly neighbor came over and put the fire out on my deck.
Coulda been anything that stared the fire, but uh
It was probably the ashes that I set out there in a cardboard box and the cardboard box caught on fire.
But it could've been anything. Hard to say.
And then I have this Himalayan suit that they climbed Mount Everest in.
It looks ridiculous but it's pretty much the greatest thing ever.
I call him Bernie.
I don't know why it's a he but
whatever. I call him Bernie and he like sleeps next to me under the blanket so he stays kinda warm.
And then in the morning I like jump inside of Bernie, start the wood stove,
go outside, clean the solar panels off, kind of do my morning chores.
Yeah, it's all smiles from there.
Advice if you want to buy a camper vehicle:
Don't like get caught up on the details.
When I brought this up here, I like got the wood stove in the day before I brought it up here.
I was like all right I got heat,
I'll figure out the rest once I get up there.
And I think that's the best way to figure out, like, what needs you have.
Try it out, trial and error, see what works before you like build it to perfection,
and then you like move into it and realize "This is on the left when it should be on the right"
Cause it's all the little things in tiny spaces. It's the little things that make a big difference.