When Travelers Become Friends

You can spend years chasing adventure through plane tickets and packed itineraries, or you can build a place that makes adventure come to you. I’m back behind the mic after a packed summer, and I’m joined by my friends Curt and Chris Reynolds, who make a bold midlife reinvention feel surprisingly practical: they leave California, buy wooded property in southern Washington, and start creating a calm, welcoming stop for travelers.

We talk through the full story, what life looks like before the move (teaching, accounting, raising kids, and squeezing in low-cost road trips), and how Washington won the location hunt. They share the real “unknowns” that come with developing raw land: a creek that cuts off access, the need to build a bridge, and the work of turning dense woodland into livable space. They highlight the underrated superpower of remote work, and how careful planning and living below their means lets them test the transition without panic.

If you’re dreaming about a second act, early retirement planning, or moving out of state, this conversation is packed with grounded lessons. We also get honest about what’s harder than expected: county rules, regulations, and the fine print that can shape your dream faster than the weather ever will.

Share this with a friend who’s itching for a change, and leave a review on Apple Podcasts. Then send me a voicemail or text from the show notes: what would your next adventure look like if you stopped waiting?
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Guest Information
Curtis and Chris Reynolds are longtime Central Valley residents who recently traded familiar routines for a new adventure in southern Washington. Chris spent years serving clients as a trusted accountant, while Curt dedicated his career to educating students in Modesto City Schools. Together, they've embarked on an exciting new chapter...creating a welcoming gathering place for travelers, road trippers, and anyone seeking community along the journey. Their story is one of reinvention, hospitality, and the belief that it's never too late to build something meaningful.

Music used in this episode:
All music in this episode is licensed for use through Epidemic Sound.

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Transcript

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Welcome Back And Summer Check-In

Fletch 0:05

Hey, welcome back to the Mango Times. This is your host, Fletch, and I would I just want to say happy summer, folks. It has been a crazy summer since we uh got back from England and spent that time traveling for my wife's graduation in Oxford. It has just been full speed, and so much so I haven't been on air. So I'm sorry for missing you. I'm sorry for not dropping my shows for those that are regular listeners, but I'm back. I'm trying to get back into the swing of having my guests lined up and interviewed so I can get my regular every two-week show out on the air. Uh, but what about this summer? What about pleasant weather in California for those of you that are local? For those of you that aren't, it's been a delightful summer in the valley. There's been a lot of motorcycle riding for me because it hasn't been that hot. Um, what else? Uh, World Cup. Who knew the biggest sport in the world could bring so many people together internationally for great joy? You know, from Scottish people drinking way too much beer in Boston to the very kind Japanese people picking up stadiums after a game to just the thrill of mega soccer stars. I don't know about you, but our family watched a lot of soccer this summer. Well, not even soccer people, and it was pretty great. We had Wimbledon in there, so my wife got her fix of sports, uh, Tour de France. I mean, it's just like mid-summer sports extravaganza. But here we are, back to the mic, back to talking about adventure. And as you know, one of the things that I find fascinating is people who decide to rewrite the script. You know, most of us spend years building a life, building a career, a community, and then we retire, and that's it. We die. But there are some people, and I've been one of them, who from the very beginning have said, what if there's another chapter? What if Fletch the Dentist isn't the end of my story? And I've told patients throughout my career that dentistry isn't my last act. There will be something else. I don't know what it's gonna be, but I'm building that right now. We're talking about it out loud. We're building this together, folks. But today's guests are friends of mine. They're actually, they were close friends in town, uh, where I live, and they they don't live here anymore. Their names are Kurt and Chris Reynolds. Uh, Chris has been my accountant for years. I guess formally Christine, and formally Curtis, but for today it'll be Chris and Kurt. Um, Kurt spent uh his life teaching uh as a career in Modesto City Schools. But recently, and actually well planned, they traded this familiar life. Uh living here, raising kids here, uh teaching and working. Uh for the unknown. And they moved to southern Washington to build something entirely new. Now, I had a front row seat to know this was coming. Um, again, she's my accountant, so we talked regularly, and I knew that this was happening. But they were building uh a home on some property, but also a place for travelers, a place for road trippers, um, for wanderers, uh, people on adventure to gather, to rest, to connect. So that's a brief introduction to what we're talking about on today's show. Reinvention, hospitality, adventure, and what happens when you decide to build a place instead of simply just passing through one or just living. So, with that, let's head into the studio for my interview with Kurt and Chris

Why Reinvention Beats Coasting

Fletch 3:55

Reynolds. So, Kurt and Chris, welcome to the Mango Times podcast.

SPEAKER_05 4:04

Thank you.

Fletch 4:06

Hey, before we start talking about your adventure, I want to do a little bit of the backstory. So, for listeners who've never met you, can you tell us a little bit about life before the move, maybe where we met and kind of what life was like before you moved up to Washington?

SPEAKER_02 4:21

Well, we met the uh business, or actually I was working for someone else at the time. But then went out on my own and uh doing taxes now. That's where we started.

Fletch 4:41

Yeah, we've had um Chris knows everything about me and the Fletcher dentistry. Kurt, how about you?

SPEAKER_05 4:48

I'm just a tagalon. I'm originally from Oregon, got into education

Meet Kurt And Chris Reynolds

SPEAKER_05 4:55

through kind of a backdoor teaching in Japan, decided I wanted to do that, and ended up we ended up in California, and that's where the jobs were for educators. So we raised two kids there, and I think I taught for 26 years in total.

Fletch 5:14

So, what did life look like when you guys were in Modesto? Just teaching and uh accounting, or tell me a little bit about kind of the adventures you guys like to share and maybe your family.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Yeah, we were pretty busy as the kids were growing up, just a lot of sports and stuff. So we took that opportunity to take the kids into adventures down the coast of Oregon, the coast of California. That was our area. That was uh kind of what we decided to do is just try to get out of town and check out as much as we can of the world.

SPEAKER_05 6:02

So we have two kids, Carter and Bailey, and they were both heavily involved in sports. So we did a lot of travel sports, soccer and basketball, and and I coached a lot, so we were incredibly busy with just their school life, and then with the travel sports on the weekends. So in the summers, yeah, we would try and do as many adventures as we could. We both like to get out. We don't like to make a lot of plans, we just like to go and see what happens. So did a lot of traveling that way, and yeah, we like to keep busy and our kids were active and just sitting at home didn't ever sit well with us. So I I have a hard time sitting still, so we gotta go out and do things.

Fletch 6:52

Yeah, so for my listeners, they you you know that why I wanted I've wanted to get Kurt and Chris on for a while because of this story exactly that they they have always been people that have lived in adventure. So this this theme at the Mango Times of midlife adventure, they've been doing it since early life. So I'm really glad that we get to share this story today. So can one of you just give me a brief overview of what you're doing, and then I want to dive into that.

SPEAKER_05 7:22

So, Chris, go ahead. I don't want to take all that.

SPEAKER_01 7:26

The other people that when we left had also build something that would share with others because we had the opportunity to buy a large piece of property, and it's really cool to have trees and more fun to share it with people.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

So we're working on building, I guess.

Raising Kids While Chasing Adventure

SPEAKER_02 9:45

And kind of make the land work for itself. But also to just have a place for people to gather.

Fletch 9:53

So did you guys always think that this is how you were gonna retire?

SPEAKER_05 9:59

There was a time in California where we kind of felt trapped because of prices, because of rules and regulations. You know, we we always wanted to have a cabin or something out of out of town, but we're not very good at going to one spot and camping every year. And we've had you know lots of friends that have had cabins, so we've been able to use theirs. And so eventually we just started saving up our money and said, you know what, we need to we need to just pick a different state, pick a different place out in the middle of, you know, out in the middle of nature where we can kind of just do what we want and see how it goes. Growing up in the northwest, we're not worried about the weather and things like that. You know we've both lived in Oregon, and so we know in Washington the weather's similar, and we weren't really worried about that. You hear a lot of people in California say, Oh, I just I I couldn't live there because it rains so much. Well, you know, there's a lot to do, and there's a lot of beautiful days. There's a lot of benefits to live in out here. So the property is mostly wooded, and we're keeping the trees in place. In fact, we planted another 500 the last two years. So that that has its benefits for taxes and things like that. So yeah, we'd like to make some money on the land eventually, but it's more about offering an outdoor experience for people if they want it, and a place for our family to gather and friends to come by. We've had friends come stay with us, and you know it's a simple life, but it's a lot more relaxed.

Fletch 11:45

So, were you targeting uh the Pacific Northwest just from familiarity, or

Choosing Washington And Managing Risk

Fletch 11:50

was there other reasons you were looking at Washington specifically?

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Honestly, we started to look in Oregon because we looked at obviously we grew up there and the cost was too much. And then I got to researching Washington. Washington doesn't have a state in contacts. So that made it a little easier. And we said as long as we're within an hour of an international airport, which we are, um it just would work out that way.

Fletch 12:28

So when you came up with this idea, just the kind of the whole encompassing idea of property, maybe sharing it down the road, the idea of a pseudo-campground or the warm showers idea, d was there anything in that that scared you about this decision to do that?

SPEAKER_05 12:47

Well, obviously there's a giant financial risk. And so initially we just put money away and we we kind of decided let's let's get the property, and then once we started investing here and we moved up here, we lived on the property for a couple of summers in tents because it took it took a long time to get everything going. We had to build a bridge, put in a giant road, take out a lot of trees. No one had ever lived on this property before. That's why we got it fairly inexpensively in our minds. And so that was the risk, but developing property is really not a huge risk because you can always sell something, you always have the asset. The big the big tell was last year when we had the house done in late August. I had to go back to work to try and fill as many years as I could for retirement benefits later. And Chris lived here, and so it was a matter of are her clients going to be okay doing everything remote. And so she lived here for the year while I flew back and forth every month, and I lived with my friend Paul in Ripon, and I continued to teach for another year, and that gave us a year to kind of figure out the finances and see how it would work on one income. We just assumed I wasn't gonna have an income. If I did, that'd be great, a bonus. But that's kind of how we eased our way into it. So it was was last year, and you know, her clients love her, luckily, and she's really good at her job, so she really didn't lose too many clients. In fact, she's gained clients, so that was kind of how we eased our way in. Had she lost most of her clients, or it looked like she was going to lose them, I I'm not sure what we'd have done at that point, but I still had a job and she still had clients. So, worst case scenario, we just go back to Modesto for a couple more years and finish out till I start collecting retirement. So that's kind of, I don't know, does that sum up how we eased into this?

unknown 15:06

Yeah.

Fletch 15:07

Well, I mean, you also have, I mean, I think my my guess is you have a couple luxuries there, Chris. One is you can do your work remote. I mean, it's not like you're a dentist where you have to be physically present with the people. If I could do this job remote, you you know damn well I'd be out of this office and out of modesto. And my wife would already like tickets would be purchased. And then we did have that luxury of maybe going through COVID-20 where people realized that you could do this and not just do it, but do it really well. So I can just affirm as one of your clients that like I didn't care where you were, you could be in Timbuktu, and I'd that it was just as easy. I mean, we're meeting today doing an interview, you know, a thousand, I don't know how far away you guys are, a thousand miles away? Two thousand? I don't know.

SPEAKER_05 15:56

It's about eight hundred, seven hundred and fifty to eight hundred miles.

Fletch 15:59

So we're doing it online and it's working. Yeah. So when you when you come up with this idea and you present it or you start talking about it, you you hit someone like me who's all into adventure, like I'm vicariously living through you. But what did your friends and families think when you said this is what you were gonna do?

SPEAKER_02 16:15

Well, uh our kids are like they just know who we are, so they're like, oh yeah, this is just standard for them. The rest of the family wasn't quite sure. I think they came and at least on my side, came and looked and like, yeah, I don't know if I can do this, but okay, this is you. I just I wasn't worried about it. I always felt that things are gonna be an overcome and that there's a reason for everything. So if we weren't meant to be here, it probably wouldn't have gone through. Or you know, that's kind of just how I think.

SPEAKER_05 17:05

Well, we've and we've also spent the last 20 years kind of filling our retirement as much as possible whenever opportunity, whatever opportunity we had, you know, we're we're not big spenders of our money, we're savers of our money. And I think over especially the last decade, even getting, you know, helping kids through college, things like that, we've been able to live so far below our means that it gave us the opportunity to kind of go, you know what, we're gonna quit working a couple years early, or at least I am. She can, you know, she loves her job, but she's really only working six, seven months a year. So there was behind the scenes preparation of just living well under our means for a long time and yeah, being happy with what we were doing. When we travel, we travel inexpensively. We don't we don't book tours, we don't go on things like that. We do the research ourselves and take the time to kind of get the adventure without the cost as much as possible.

Fletch 18:11

Amen. Man, that's uh you guys are you're preaching my language here. Like we we love to do our own exploration when we're wherever. I mean, and I I have no problem being a fool in a foreign country, like just trying to figure it out. Like you know, just find your people, uh which are my people when people come here. Like, I'll help you figure California out. Like you you don't need you don't need to book an expensive tour. I'll I'll drive you up to the Sierra myself. Exactly. All right, let's take a break here, and when I come back, I want to get into the nuts and bolts of what you guys have created.

How To Send Fletch A Message

Fletch 18:48

Hey, I want to jump into the interview really quickly, just to remind you that anytime you're listening to an episode, if you want to reach out to me, just slide down in your show notes and you can head to send Fletch a voicemail or text. It's a little button. You just push it and you can send me a voicemail or a text message. Maybe you have an idea for a show, maybe you have an idea for a guest that I should have on, or maybe you just want to leave a comment based on something either my guest or I said. Recently, I received the following voicemail from a great listener, Jason Callahan.

SPEAKER_03 19:20

Hey Fletch, this is Jason, coming to you live from the wilds of Potosi, Missouri. The side of my next adventure, which is starting a farm. Leaving St. Louis after over 15 years of doing urban ministry, and at 42 with pretty much no farming experience, this is what we're gonna do. So I appreciate you discussing, changing everything in the middle of your life. It's been really helpful. Thanks for everything.

Fletch 19:54

You know, the great thing about Jason's voicemail is I've reached out to him and I've decided I'm gonna do a show based just on his story. So again, if you want to reach out to me, just slide down your show notes and click the button that says send Fletch a voicemail or a text. I look forward to hearing from you. All right, let's get back to the show.

Two Parcels, A Creek, And A Bridge

Fletch 20:15

All right, we're back. Kurt, why don't you do me a favor and just describe the property to the listeners?

SPEAKER_05 20:21

What we have are two 10-acre parcels. We are kind of about three miles from town. Town is about 700 people, so really small. We're only a couple miles off I-5 and basically an hour from Portland and about an hour and a half from Seattle. The property itself is heavily wooded. In fact, they took I don't know how many loads of trees off just to clear a place for the house. It's never been lived on before. The reason it hasn't been lived on or developed at all is because there's a creek that runs through the entire front portion. So the only way to access the property is to either go through a neighbor's, which the neighbors we we weren't gonna build a road together through, we asked, and that wasn't gonna work. So that the property had to have a bridge built. And so once you go through the first four or five acres down low, it's open fields, it's basically an overflow for the creek in the winter. Then you come up on a hill on a rise, and that's where the house is, and then all around us is a small field behind where we built the barn. But other than that, it's just all trees. You know, they're 15, 20 years old, are the youngest, and the oldest have never been touched. So the back four or five acres is just dense woodland. In fact, we've it's taken quite a while just to build a single trail through there, which is what we've done. So that's kind of what the property looks like.

Fletch 21:55

All right, and then looping back to Chris, you've kind of talked about this already, but on the The fun aspect of it, not just the house and where you guys are living. What exactly are you creating and what makes it different from, like you said, a campground?

SPEAKER_02 22:09

A house is a big wooded area. And it just sounds just fun. It's like in a forest. And then we built an outdoor shower, which what we used while we were living here in a household.

Hosting Bikers And Road Trippers

Fletch 23:36

Man, that sounds dreamy. So Kurt, who who would you hope would stop on your property? Who's the who's the picture of that that you think would you would want heather?

SPEAKER_05 23:48

Well, having the bikers come through is great because we're only a mile off the route that travels basically the entire United States on the West Coast. In fact, it goes all the way from Alaska down to the tip of South America. So we've had quite a few people that, you know, they just bike up, they can book it online, and then they tent camp in the back. Though those types of people to us are just super interesting because they're just out there on their bikes, traveling, some of them thousands and thousands of miles. The last one of the last gentlemen we had here had been to every continent. He had just got through gotten through biking Australia. So listening to their stories, them seeing what we have and what we offer, they just get so excited. And you know, it just inspires us to go out and do more and and and travel around. We also have a camper van that we converted seven or eight years ago. We took a van and put a bed and solar panels and a refrigerator and a sink and everything in it ourselves. And we've traveled the country in the camper van, and people offer their farms out there on different websites that you can just, you know, pay 10 bucks, 20 bucks, 30 bucks, whatever it is. And basically you're just dry camping on their property. And that kind of we've done that a few times, and that kind of inspired us to go, you know what, we want to offer that. Yeah. Because then it's super casual. And you know, those are those are people like us that they don't make tour groups, they don't plan all this stuff, they just kind of go. And those to me are the most interesting people.

Fletch 25:30

So, what do you hope happens around, say, the community table?

SPEAKER_02 25:34

So, for example, we had the one gentleman who's been on the different continents, he just sat around the table here, although eventually we will be out there at the farm.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

And just tell the story to the travel places.

SPEAKER_02 25:50

We had some college students here that decided they needed to do an epic adventure after graduating last month. Just hearing their stories and what their ideas are where life is gonna go for them.

Fletch 26:04

All right, so let's pretend we're putting together a website about this property, uh, and both of you get to answer this question. What's your favorite part of the property?

SPEAKER_05 26:14

Um I think for me, it's probably all the wildlife that is on the property. There's just so much wildlife, and everything is green. You know, you you can't imagine how many different shades of green are on this property. And you know, that part, just we sit in the backyard and we'll we'll watch the chickens jump for some of the food because Chris puts it up high, so they have to they have to work to get it. That part of the property uh, you know, it's just calming.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

I just love the forest.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

The animals that live in there have a uh an owl that lives in our forest that you have to walk by us at the time past you. We have about eight or nine deer that come daily. That edges the calmness of it here. Bailey actually said to me that she your mom, this is the most calm I've seen you in a tax season. I'm like, oh, okay.

Fletch 27:23

All right, we're gonna take another quick break, and when we come back, maybe some wisdom and reflection for our listeners. Hey, just popping in again to remind you that one of the great ways you can support the Mango Times is by leaving me a review over at Apple Podcasts. So feel free to just slide down the show notes and click on Leave Fletcher Review. And I'd appreciate to hear what you think of what we're doing with Mango Times. Alright, back to the show. All

Regulations, Lessons, And Smart Planning

Fletch 27:55

right, we're back. I'd like to ask you guys this question. What has been harder than you expected?

SPEAKER_02 28:00

The hard part is not dealing with the land or anything we're doing. It's dealing with the county, the regulations. You think you can you own land and you can do anything you want, but that's not the case. So having to traverse that minefield is is interesting.

Fletch 28:29

And what advice would you give to someone dreaming about making a 90-degree shift in their life at this point?

SPEAKER_05 28:38

Uh well, for one thing, it's not something you can do tomorrow easily. I think if it's something, if that's your goal, you need to start preparing beforehand. You need to start socking some money away, you need to start doing the things you can, you know, planning out job situations if you're still in that realm. I think you have it takes more planning than people think. I think that's the big thing. And do your research. You know, there are things that we came across that we're like, what? We have we can't use that word, you know, we can't say campground because according to the state or the county, a campground is what they have pictured in their brain. So if you say that, you know, for example, they want us to put in a different well, another well, or something to that effect. So you can do it and you should do it if you're frustrated or you know, not happy where you are, make a change, that's for sure. It's just like anything, you just got to take the first step and go, you know what? Like we did, let's buy a piece of property and then we'll go from there.

Fletch 29:50

So, 10 years from now, when this place is thriving, what story do you hope travelers will tell when they left your place?

SPEAKER_01 29:58

That they enjoyed the property, that they had a good time, that they were able to feel the calmness and the relaxing that we feel here.

SPEAKER_05 30:07

So we have a little bit of an advantage because every biker that has come, we have them write in the book and kind of tell us about themselves. And every single one of them has talked about how they've never slept better, they have it's so calm and quiet, and they love the nature. So we kind of have uh an indication of what people that aren't used to it would say because we've seen probably a dozen different entries, and they all say basically the

Lightning Round And Travel Favorites

SPEAKER_05 30:36

same thing.

Fletch 30:36

All right, we're gonna do the Mango Lightning round. These are fast five questions you both get to answer. So I'm gonna go. It's kind of hard because a second person has insight. So let's go. I'll go Kurt, Chris, on both these questions. So favorite place you've ever visited?

SPEAKER_05 30:55

Machu Picchu.

SPEAKER_01 30:57

CC, Italy.

Fletch 30:59

All right, second question. Best meal you've ever had on the road.

SPEAKER_05 31:04

I don't know. I like hamburgers, so pretty much any place that play has a good hamburger, I'm in.

SPEAKER_01 31:09

Actually, in Rome we had amazing pizza.

Fletch 31:12

True. All right, third question. What is a book everyone should read?

SPEAKER_05 31:18

Mine's gonna be kind of crazy because I read it in sixth grade so many times. Harris and Me by Gary Paulson.

SPEAKER_01 31:24

And John Patterson or Jackson.

Fletch 31:30

All right, what's a place you still dream of visiting?

SPEAKER_05 31:33

The one I want to visit the most now is probably Croatia.

Fletch 31:42

And then this is just a fun one. What are you looking forward to right now?

SPEAKER_05 31:46

Right now, I am watching the US Open. I have a bet with a group of guys, and I'm hoping that why win.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

I'm looking forward to my comes back from Alaska.

SPEAKER_02 32:02

We have fun stuff to do with getting married next year and be here on the property. So she'll be back in a couple months.

Fletch 32:13

Nice. Well, Kurt and Chris, thank you guys so much for taking time out of your morning and getting online with me to talk about this adventure. I just want to let you know, I'm one of your biggest fans. You're still two of my favorite people on the planet, and so thanks for taking the time to be on the podcast with me.

SPEAKER_05 32:31

Thank you for having us. Yeah. Very cool.

Final Reflections And Next Adventure

Fletch 32:36

You know, I loved that conversation with Chris and Kurt because they remind me that sometimes the best adventures don't always begin with just a passport and a plane ticket. Uh sometimes they begin with a simple question of asking yourself, what if what if we did this? What if we built something? What if we started over? What if I created a place where strangers could become friends? A fire pit. An entire piece of property. You know, my friends could have stayed comfortable. But instead they chose curiosity over certainty. Um, I think they followed that itch. And I think that the world needs more people willing to do that. That's the whole point of this year's podcast on the Mingo Times. So I want you to think about that. Where are you hesitating? Where are you afraid to leave? You know, on the next episode, I'm gonna be interviewing another friend, uh, one that we've heard of. His name is Jason Callahan. He has been a listener for a lot of years. He's made recommendations. I followed his recommendations. I've had Hey Ru, the urban farmer, on because of Jason's recommendation. Well, Jason pulled the trigger on a major life and career change, and he told me about it. Just kind of in passing. I'm like, why are you not on the podcast? So I've interviewed him for the next episode. Uh so tune back in for that. But in the meantime, think about it yourself. Where can you get out there? What is the next step? Where is the next adventure? And uh let me know. You can send me a text or a voicemail right on the podcast. And I'd love to hear what your adventure is. I'd love to hear what you're doing the summer still, I'd love to hear the big plans in your life, and I'd especially love to hear if you or someone you know would love to be a guest on the Mango Times podcast. So, why don't you do me a favor? Why don't you hop on the back and let's get out there and quietly make some noise. Yeah, but to a short, fat, dyslexic dentist from Modesto, believe me, it's way more exciting than this.