Artec Durham is a 39-year-old ICU nurse, property investor, and former dirtbag who only works two shifts a month—and still manages to cover his living expenses through strategic real estate choices. (@artec_rn)
Artec shares his unconventional path, from a childhood spent unschooling, guiding wilderness trips, and discovering a passion for nursing through wilderness medicine. He breaks down how he buys fixer-uppers and turns them into rental income, with YouTube as a teacher. Today he maintains his properties with just a few days of work each year, spends his summers hosting outdoor athletes at his Colorado property, and uses his time for adventures like bikepacking across Death Valley and packrafting the Grand Canyon. His primary vehicle is a totaled minivan, which he uses to retrieve abandoned building supplies from the side of the road.
We discuss the thrill and toll of ICU nursing, why Artec never wants full-time employment again, and how his dirtbag upbringing led to a lifelong commitment to maximizing freedom and community over traditional metrics of success. Artec also opens up about how pushing his physical limits through ultra-distance bike races led to heart complications, forcing him to reconsider intensity and refocus on connection, community, and the joy of playing outside.
Full transcript: dirtbagrich.com/artec
Recorded in December 2024.
Transcript
This is an AI-generated transcript. Typos and mistakes exist!
Blake Boles 00:00
Artec Durham, welcome to Dirtbag Rich.
Artec Durham 00:04
Hi.
Blake Boles 00:05
Tell me what it’s like being a property baron who only works two days a month.
Artec Durham 00:11
Well, there’s a lot of maintenance to do on those properties, so there’s that to factor in.But yeah, I worked really hard, and I’m always hesitant to say that because it sounds like some sort of a bootstrap story, but I did work really hard to position myself where I had not so much income from properties, but I had a base where I could live that was self-sustaining without me needing to put any money into it and did end up having some rental income.And that basically allowed me to work very, very, very little. I mean, I do make pretty good money as an ICU nurse, so those two shifts a month still constitute probably $1,000 of income per month. But with no housing expenses and some rental income, I’m able to coast on that pretty just, I mean, maybe I’m slightly trending down in my net cashflow, but yeah.And I can usually pick up an extra shift or two. It allowed me to do the things I wanted to do, which was, I feel pretty lucky to have established that.
Blake Boles 01:34
You said you’re an ICU nurse, intensive care unit, and can you give me a little history of how you, uh, yeah, how you ended up in nursing and your trajectory through that field?
Artec Durham 01:49
Yeah, that might be a little longer than short. But yeah, I mean, it all started, I think, with me being a NOLS instructor. And I took a Woofer class. I worked for NOLS for five years. And I really liked the medical stuff. On NOLS courses, which are 30-day wilderness courses, I would usually be the medical leader.So when people had cuts and other medical issues, which they always do on a 30-day expedition, I would be in charge of that. And I really liked that. So I took an EMT class in community college. And instructor, I was definitely the most engaged student, which this was like a 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. class. So not many people were really checked. And on that class, they were kind of sleeping.But yeah, I was really into the material. And the instructor was like, I work at the hospital. I’ll hire you if you want a job. And I did want a part-time job. So I took the job. I started driving ambulances and working in the emergency department. And I realized I was learning a lot more and having a lot more fun going to work than I was going to class.It was kind of a critique of our education system being kind of dull and out of touch with what’s really happening in the world. So yeah, I kind of fell in love with healthcare. And after a year or two of that, I decided to become a nurse. And yeah, the story is long from there, but that’s kind of the short answer.
Blake Boles 03:25
But it started with you loving being in the outdoors and getting your first responder and that leading to doing emergency medical technician. And when you combine those, they turn into this magical credential called wilderness EMT, which is this really cool thing to have. I had that briefly myself a long time ago.Um, and then you, you found that you could find a place in the more like urban medical system and working within a hospital. Uh, I mean, I feel like there’s a lot of people who enjoy this medical stuff when it’s connected to the outdoors, but then as soon as they get into like a real hospital, they’re like, Oh, this is difficult and depressing.
Artec Durham 04:08
Yeah, I think it is kind of, I mean, it is difficult and depressing. That’s, no one will tell you otherwise who works in that profession. But I was surprised how well I thrived in that environment, especially coming from unschooling, pretty unstructured. But I, you know, I like the excitement of it. You know, we, you know, we, we code patients on a pretty regular basis.And you’re like working with the tight team of people that hopefully, you know, well, sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t. But what does that mean?
Blake Boles 04:35
When you code patients, what does that mean?
Artec Durham 04:37
Oh yeah, when their heart stops.And, you know, you start doing compressions and you hook them up to the pads and you titrate IV drips that encourage the heart to start beating and you push epinephrine and you’re on the phone with three different providers and you’re managing an airway and you’re checking arterial blood gas and you’re pushing bicarb and you’re talking to the family and you’re shocking them again and you’re checking another blood gas and it’s almost like a flow state when you have these really sick patients and you’re trying to resuscitate them.And I think I kind of fell in love with that, although it’s kind of a toxic, it’s still like a toxic love. It’s still, healthcare is not really a healthy environment, but yeah, I kind of got, I found that I enjoyed that aspect of it and it didn’t need to be outside. Like I love being outside and nursing has allowed me to be outside, but the sickest patients are in the ICU.That’s what we call definitive care. You get picked up by an ambulance and you go to the ER and you’re really sick. The ICU is where you get the highest level of care. That’s where that pathway stops. And so it was pretty cool to be like definitive care. Like if we can’t save someone in the ICU, nobody can. We’ve got lots of cool toys and drugs and machines and yeah. So it’s kind of an ego thing too.ICU nurses are proud to be ICU nurses. Cause you’re saving lives. Cause we’re saving lives and we’re the most advanced care that you can get.
Blake Boles 06:18
We’re gonna circle back to the the unschooling thing that you mentioned. For now I want to stay on the sort of financial and career trajectory and what were you doing differently when you got into this nursing world from other people in the field financially? Were you, just go ahead and tell me, how were you weird and different, Artec?
Artec Durham 06:39
Well, I was definitely weird and different in a lot of ways. I was older than the rest of the students. I didn’t, I mean, going back to my education, I didn’t decide, I worked for trail crew, I worked guiding jobs. I didn’t decide to go to college until my early to mid 20s. So I was out of the window of most college people and I didn’t start nursing school until I was 25.So right away, I was a bit older and had a lot more experience than most of the other students in nursing. And I got through school without any debt. That was the other thing. One of my big oppositions to going to college originally was like at 18, like most people do was I looked at the price tag and I was like, I don’t want to tie myself to that, which has kind of been a theme throughout my life.I’m not, I’ve always avoided tying myself to something that would steal my free time from me. So yeah, I got through nursing school debt free, except for $500 I took out to buy a new trad rack on my last semester. Cause I was like, well, might as well, I’ll pay this off. But I got grants, I got healthcare related grants.I got grants for being a disadvantaged student because I didn’t go to high school. And-
Blake Boles 08:04
a grant because you did not go to high school.
Artec Durham 08:06
It was one of the criteria that helped me to get the grant. And it was health, it was a healthcare specific grant, but that was, that was like $13,000 a year on top of the Pell grant. And I had the first few years of smart grant because I had a 4.0 was literally called the smart grant.Um, so yeah, I just basically got through nursing school entirely on grants that were available for me that a lot of, and a lot of the reason they were available to me, because I was not kind of a non-traditional student. And yeah, this is 10 years ago, more than 10 years ago, just being a male nursing student already made you a minority in a way.It’s kind of the one place you can go as a white man and be a minority and maybe get granted.
Blake Boles 08:52
Maybe becoming a elementary school teacher also
Artec Durham 08:56
Yeah okay maybe that’s that’s the other another pathway there. But yeah, so I was I stood out in a lot of ways in my nursing cohort, they were mostly, you know, 18 year old blonde women from Phoenix because I went to school in Arizona and, and they didn’t have much life experience. And they were all taking on tons of debt to go through nursing school.So my trajectory coming out of nursing school was very, you know, from an economic lifestyle standpoint was very accelerated. I didn’t have any debt. I’d learned how to live the dirt bag life. That’s what I’ve been doing.I’d been a climber when not working for Knowles or Trail Crew had been living in my car being a rock climber, doing the classic, the truly classic dirt bag thing of just posting up in places like Bishop, California or Joshua Tree and just climbing for weeks and weeks. So I knew how to live really cheap. I dumpster to a lot of my food. I lived in a house with roommates paid $300 a month.So when I started getting that nursing salary, and I didn’t have any debt from student debt, I just kept living that way. And I, yeah, saved a lot of money very quickly.
Blake Boles 10:10
So you’re in your later twenties now you’re working later thirties. Oh, you’re talking about back at that time. So were you working full time and saving most of what you earned?
Artec Durham 10:23
Yeah. Yeah. The unfortunate thing that no one really told me, but I, when I envisioned myself being a nurse back when I was a dirtbag climber, I was like, I only need to work, you know, two or three days a month because at that time I was living on, you know, a few hundred dollars a month. Um, and I was like, dang, nurses make so much. Here’s the thing though. You can’t start your career like that.You’re gonna, when you take a job at a hospital, especially as a new nurse, they’re going to make you sign a contract to work full-time. And, and honestly, it’s what you need to do. Cause there’s just so much you need to learn and you’re not going to learn that working a few days a month. So yeah, I started my nursing career working full-time.Um, and that probably for about five years I worked full-time, um, which was probably longer than I would have liked to, but that’s just kind of how life went that way. But full-time as a nurse is three days a week. It’s, which was another thing that attracted me to, to that.
Blake Boles 11:20
So working full-time did not spell the end of your outdoor life or your partial dirtbag existence?
Artec Durham 11:28
No, not at all. I still played outside a lot, but I definitely came to the conclusion that if you really want to be, to really delve into any sport, to be the best that you can at it, to really experience climbing at its best or bike pack racing was really my thing at its best. That has to be your life. And if you work full time, ultimately that takes the majority of your time and energy.Even if you’re only working three days a week, I mean, our shifts are long. So like, you kind of need to rest for that fourth day. So you really have maybe a three day weekend. And if you wreck yourself before you go back to work, you’re going to regret it. So it kind of ends up feeling more like it’s not as good. It’s not as glamor. You don’t get as much functional time off as it might sound.So yeah, I kind of realized that if I was going to work full time, I wasn’t going to be able to give the other things that mattered more to me in life, the full amount of time and attention that I wanted to give to them.
Blake Boles 12:35
So what was the next phase of the career after these five years? I imagine you started working less somehow.
Artec Durham 12:42
Yeah. Well, I bought a house exactly one year after graduating or getting my first job, because I, like I said, I mean, I was saving, wages were lower back then, but I was saving, I don’t know what my savings rate was, but it was probably around 50%. And nursing salary, even for a beginner nurse back then, it was probably, you know, $60.75K, something like that, $65.75K.So yeah, I saved enough money to buy a house, houses were cheaper. I got roommates and I needed to do a lot of work to that house. And I think benefits and health insurance were something I was kind of hung up on. But I think the beginning of 2019, I realized just looking at my finances that I didn’t need to be working full-time. I’d also bought two more houses in that timeframe.And I applied to go zero, well, PRN, they also call it zero budgeted for two shifts a month. And I started doing that. And I was like, holy shit, why didn’t I do this sooner? This is amazing.
Blake Boles 13:55
So that’s where the two shifts a month number comes from there was there has been a long period of time where you really have just worked these two shifts to cover your base expenses.
Artec Durham 14:08
Yeah. And at that time, I was doing kind of a seasonal thing. I mean, that was really only one year because COVID hit in 2020 and that turned everything in everyone’s life, especially those of us in healthcare turned everything on its head.But yeah, for 2019, my plan was I’m going to take spring, summer, fall, essentially off work, my two shifts a month, and they would allow me to lump those together. So I would work like, you know, four shifts and then be off for, you know, six weeks or whatever and just race my bike very into bike racing. But then, you know, so that was the plan.Go back to full time for, you know, three or four months a year, but then COVID hit and I ended up travel nursing instead.
Blake Boles 14:52
Yeah, talk to me about travel nursing, because I know that’s how you’ve been able to afford a lot of the real estate that you’ve ended up investing in.
Artec Durham 15:00
Yeah, well, actually, the first three houses I bought were not involved in travel nursing. That was just because, yeah, I bought a house in about my first house in 2014, a year after graduating from nursing school. And houses were cheap then. It was like $2.60. So it was very attainable to do that.And then in 2017, I bought another house and moved into it and remodeled that house to have a separate apartment downstairs, which I later learned is called house hacking. But I was doing it before it was cool. So that person who runs the apartment downstairs pays for our mortgage. And then I sold my original house because it was in a nice neighborhood and it appreciated a lot.And I bought a third house on the same street that I now live on that has the same floor plan with it. It’s a split level. And I remodeled that one to have a downstairs studio as well. So in a very quick amount of time, suddenly I had three spaces that I was renting. And that kind of slingshotted me forward. But that last, yeah, that was 2017 and 2018. I did them one year.I went one, two, one year and then the second year, 2018. And that took a lot out of me. I got a lot slower on my bike. My bike racing career kind of got put on hold. And I was definitely questioning, is this worth it? Is it worth it too? Because I had to work full. Yeah, I was still working full time at that time. And had I not bought those houses, I wouldn’t have needed to do that.But I think I had the epiphany that I wanted to do something sustainable with my career and my finances and not just do this like save money, play, need to work again. Because it was clear to me if I made the right investment with these houses. I mean, I found the right houses once I could split into two units. They were in a much cheaper neighborhood. The mortgages were small.That I could be pretty sustainable in my finances without working full time. And I think that was a pretty important epiphany. And at a good time, because things were, that was just the last time that you could do that. Things have changed. You couldn’t do that now.
Blake Boles 17:34
It’s interesting to me, the different versions of sustainable that people have for their financial lives.And I wonder for you, there was a lot of work that went into remodeling these houses and searching for houses and selling and for someone like me, for example, that’s not only is that kind of foreign knowledge, but it’s just not knowledge I’ve ever really been interested in acquiring and I’ve just never been really good with slinging a hammer or any, definitely nothing more advanced than that.And so when you think about the time and effort you’ve invested into these, these properties, you know, does it feel like you were working when you were, when you were upgrading these houses and did it feel like play when you were doing this or were you like, I’m really setting up a foundation for my sustainable financial future. So I, I don’t have to spend as many hours being in a hospital.
Artec Durham 18:32
I think that the answer is a little bit of all three of those.
Blake Boles 18:35
Hmm
Artec Durham 18:36
It definitely was work, but it was work that was really rewarding. I think that working with your hands and taking an older house that’s a fixer-upper and making it into something cool like a little duplex with a mother-in-law and doing that yourself is really hard. I didn’t know how to do that. I YouTubed a lot of stuff.I hired people to help me who did know what they were doing, especially for the first one. And I figured it out in that I think that’s that’s a really kind of self-actualizing moment where you’re like, I can do this really hard thing that most people are afraid of, like a house that doesn’t have a kitchen and I’m going to put a kitchen in and then I’m going to put another kitchen in downstairs.And, you know, like, I think people get hung up on not being able to visualize what that’s going to look like. And I certainly was. I was very scared going into those projects. But, you know, every journey starts with a single step and you can figure that stuff out. It’s kind of my my pep talk. Anyone can do this.
Blake Boles 19:46
Did you, did you have any special background or training in that, that helped you with the remodeling?
Artec Durham 19:53
Um, not specifically for more like residential indoor, but what I did have was a childhood of growing up on a farm and people think of farms as being places where you grow food. And that is definitely true, but farms are also places where there’s lots of buildings and things are always broken and they always need to be worked on.So that was a lot of my childhood was building things, fixing things with my dad. Um, and watching him take on, he wasn’t, you know, he was, he was actually an academic who decided he wanted to be a farmer. So he was also just sort of taking on these projects and figuring them out as he went. Um, and I think I definitely inherited that from him. There’s kind of this belief that I could figure it out.Um, and, and, you know, there is a certain kind of base knowledge set of just like how tools work and how things come together. Although I had never worked on a kitchen before, like I had certainly pounded a lot of nails and that sort of thing. My dad always had me painting as a kid. I feel like I was always painting something.
Blake Boles 21:03
Yeah, you’re learning to put the hours in. Um, so bring us to the current moment. Like what is your, your financial reality right now, if you’re willing to talk about like how much value property value you are, you are currently lording over.And, and really I’m, I’m interested in how easeful it is to maintain these properties, to have renters pay for the, the mortgages, if there are even still mortgages and, and whether you really feel like you can just let that run on some version of autopilot while you go and do other stuff.
Artec Durham 21:40
Right. Yeah. That’s the big question. You know, if you start taking on multiple rentals, you’re essentially taking on a job. So are you really, are you really freeing up your free time if you do that? In my case, it definitely feels like it has. But there are certain decisions that I’ve made to help that happen. Like I pick good long-term tenants and I don’t raise their rent a lot.I mean, I’ve raised it a little bit because if you have a good long-term tenant, managing a rental is really easy. Like I basically never hear from them. I go over like twice a year and do maintenance at my house down the street. Yeah. And there’s always a need for housing. So like finding people is really easy. I’ve been in, you know, a pretty big, you know, network of friends on social media.I don’t ever list my rentals in a commercial space because you do get a lot of, that’s a nightmare sorting through people. I just put it out on, on the social and people who come recommended by people, you know, people who are kind of lifestyle oriented come to me and they make great tenants. So it’s really been a lot easier than I thought it might be.Like I try and be proactive about maintenance, but, you know, I would say I put in a few days a year into these properties in terms of like physical labor and probably a few days a year and like getting leases signed or updated and that kind of thing. So it’s the return on investment, even if you count that labor is still really, really good.And that’s kind of stuff that because I can schedule it and I’m my own boss, it doesn’t, doesn’t really, it’s just easy. It just kind of like I do it when I feel like it.
Blake Boles 23:34
Are you still a travel nurse?
Artec Durham 23:36
No, so, well, I did work this year. I worked the beginning of this year, February, March, April on the Navajo Reservation. And I think that might be my last travel contract. The pay’s just dropped and it’s not, it’s just not really, I don’t need to do it anymore.But yeah, the current situation, so I bought another house this year as well, the same time I was working this last travel contract in March, I bought a house in Colorado. So it was a big, it was a big change up to buy a house out of state.
Blake Boles 24:18
in Silverton, beautiful place. Yeah.
Artec Durham 24:21
Yeah, a little mountain town, 9,300 feet, way up there, surrounded by 13,000, 14,000 foot mountains, like really surrounded, like rocks might fall off and hit town. Not quite, but also kind of like that.
Blake Boles 24:41
And, and is there anything else you wanted to say about your kind of financial situation or and does it feel sustainable? Does it feel like, oh my gosh, I’ve, I’ve landed in this magical territory where I really don’t have to worry that much or work that much anymore.
Artec Durham 24:59
Yeah, I think I was there before I bought this house in Colorado and it does feel like a little bit of a step back because that house is really expensive and more expensive than either two properties that I own currently, but I felt like it was really good long-term investment.But just like in 2017 and 2018 when I bought the two houses that I split into two, there’s kind of a lag period where you’ve spent all your money, you had to put the work into those houses and you need to work. Like I’m working more nursing shifts now, like I’m working more like one a week as opposed to two a month.And so there’s a little bit of a lag time there, but I think that coming out into next year and the following year, I’m going to be back in that sweet spot where my properties are covering my living expenses and I work a few shifts a month to kind of beef that up. And I’m really excited about the Silverton property.I love being in the mountains, I love community and I bought a pretty large property so people can come and camp on it. And all summer long, it was just kind of felt like a commune of athletes coming to play in the mountains, staying in my yard and we’re all making dinner together. It felt like it all kind of came together.And I think next year is going to be a lot better in that way because although it was all coming together last year, I also had to hustle to get the house remodeled. It wasn’t livable when I bought it, had no kitchen, no bathroom, plumbing was all bad. So last year was a mix of working really hard on remodeling and playing really hard.And this next year, I’m excited to feel like I’m in that sweet spot again.
Blake Boles 26:52
Okay, but kind of a themes.
Artec Durham 26:55
Yeah, I think a theme there is like kind of work hard, put the investment into a property and then I can take a few years off, not off, but like and start to feel the rewards of my labor. And I think this third property may be like, you know, it’s going to bring that to an even higher level.
Blake Boles 27:19
the linchpin. You’ve told me, you’ve used this phrase playing outside as something that describes your purpose.And you mentioned a little bit about your earlier years during the climbing classic dirtback thing, but tell me about your more recent era of playing outside and what that looks like for you and where you really feel like, oh yes, this is why I worked hard to create this free time because now I get to do this. What is this for you?
Artec Durham 27:51
Well, that has changed, um, kind of recently, um, but bike pack racing.So I kind of phased out of climbing kudos to all those people that can continue to climb into their, you know, into their forties, but I, I kind of, um, late thirties, forties, I kind of, I just, I kind of just drifted away from it and I got really into mountain bike racing, uh, for seven years, I had a partner, she raced, uh, professionally, so we’d go to bike races all over the country.I was more into the super long distance stuff. Um, a hundred miles being like the short end. Um, and then I got really into just like the most crazy bike pack races, like the tour divide, the Colorado trail.
Blake Boles 28:34
For people who don’t know what bike packing is, can you just give us a brief description?
Artec Durham 28:40
Well, bike pack racing, specifically. Bike backing is where you have everything on your bike that you need, but it’s not really. It could be touring. In this case, it’s definitely not touring. You’re just going super minimalist, exactly what you need to survive, and nothing more. So a super light shelter, maybe a super light sleeping bag. Some people just bring a bivy sack and a puffy.And the goal is to get from point A to point B as fast as possible. So for the Colorado Trail, you ride the whole length of Colorado, Denver to Durango.
Blake Boles 29:15
And this is on trail, mostly?
Artec Durham 29:18
Yeah. So you’re, you’re actually mountain biking for most of these. The tour divide is a lot of dirt roads, but, um, but yeah, it’s a kind of a fringe sport. Uh, it’s, it’s fringe because it’s pretty insane. Like people don’t sleep. They ride 200 miles a day and this is like 200 miles of trail riding, you know? Um, yeah, trail riding, they probably come in less than 200, but yeah, huge days.Um, it’s just kind of the pinnacle of athletic achievement in my mind because it requires all the skills. You have to be confident in the outdoors. You’re going to be, you know, in the Colorado trail, you could be a day away from civilization with minimal gear, riding your bike at night in the Alpine on Rocky single track. There’s really nothing harder than that kind of racing.
Blake Boles 30:06
Mm.
Artec Durham 30:07
And that’s not necessarily what brought it to me. It just made me feel more alive, like the challenge and the camaraderie of other people who do it. Cause you know, only anyone else who’s out there doing that, like it’s a unique personality type, like you’re, you, I always click with the other racers out there.
Blake Boles 30:22
You know, do you look down upon ultra marathon runners?
Artec Durham 30:28
Not at all. I mean, a lot of my friends are ultra runners. Ultra running is far larger than ultra cycling, I would say, as a sport. And, you know, many of the brands that I interact with, like Tailwind or Squirrels Nutbutter, and I really focus to the running community and Flagstaff is full of ultra runners. It’s a lot of people come to train here at seven thousand feet.So no, I’m very much in the running circle. I’ve just never been a runner. OK, I feel like they’re my people. I just choose to pedal instead.
Blake Boles 30:59
Good summary, not alienating anyone. Uh, so you did mountain bike racing, then you got more into distance bike packing, multi-day bike packing competitions and does that remain to this day, your, your chosen sport.
Artec Durham 31:15
Yeah. Um, I, I still love it, but I got diagnosed with a fib. Um, what is that? That’s an irregular heart rate. And I had to have an ablation on my heart. So what is that?
Blake Boles 31:30
Sorry, that’s really
Artec Durham 31:31
go into your heart and they basically burn a circle around wherever the electrical signal is making your heart beat irregularly so that the normal pacemaker of the heart will keep it in its normal sinus rhythm. It’s a pretty unusual thing to have as a young person, if I’m still a young person, but there’s a much higher incidence of it in ultraracers due to dilation of the left atrium.But I also got exposed to the early strains of COVID that also caused that in a lot of people. So perhaps an overlap of being an ICU nurse through the pandemic and getting those really early COVID strains that gave people a whole host of
Blake Boles 32:15
Hmm
Artec Durham 32:16
Um, things like pericarditis, inflammation of the heart. So yeah, that kind of derailed my bike racing career, unfortunately. Cause I was, I was kind of going full send.Like I was getting some, you know, some brands to sponsor me and I was planning to do some pretty big races and I wasn’t winning them really, but I was definitely, you know, competitive, which was not why I was doing it, but it was, you know, it was, it was my driving force for sure that I wanted to race. These bike packing races.So that’s kind of changed, um, to just being, it’s more of a lifestyle thing. Like I, I love climbing mountains. There’s just excellent fourth class ridge scrambling around Silverton. I love that. I love the back country mountain biking. I still love going bike packing.And I think after, you know, enough recovery, which I think maybe this year, I may try bike pack racing again, but I don’t think I’ll ever take it to quite the extreme, which is, I think kind of just the, my knowledge of my mortality and, and the toll it takes on your body to do that kind of racing.I’m not, I’m not sure if that is worth it, but, but the, the adventuring outside with friends and making that the primary, um, you know, kind of goal in life as opposed to going and being a weekend warrior, um, that, that, that has stayed true and, you know, has morphed multiple times in my life.
Blake Boles 33:49
You mentioned how excited you are for the community aspect of your new place in Silverton and how people come and camp and you’re like a become a hub for all these extreme outdoors people who, who share your interest.Do you, do you feel like you’re morphing into some sort of community elder here on the cusp of your forties and, uh, and becoming a bit more of a host and a connector than one of the, you know, most extreme performers.
Artec Durham 34:19
Yeah, I’d say that’s definitely that’s happening.
Blake Boles 34:24
that. Maybe paint me a picture of something that took place in the last year that really idealizes this, this sense of community for you.
Artec Durham 34:33
Mm-hmm. Well, I think that, you know, I’ve never, you know, a big kind of, you know, factor in my life is I’ve never felt the drive or, and I felt quite dissatisfied whenever I’ve lived a very traditional life.Like when I was working full-time for those five years and you go home and you make dinner and talk to your partner and then go to work again, like that, that’s just never, kind of the more nuclear family traditional work has never, I’ve always wanted more community, more to live with other people. I’ve always had roommates and, you know, to have adventure and not just be stuck in routine.And so I think that this, you know, spending the summers in Silverton and having all these people come to play is sort of a way to live that life as opposed to be like, yep, I’m in my suburban house doing my suburban things.And it’s kind of like, I’m kind of like reliving, you know, Mountain Town, the excitement of moving to a new Mountain Town and having a bunch of cool friends there to play with, which is, you know, how a lot of my 20s were. It gets a lot harder the older you get because a lot of people in my peer group are having kids. They’re really locked into their careers.They’re buying houses and have huge mortgages. So they, they’re locked into that and can’t go play all the time. So, you know, I’ve prioritized different things and I find myself in a different place because of that. And Silverton really works for me because it’s a place that people who also have those values tend to gravitate to. So it’s sort of like, if you build it, they will come.But yeah, basically,
Blake Boles 36:19
you build it in such an expensive place as Silverton you will get the dirtbags coming to you if you are known within the community.
Artec Durham 36:28
Right. In a way, I feel like I’m giving back to my younger dirtbag peers because I was always looking for people like that. And I have friends like that in some locations where they’re like, yeah, they’ll let you park your van or truck and camper in their yard. And you have a base, which is the most important thing. And it’s really nice to have a base where there’s your shower and internet.You can certainly boondock camp, but it’s nice to have both, especially with so many people that are doing some amount of work on computers that that’s important to have. So yeah, I, I guess I, I’m, I’m hoping that more people will come.I’m interested in like a coworking kind of space, make that available and, you know, kind of attract people who are interested in that lifestyle of, you know, being dirtbag rich and playing outside and working as little as possible.
Blake Boles 37:23
If you wanna share your street address on the show notes, I’m happy to put it up there. People can just roll up to you.
Artec Durham 37:28
People can reach out to me on Instagram.
Blake Boles 37:31
Oh my gosh, you are too generous. Um, but I really like how you framed this art tech. You said it’s like recreating the experience of moving to a new, a new mountain town in your early twenties. Cause I remember that feeling and I did it a few times. It’s incredible. Just this sense of possibility, this, this drive to connect with other people.And you find people that are kind of similar to you who also want to connect with you. Um, but you need to have these hubs. And for a lot of people, it might be a climbing gym or a cafe or a trailhead. And, uh, for it to be someone’s actual house, and there’s like a dinner table to sit around, uh, and yeah, a wifi to poach that is, it’s a really special thing.Um, so it’s cool that you’ve, you’ve kind of come full circle and used the properties, not just as this investment vehicle for financial security, but as a real way to create community.
Artec Durham 38:28
Yeah, that’s been the goal. It’s slowly coming together. I mean, I think it’s coming together pretty fast, actually, in the grand scheme of things, but it feels slow sometimes.
Blake Boles 38:39
What feels incomplete or unsure on this path? Because from the outside, at this point, it kind of sounds like you’ve arrived.
Artec Durham 38:48
Yeah. Um, well I, you know, I took on some debt with the remodeling of the Silverton house I spent between the down payment and the cost of owning it when it was vacant and the remodel I spent close to $200,000. Um, and so I think there’s just kind of a, there’s a reset period now where I’m, I’m feeling a little poor, um, which is kind of fun.I get to think about budgeting again, which I hadn’t really been doing as much. Um, but yeah, so it’s kind of the reset period. Um, and there’s still work I need to do to that property. So I think at the point where that property is most of the big projects are done. Um, then maybe I’ll feel just a little bit more.The thing, the thing about me I’ve realized, and this is probably something I need to work on as I get older is, uh, I just, I’ve never just content with where I’m at. As soon as I get this property in Silverton done, I’m going to be scheming about something else. I know it. I already am. I’m window shopping. You said it out loud. Yeah.Um, and that will probably be the next thing, you know, have a winner, a winner place to do a similar thing.
Blake Boles 39:59
Well, this is a thought I had earlier in our conversation, which is that you seem like the kind of personality, and I put myself in this category too, that just needs intensity and you thrive on it. And, and, and let’s connect this soon to the conversation about unschooling.Uh, first of all, do you feel like this is, this is accurate, like you were just not able to, to dwell peacefully in a nice, stable, secure existence.It’s like you always need to shake things up or, or find, throw yourself into some sort of intense situation, whether it’s outdoor recreation or building a, you know, a new kitchen or having no more cash to spend and realizing you have to budget again.
Artec Durham 40:44
Yeah, no, I’d say that’s definitely true. I feel when I get locked into, you know, full-time work or, um, particularly in winter, it always seems to be when I’m working and the days are short, but yeah, I start to spiral and the, just the routine doesn’t work for me. I, I lose motivation. Um, I don’t feel alive like I do when I’m finding those more intense ways to live.I’m feeling that a little bit right now. Now that I’m back in Flagstaff, it’s winter. I’m picking up shifts. Um, and there’s just, you know, it’s not, it’s a very com- I live a very comfortable life here. Flagstaff is a pretty great place to be. We’ve got skiing, we’ve got biking.I’ve got friends, I’ve got a partner, but yeah, I, um, I can tell that it, what, that will, I will only be, I’ll only get a few months out of that before I’m like, okay, I’m done with this for the time being. It’s nice to come back to. Something I don’t like it, but it can’t be all what I do. I need, I need that adventure, which can take many forms.
Blake Boles 41:53
Yeah, this living with intensity, in which ways has it bitten you in the butt? Like in which ways do you consider this kind of a liability or a struggle in life?
Artec Durham 42:07
Well, it definitely was a contributing factor in taking the toll on my health with getting the AFib and my heart issues that came from that. Although that’s not necessarily something that happens because you like intensity, but it kind of pushed me to ignore the problem a lot longer than I needed to. So yeah, there’s that. I think it’s made relationships hard.I’ve had some pretty rough dating experiences. I don’t know that they necessarily related to that, but yeah, my partner of seven years who is also a very intense driven person, we had a pretty rough ending to that relationship back in 2020. Yeah, I think the stakes are higher when you live with that intensity and you surround yourself with people who are really driven as well.
Blake Boles 43:06
Now, let’s see if we can connect this to unschooling and your, your earlier education, um, just please assume that, that no one listening to this knows anything about alternative education and maybe tell us the quick history of your, uh, of your early education.
Artec Durham 43:23
Yeah, so I truly unschooled, which is basically an un-regimented, unstructured way to go through your childhood without, I didn’t have a curriculum for school, I didn’t go to school. I had a very ideal childhood in that I lived with my parents, worked at home, they were farming. So I was with my parents a lot.We’re both educated people, and we always had people on the farm doing woofing, willing workers in organic farms, something I’m sure you’re familiar with. So there’s people coming through. So the idea behind unschooling is that you will learn. Children aren’t driven to learn, and they’ll learn what they need to learn.If you create a positive environment where they can do that, and the critique of schooling that unschooling makes is that when you force learning on people, they don’t do that. And that ends up being counterproductive. So I would be an example of that working really well. It doesn’t necessarily work that way for everyone.I always like the preface without sounding like some sort of a, like I’m proselytizing. But everyone’s different. Everyone needs something different from their education. I was lucky enough to find something that worked for me, which was unschooling, unstructured. And I think it really, without a doubt, is a big part of why I did the things that I did to be dirtbag rich and live the life I am.I mean, I think my distaste of full-time employment really came from my distaste of public school. I did go to public school briefly, and I hated it. I just locked inside for five days a week, doing basically what felt like nothing. It was like a travesty. I was like, how do people do this? It’s like you do that.
Blake Boles 45:19
Anti-intensity, right? It’s like forced boredom and make work.
Artec Durham 45:25
So, you know, naturally, someone who’s able to avoid that as a child is going to want to avoid that as an adult. So yeah, I think that was a big part of me being like, yeah, I want my own, I want to own my own life. I don’t want to be beholden to a mortgage, to a career, to any anything that’s going to restrict my, you know, my ability to live my life the way I see fit.
Blake Boles 45:53
And did you have a clear vision of the kind of life you wanted from a pretty young age and how much did your parents or other family members play a role? Did they nudge you into un-schooling or even insist upon it? Uh, and same goes with having this kind of different kind of adult career. Who were your, your major role models in that regard?
Artec Durham 46:14
My parents were definitely huge role models for me. And they take a ton of credit for my financial savviness. They were incredibly frugal people. They had careers in the city in San Francisco. Not like super high paying careers, but professional careers.And they quit those careers, saved money, quit those careers, and bought a farm in northern California where they could hang out with their, raise their kids, have animals, and run a CSA, community supported agriculture. So my childhood was going to farmer’s markets and delivering boxes of vegetables to people.So they made a huge decision to prioritize their lifestyle over conventional metrics of success. And obviously I’ve done the same. So I’ve learned, I think I may have learned that from them. But what was the second part of that question? That’s a schooling decision.
Blake Boles 47:12
Was that Monty’s car? Were they pushing you in that direction too?
Artec Durham 47:16
Um, they, they, it was their idea, but they started looking into that and reading, you know, the classic books like John Holt’s, um, you know, how children fail. So they, they were very influenced by that, but they came to that, um, that place and reading those books because I was clearly not happy in school. Like, um, so they were like, well, why, why is our tech failing in school?I was definitely failing. I was totally disengaged when I was there. Um, and so they kind of, you know, they had the, you know, the foresight to kind of look into what might be a better way to raise a child. And they, and they found one that worked for me. So I’m very lucky to have parents that were able to do that for me.
Blake Boles 48:09
Yeah, and because I would undoubtedly.
Artec Durham 48:11
would lay be a different person had that not been available to me.
Blake Boles 48:15
Did they help you financially when you entered young adulthood or were you more on your own?
Artec Durham 48:24
So they made it pretty clear early on when I was like 18 that they were not going to help me with college and that dissuaded me from going to college. I was like, well, I’m not going to pay for this. I think because my parents made, they were so frugal and any kind of financial decision was a big decision. A lot of my peers were like, well, yeah, we’ll just take out student loans.And they went to school and I didn’t. And I was like, well, I’m just going to go work on trail crew. I don’t need to go to college. So they made it pretty clear that I needed to figure things out on my own.But then when I actually did start going to community college full time, which I did in my mid twenties, I was early mid twenties, I was like, I think it’s time to, you know, because everyone I all my peers had gone to college and I had and I was like, maybe I should do this.Then they offered to help pay my rent, which at that time, I mean, I was living really cheap places was a few hundred dollars a month. But they continue to do that through my college experience.So I didn’t, and you know, it would be misleading to say I, I got through school without any support, but all the tuition, minimal support, all the tuition and living expenses, I worked through college, um, but not having to worry about the actual beginning of the month rent payment or the majority of it. That was huge.That really helped me to, to, to have kind of a safety net where I could really stretch things thin, but no, I wasn’t gonna be unable to pay my rent through college, but that was never more than $500 a month, which rent was cheaper back then.
Blake Boles 49:54
Were there any other special considerations or support networks that helped you get to where you are today? I mean beyond all those lovely grants that you received for your undergraduate education, you know, one of them partially due to unschooling.
Artec Durham 50:12
Yeah. I think I was just really motivated to save a lot of money. I did borrow money from my parents on a few occasions. I paid it back pretty quick. It was nice to know that I could do that if I needed to. Yeah. No, I think that there were a lot of decisions I made to live really cheaply, like driving a car. I still to this day drive a car that’s basically free. It’s totaled.I got all the money from the insurance company. I still drive it.
Blake Boles 50:46
Dirtbag is alive.
Artec Durham 50:47
the dirtbag is alive. But yeah, I think that was pretty much what led me to where I am financially.
Blake Boles 50:56
As we wrap up, Artec, can you tell me about another big outdoor adventure, or anything else, any purposeful way you’re intending to spend your free time that you have coming up in the next couple years, something that’s really motivating you and driving you?
Artec Durham 51:16
Well, I’ve been having this internal debate about going and doing the Silk Road Mountain Race, which is in Kyrgyzstan. I was signed up for it, and then I got diagnosed with AFib, so I had to cancel. And I’m trying to decide if I still want to go do it. They’ve let me deferred my entry fee. And I guess I’m trying to decide if that chapter of going and racing bikepacking ultras is closed yet.So that’s kind of in the back of my mind, or maybe more in the front of my mind. But I have a bunch of fun trips planned, and I think that that’s something that I didn’t do enough of when I was younger, just like a fun trip. There was always an objective to the trip.So I’m doing a bikepacking trip around Death Valley with a group of very accomplished bikepackers put together by this guy, Chaz, who’s like a pretty famous bikepacker personality. And he’s basically put the route together. He’s like, everyone needs to be self-sufficient. We’ll be out there for seven days. Everyone who’s been invited to this is very competent.So I’m looking forward to that week bikepacking around Death Valley with awesome, badass people. I’m doing a Grand Canyon trip rafting, except sitting on a raft wouldn’t be enough excitement. So I’m actually bringing a pack raft, like a small inflatable kayak, which I plan on doing most of the Grand Canyon in. I’ve got lots of all-fun adventures like that. I’ve been doing more canyoneering.I’ve been doing more pack rafting, where you hike into the Grand Canyon with the raft, float down, and then hike out again. I’m kind of like, as opposed to being so focused on one activity or one objective, I’m doing whatever feels the most rewarding.And the emphasis with most of those sports is things I can do with other people, as opposed to I spent a lot of time riding my bike by myself when I was racing ultra bikepacking races and training for them. And I kind of lost my interest in doing that. I’ve been there, done that. I’ve ridden my bike really far, really fast, by myself. And I’m more interested in connection and building community.
Blake Boles 53:24
I love how your fun casual adventures include a seven day self supported ride around Death Valley and then pack rafting the Grand Canyon. You’re like, just some chill adventures with my homies.
Artec Durham 53:40
Yeah. I mean, I’ll be raft supported. I’ll sleep in a, you know, basically a bed and have fresh food in the Grand Canyon. So cushy. In Death Valley, we’re going to sleep at night, you know, compared to bike pack racing where you tried to ride your bike all night. So again, super relaxed.
Blake Boles 53:55
Oh my gosh, getting soft. Artec, if anyone wants to follow some of these casual adventures that you’re going on or otherwise learn about you, what’s the best way for them to do that?
Artec Durham 54:06
Blake Boles 54:07
And how can they find you there?
Artec Durham 54:10
It’s my first name, A R T E C underscore R N as in registered nurse. And I’m pretty active on there. I also have a blog, but you can link to the blog from my Instagram. Yeah, it’s kind of a long one.
Blake Boles 54:29
Artec, thanks so much for coming on the show. Thank you.