In November of 2020 Chris and LeAnn Ackerman, who have been married for 41 years, were living in St. Louis, Missouri where they had moved to five years prior from Seattle. Chris Ackerman said after leaving his job at Boeing, the couple looked at the state of the world and their family, with children in several different states, and decided to downsize and set off on yet another adventure: travel across the country and see every national park.