The first time Michele Dobson drove her 36-foot RV, she steered it across the country. She had just purchased the camper from the daughters of a former client, Brad, who called it his dream RV.
“They’re like, ‘Dad passed away, and we think that he would love it if you bought his RV,’” she said.
She bought it in March 2024 and went on her first trip several months later. Michele picked up her son from Arizona State University and headed for North Carolina, so her mother could see it before she passed. She planned the route as if she were driving a car and quickly realized six- to eight-hour days became longer drives in the 14.5-foot-tall motorhome.
“I took the RV all the way across country on this long kamikaze ride of 10 to 12 hours a day, driving that monster,” she said. “I learned how to drive it driving it from California to North Carolina.”
Even before Brad’s RV came along, Michele was no stranger to the outdoors. She started tent camping with friends on three-day weekends when her son was a toddler. Over time, the circle shrank from a big group to two families, and then just her two kids, who kept going until her son went off to college.
In the rig, she has left many of Brad’s basics on board and occasionally talks to him when she’s hunting for something he packed away.
“Sometimes when I’m in the RV, I’ll just talk to him,” she said. “When I can’t find something, I’m like, ‘OK, Brad, where’d you put the measuring cup?’”
Michele brings her own quirks to the camper. She always names her vehicles, waiting until each one names itself. The RV is named The Flying Duchess, a nod to “The Flying Dutchman,” a Wagner opera she discovered in a music class at Cal State Long Beach.
She also boondocks, camping off-grid without hookups on public land when the RV is stocked, just the way Brad liked to use it.
She joined RVing Women and the National African American RVers Association, finding communities that helped her learn the ropes. With RVing Women, she once mistakenly signed up under the wrong chapter and ended up at the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta, her first big group campout.
“When I got there, they were like, ‘We were so worried about you. Thank goodness you’re here,’” she said. “It was pretty funny, but they were wonderful to me, and I’ve been back to Balloon Fiesta every year since then.”
Closer to home, Michele often takes the Duchess to Bonelli Bluffs in San Dimas, where the RV sites are organized in loops and her favorite one ends at a bluff overlooking the lake.
“I sat outside, and I was working, but it was super quiet,” she said. “I could hear little animals rustling in the bushes.”
The stillness she finds on the road isn’t how her work life used to look. Her law firm began almost by accident, out of a cocktail-party conversation during maternity leave. For the next 21 years, she worked long hours representing contractors, small businesses and nonprofits, often becoming the person they called for every kind of problem.
“My kids were just saying, ‘Mom, we don’t even remember seeing you sit and read a book ever,’” she said. “We would watch movies, and you would have your laptop on your lap…you were always working.”
But Michele used the flexibility of owning her own firm to show up for her kids. She told staff not to book appointments on Friday mornings so she could be classroom mom and to block out afternoons to coach soccer and flag football.
“It was a gift in that it allowed me to be a present mom,” she said. “I could just say, don’t schedule anything until one o’clock on Friday… don’t schedule anything between two and five on Tuesday and Thursday.”
Now that her son, Dante, 22, and her daughter, Meara, 18, are grown up, Michele questioned whether she still needs to work all the time.
“I don’t need to work 70 to 80 hours a week anymore,” she said. “I don’t need to work seven days.”
That thinking led her to set new boundaries with clients, shifting from answering messages on weekends to slowly resetting their expectations around weekday hours only. Many of them, especially bar and restaurant owners who worked weekends, struggled with the change at first before adjusting to her new schedule.
Eventually, Michele decided to wind the practice down completely. She began meeting with longtime clients in April to tell them she was closing the firm and referring their cases to other attorneys. For people who had come to her for everything over the years, the news was hard to hear.
She said those conversations were the most difficult part of this transition, especially with clients who were used to calling her not only about their businesses but also about their families.
Michele is a familiar presence in Long Beach, from growing up in the city to mentoring students at Cabrillo High School and serving on local boards. As she moves from having run her own firm to building the first legal department for the YMCA of Greater Long Beach, she sees the job as a continuation of her commitment to community.
“I really hope that I’m able to be of service to the YMCA,” she said. “I hope that I can help grow the organization.”
One thing that will not change in this new chapter is Michele’s love of travel. She takes one international trip a year, most recently to Taiwan, along with shorter escapes in the Flying Duchess.
“If you’re wondering why I love camping, tent or RV, this is why,” she said. “I love nature, and it’s calming to me.”
“I don’t need to work 70–80 hours a week anymore. I don’t need to work seven days.”
“If you’re wondering why I love camping, tent or RV, this is why,” she said. “I love nature, and it’s calming to me.”