Kristie Rudolph was camping in Yosemite with her son Logan when she got a fateful call from her husband Peter.

A longtime Bay Area chef, Peter Rudolph was ready to do something his wife had long been fantasizing about: to pack up their life in San Francisco and travel the country as a family in a camper van.

At the time, Peter was the executive chef for Madera Restaurant at The Rosewood Sand Hill in Menlo Park. He had been there for nine years, leading the kitchen from its opening through the gain, loss and recapture of one Michelin star.

“When you’re in a restaurant like that you give up everything,” Peter said in a recent phone interview from the road. “I wanted to go out and see America, to hang out with my family. It was just time to go and explore what else I wanted to do.”

Peter Rudolph pictured in 2016 while a chef at Madera in Menlo Park. (Courtesy of Peter Rudolph)

Peter spent the last decade-plus in the kitchen. Trained at the California Culinary Academy, he cooked at the Ritz Carltons in Marina Del Rey and Half Moon Bay, as well as the Campton Place Hotel in San Francisco before Madera.

Kristie said she and Logan, now 13, simply got used to life as the wife and son of a chef. They celebrated holidays the day after. They cherished Sundays and Mondays, when Peter was off work. Mother and son (who is home-schooled) would go camping together or take road trips without Peter.

“You get kind of locked into a type of a life or get locked into a schedule or a system,” Peter said. “We just want to break that apart and have some fun and go out and discover and see things.”

In an exercise of letting go and getting off the grid, the Rudolph family sold or gave away most of their belongings, converted a modest white Springer van into a camper and set off this past February. The trip illustrates one family’s response to the demands of working in the restaurant industry.

Peter’s LinkedIn occupation now reads: “Husband, Father, Traveling Chef, Rock Climber, Mountain Biker, Fisherman, Vagabond.” His employer? “My family.”