Cool Campervan

Recently Matt and met another young couple who had a genius camper van that they were renovating themselves. We had fun showing each other around our different RV's comparing the Airstream to their "Stealth Camper Van".

Example of a Stealth Van- Source

The stealth van was smart because the entire RV is compact within a Mercedes van. This couple had a solar panel on top and a vent fan but it didn't look like an RV. Their solar panel powered the whole rig (small fridge, lights, computer charger, vent fan, water pump). They had a lofted bed with storage underneath, a couch, sink, even a porta potty. They are truly self sufficient and their van looks like maybe a work van but I would never have suspected it to be an RV if I saw it parked somewhere.

The reason I think this type of RV is so smart is because you really are able to be stealthy and camp more places than we can in the Airstream for free. The Airstream plus the truck is 50' long so we can camp in campgrounds, Cabela's parking lots (and other RV friendly parking lots) and some rest stops. The stealth camper van couple told us they camped at Golden Gate park one night and are able to blend in on the street in big cities all for free!

The longer we've traveled the more I see that a small rig would be easier to camp in places that are free. However since we live in the Airstream full-time I like having as much space as we have. We also have a full size fridge and a shower which the stealth camper didn't have.

Now that I know about the stealth camper van I'm constantly trying to spot them. I think I've seen one pulled over on the side of the road camping and a few in parking lots.

There are so many smart ways to camp out there!

Since Becoming An Airstreamer

Since becoming a Full-time Airstreamer I've-

-Become addicted to outdoor clothing. Matt and I went to the Patagonia outlet in Reno NV this week. OMG I got the most awesome vest and will probably wear all the time now. I finally got some hiking pants too.

-Worn a hat more than ever before in my life. It's fun wearing hats.

-Lost touch with reality TV. I have no idea what's happening on Bravo, E! or the Bachelorette! Thanks to Twitter I can keep up with major world events (you know like news on North West and I can't wait for William and Kate's baby to be born!).

-Not worn makeup in over 2 months! Really my skin seems happier without makeup and I've gotten used to how I look without it. I've been wearing makeup since middle school and hated to go out in public without it. Really my whole beauty routine has simplified. I wash my face at night with Cera Ve and apply lotion. In the morning I apply sunscreen. Oh and I shower every night, pretty much the simplest routine I've ever had!

-Had time to read the Bible everyday. Woo Hoo!

-Had time to study French! I don't know if this will every be useful in life but I love learning French.

-Ridden my bike lots.

-Learned to be a good navigator. You can't miss your turn when pulling a big ol trailer! Turning around is usually not an option (although Matt is a superb driver and manages to pull and back the Airstream up with amazing skill at all times).

P.S. I created a Facebook page for the blog! If you'd like to like the page, that would be awesome! Click here to check it out!

Tahoe City!

Well, I think I may have found the most perfect place in the USA. The Tahoe City area is beautiful! There is skiing in the winter and of course the stunning Lake Tahoe to hang out on our near all the time!

We spent 3 days in the Tahoe City area riding our bikes on the fantastic bike trail and hanging out on the pretty beaches and marinas. There's lots of kayaking and stand up paddle boarding happening on the lake that looked like it would be fun. Maybe if I had a wetsuit I'd get out on the water (or if the temps went up to at least 80 degrees). I can't believe how beautiful the water in the lake is! Pretty clear blue water for miles. We were also really fortunate to have bright sunny skies the whole time we were there except for the last day which was cloudy.

I thought this was so cute. This couple pulled up in their boat to the beach so the dogs could jump off and use the bathroom, the dogs are trying to get back on their boat here.

 I wouldn't mind coming back in the winter to snow ski :) We found a neighborhood with their own neighborhood owned ski lift, how awesome!

Look at all these precious baby ducks!! This one mom had about 20 babies with her.

Can it get any more beautiful?

I'd live here.

Biking in the Lake Tahoe area was great!

Little island in Emerald Bay

Emerald Bay, not in Tahoe City but had to share:)

Have you ever been to Tahoe? Do you think it's as amazing as I do?

The History of the Luxe Land Yacht

If you’ve ever wondered, who are these people and where did the idea to live in an Airstream come from?  Here are the answers you’ve been searching for.

Matt and I married about a year after graduating college. We had grown up together and were in love our whole lives. Just kidding, we started dating in college and I had a crush on Matt when I was in high school…but I digress.

Immediately after we were married in 2010, Matt was transferred to Kansas City by his company. We moved to KC after our honeymoon and started renting an apartment. I soon found employment at a wonderful Church and we started living life as a married couple.

We shared a common desire for DIY (Do It Yourself) projects but living in an apartment didn’t leave us with much room. To fill the void we watched a lot of HGTV and DIY Network on TV to inspire us. Around the same time we stumbled upon a great blog, The Long Long Honeymoon.  This couple lives and travels in an Airstream… at this point we fell in love with all that is Airstream!

We started thinking about how much fun an Airstream ‘project’ would be.  We could combine our DIY skills with a classic American icon.  We didn’t have much experience with anything RV related (Michelle’s grandmother had one when she was little).  In fact, our only real recent camping experiences had been in a tent… but we had a feeling we would love RV’ing (a real bed, TV, running water, oh the luxury!).

We searched Craigslist and eBay for Airstreams and even looked at a few we saw for sale on the side of the interstate on trips to see family in Texas.

After a couple of months of researching we knew what we wanted in our future Airstream.  The exterior needed to be in good shape (no big dents or broken windows).  We thought we wanted a 27’ trailer but couldn’t locate one, so we turned our interest to the numerous 31’ Airstreams listed on the web.  Also, we definitely wanted one with a floor plan locating the bath in the center of the Airstream so that a single bed could fit in the rear (not separate twins as many Airstreams featured).

Finally we found our Airstream on eBay about 8 hours away in Illinois. Once we bought it, I remember thinking wow we are really living our dream out now!

We picked up the Luxe Land Yacht and towed it to an RV lot south of KC. The nice owner let us work on it there. We replaced the whole floor in the RV lot, stripped the clear coat off, and removed all the cabinets and inner skins from the Airstream.

About the time we bought the Airstream we also bought a cute house. We had to decide if we wanted to renew our rent or buy a house and we decided to add the home renovation to our plate. We bought a bank owned property in a super cute neighborhood. We spent all of our extra time renovating the house and the Airstream. Our nice neighbors never complained about all of our noise and construction.  After living in the house for about 8 months we welcomed the Airstream home – to the side of the house – so that we could finish its renovation.

At this point we really went to town finishing the Airstream.  We rewired the electrical, sanded and painted the inner skins, installed lighting, cabinets, counters, shower, couch, queen size bed, and it our spare time we polished the exterior.

We were living a normal life with jobs and a house but really wanted more of an adventure. We listened to other full time RV’ers through the Living the RV Dream podcast and thought the lifestyle sounded so awesome. We wanted to travel but how can you travel full time in your 20’s? Well, if you don’t have a mortgage that helps so we put our house up for sale.

We were scared to plan too much of our Airstream adventure in case the house didn’t sell or it took a really long time but, things lined up and the house sold quickly. I gave my notice at work and we had a moving sale where we sold all of our furniture.

On May 1, 2013 we left Kansas City and headed west. The purpose of this trip is ever changing but is most certainly about living life with no regrets. We kept telling ourselves that we would never regret leaving normal life for a year or so to travel in an Airstream together in our 20’s but would probably look back with sadness if we didn’t do it. Yes we walked away from regular paychecks but we also walked away from monthly mortgage, electricity, water, and property tax bills.

Using the Airstream as our home sounded like it would be so adventurous, self-sufficient and cool. So far I still feel like it’s all of those things. I have a huge sense of freedom and possibility.

Meeting so many other RV’ers (full time or not) has helped me see that we’re not that unique but I still think there are so many people who don’t know about the magic of traveling in an RV if even for a weekend.

So far I’d say that selling the house and living in less than 200 sq ft of Airstream is a beautiful life. We have seen stunning places in America, lived more simply, experienced nature and spent lots of time together.

Life is short, why not take an adventure?

South Lake Tahoe

I've now seen another place in the USA that I can't quite believe is real because it's so pretty. Lake Tahoe is a massive deep blue lake surrounded by mountains. While in South Lake Tahoe we enjoyed temps in the 60's during the day (Texas friends, if you need to cool down from the Texas heat a place actually exists in the summer with cool temperatures!).

I envisioned myself swimming in the lake or maybe kayaking but when I got to the lake and realized how cold and huge it it, I opted laid out in jeans and a jacket on the beach enjoying the beauty around me. I really didn't need much more entertainment than that. Some kids were swimming but kids will swim in any temperature right?

We also enjoyed a long bike ride around South Lake Tahoe and rode over to the marina and Tahoe Keys neighborhood to see all the boats and houses on the water!

We camped at Tahoe Valley RV Resort. It's a wooded campground in a good location. Summer gets rolling later around here because of the cool temps so the pool wasn't open yet but they have tennis which we played for the first time in a few months.

I love all the bike riding in this town. It's also a cute ski town with lodge looking buildings to keep the area looking nice. There's lots of things you can do here such as boat tours, historical home tours, shopping, go to the casino, ride the gondola, go out to eat and other things I'm sure but, I was pretty content to take in the beauty of the lake and mountains and ride my bike around looking at houses.

We're now on the West shore of the lake near Tahoe City! More to come on it later!

A Look at Provisioning

I've talked before about how I love provisioning for our week while living in the Airstream. When I say provisioning I mean stocking the fridge and cabinets for a week or so with all the delicious food we can eat.

We usually provision when we're moving between campgrounds. On days when it's time to move we try to leave early in the morning and hit a Wal Mart or grocery store on our way between destinations. Because the places we camp tend to be away from big towns, it's nice to stop at a larger town to get our food because there's more selection and it's a bit cheaper than say the market in the national park that has a loaf of sandwich bread for $5.

While provisioning it's important for us to make sure we get everything we're going to want before getting back to the store again because if we forget something we're going to have to live without it. (We ran out of chips and salsa one week and it was painful to live without it).

We also don't go out to eat so we need to make sure we have food that we can still enjoy so we don't give in and go eat at a restaurant because we don't like our food choices. The reason we don't go out to eat is simply because we're trying to be frugal and make our money last while we're traveling!

One thing about having the Airstream with us is that when we buy food we can walk out into the parking lot and immediately put it all away in the fridge and cabinets. That also means that when we're driving down the road we can get in the Airstream and get whatever we have out for a snack!

Yay for food and provisioning!

And Yay for White Cheddar Cheetos! They are amazing.

Columbia Airport Appreciation Day!

Matt here again!  I wanted to write a post on our Saturday excursion outside of Yosemite.  Northwest of Yosemite Lakes (our campground just outside the park) was the small historic gold mining town of Columbia.  Mining is very exciting and all, but the towns annual airport fly-in was the focus of our trip!

The Columbia Airport had an annual "Father's Day Fly-In" until FAA budget changes (thanks sequestration) led to a more scaled back "Airport Appreciation Day" on the Saturday before Father's Day.

We arrived at the airfield about 9am.  A small showing of Chevy Corvettes lined a taxi way that we toured before taking a shuttle across the runway to the main parking area to see the private planes.

Let's just say the fly-in was quite… informal!  The announcer tried his best to give us details of what aircraft were landing and taking off.  A group of homebuilt RV aircraft took to the sky to show off their formation flying skills while the firefighting airplanes took off to fight a Sierra wildfire.

Overall I was amazed at how many of the aircraft were homebuilt.  The most striking of course were the Burt Rutan designs - the Long EZ and the Quickie.  These 2 composite (fiberglass) aircraft were designed way ahead of their time.  Thousands have been built from plans and some variations from kits.

Michelle and I were able to talk with a couple who had just parked their Lancair Legacy aircraft.  This was built as a kit in 2007 by the husband and wife team.  It is made of carbon fiber (wow!), has a 320 HP engine and would propel 2 people over 250 MPH.  The wife was especially proud of the work she did on their plane.  They were planning to 'fly home for lunch' then come back later in the afternoon - cool!  They said that 'anywhere within 800 miles can be a weekend trip' - not bad!  In all we saw 6 Lancair kit aircraft at the show - all spectacular examples of how far homebuilt aircraft have come in technology and sophistication.  I believe a kit is $75k + engine & avionics.

Not at the airshow but my personal favorite homebuilt aircraft is the Cozy MK-IV - a 4 seat pusher canard design.  It is built from plans for about $20k + engine & avionics + many hours of your labor.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cozy_MK_IV 

Other crowd favorites were of course the Gyrocopter, the Van's RV's, and a small amphibious aircraft.

While walking around looking at airplanes I remembered that Michelle had never flown in the small airplane before - so it was time for her to fly!  For just $45 Michelle took to the sky in the co-pilots seat of a Cessna airplane for a 30 minute flight around 'gold country.'  Michelle told me that after takeoff the pilot removed his hands from the controls and then had Michelle fly around - she loved it!

We're hoping to check out a real 'Air Show' while in Oregon soon… stay tuned!

Goodbye Beautiful Yosemite

We've left Yosemite after 2 weeks of exploring the park and surrounding areas. Yosemite is a beautiful place and I'm so glad we got to see it!

We saw this guy on our last day, he walked right up to the car, it was a little eerie. 

We're in Lake Tahoe now, more to come on it soon!

P.S. I added a survey on the sidebar, have you answered it yet? I'd love it if you would! I also added some new social media buttons to the side bar so, if you want to be friends on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or Pinterest we can!

Upper Yosemite Falls Hike

See the Rainbow?

Yosemite Falls is the highest waterfall in the USA and is a beautiful sight if you are lucky enough to be in the park when it’s flowing. The crazy thing about the waterfalls in Yosemite is that they are powered by snow melt! When I see all that water flowing over the falls I wonder where its all coming from because there’s not much snow left.

This week Matt and I hiked up to the top of Yosemite Falls. This was the hardest hike we’ve done so far. Round trip this hike is about 7.5 miles. The hard part it that you hike up about 2,000 feet in elevation then have to hike that same amount back down. The hike offered great views of Yosemite Valley and pretty views of Yosemite falls as you climbed up. Once you get to the top you see where the waterfall pools before plunging all the way down to the valley. It’s quite a sight!

 I’m glad we did this hike and I most def got a great workout doing this hike (it took us a little over 6 hours!). Honestly though I thought Vernal Falls was more worth the hike. I think it’s neat to say we hiked all the way to the top of Yosemite falls but the views at the top of Vernal Falls was more impressive and the hike was much easier. Here are some more beautiful scenes from our hike-

More rainbow at the bottom!

What did you drop??

Excited to have service! There's not much around Yosemite.

Right before the water falls all the way to the valley

The History of The Luxe Land Yacht

 If you’ve ever wondered, who are these people and where did the idea to live in an Airstream come from?  Here are the answers you’ve been searching for.

Matt and I married about a year after graduating college. We had grown up together and were in love our whole lives. Just kidding, we started dating in college and I had a crush on Matt when I was in high school…but I digress.

Immediately after we were married in 2010, Matt was transferred to Kansas City by his company. We moved to KC after our honeymoon and started renting an apartment. I soon found employment at a wonderful Church and we started living life as a married couple.

We shared a common desire for DIY (Do It Yourself) projects but living in an apartment didn’t leave us with much room. To fill the void we watched a lot of HGTV and DIY Network on TV to inspire us. Around the same time we stumbled upon a great blog, The Long Long Honeymoon.  This couple lives and travels in an Airstream… at this point we fell in love with all that is Airstream!

We started thinking about how much fun an Airstream ‘project’ would be.  We could combine our DIY skills with a classic American icon.  We didn’t have much experience with anything RV related (Michelle’s grandmother had one when she was little).  In fact, our only real recent camping experiences had been in a tent… but we had a feeling we would love RV’ing (a real bed, TV, running water, oh the luxury!).

We searched Craigslist and eBay for Airstreams and even looked at a few we saw for sale on the side of the interstate on trips to see family in Texas.

After a couple of months of researching we knew what we wanted in our future Airstream.  The exterior needed to be in good shape (no big dents or broken windows).  We thought we wanted a 27’ trailer but couldn’t locate one, so we turned our interest to the numerous 31’ Airstreams listed on the web.  Also, we definitely wanted one with a floor plan locating the bath in the center of the Airstream so that a single bed could fit in the rear (not separate twins as many Airstreams featured).

Finally we found our Airstream on eBay about 8 hours away in Illinois. Once we bought it, I remember thinking wow we are really living our dream out now!

We picked up the Luxe Land Yacht and towed it to an RV lot south of KC. The nice owner let us work on it there. We replaced the whole floor in the RV lot, stripped the clear coat off, and removed all the cabinets and inner skins from the Airstream.

About the time we bought the Airstream we also bought a cute house. We had to decide if we wanted to renew our rent or buy a house and we decided to add the home renovation to our plate. We bought a bank owned property in a super cute neighborhood. We spent all of our extra time renovating the house and the Airstream. Our nice neighbors never complained about all of our noise and construction.  After living in the house for about 8 months we welcomed the Airstream home – to the side of the house – so that we could finish its renovation.

At this point we really went to town finishing the Airstream.  We rewired the electrical, sanded and painted the inner skins, installed lighting, cabinets, counters, shower, couch, queen size bed, and it our spare time we polished the exterior.

We were living a normal life with jobs and a house but really wanted more of an adventure. We listened to other full time RV’ers through the Living the RV Dream podcast and thought the lifestyle sounded so awesome. We wanted to travel but how can you travel full time in your 20’s? Well, if you don’t have a mortgage that helps so we put our house up for sale.

We were scared to plan too much of our Airstream adventure in case the house didn’t sell or it took a really long time but, things lined up and the house sold quickly. I gave my notice at work and we had a moving sale where we sold all of our furniture.

On May 1, 2013 we left Kansas City and headed west. The purpose of this trip is ever changing but is most certainly about living life with no regrets. We kept telling ourselves that we would never regret leaving normal life for a year or so to travel in an Airstream together in our 20’s but would probably look back with sadness if we didn’t do it. Yes we walked away from regular paychecks but we also walked away from monthly mortgage, electricity, water, and property tax bills.

Using the Airstream as our home sounded like it would be so adventurous, self-sufficient and cool. So far I still feel like it’s all of those things. I have a huge sense of freedom and possibility.

Meeting so many other RV’ers (full time or not) has helped me see that we’re not that unique but I still think there are so many people who don’t know about the magic of traveling in an RV if even for a weekend.

So far I’d say that selling the house and living in less than 200 sq ft of Airstream is a beautiful life. We have seen stunning places in America, lived more simply, experienced nature and spent lots of time together.

Life is short, why not take an adventure?

I Cleaned a Trout!

I feel majorly accomplished because I cleaned a trout and cooked it! Matt caught a nice 14 inch trout and I knew it would be big enough for us to eat. It was time to try my hand at cleaning a fish.

washing the fish out!

For those of you who’ve gutted a fish before this is probably no big deal to you but for me, it’s huge! I’ve never butchered any animal and it was so crazy to see the trout alive and looking at me until I cut it’s head off (sorry I know it's gross). It freaked me out to clean a fish and I felt horrible when Matt whacked it on the head so that I could start slicing it open but, we ate that fish and enjoyed it very much so, it’s life wasn’t wasted.

I liked eating a fish that was caught and cleaned within the same day that I ate it.

To cook our trout, I dredged it in cornmeal then fried it up in butter. I’d most definitely clean and cook a fish this same way again but only if the fish is at least as big as the one we just ate.

Are you aware of how good it smells to fry something in butter? Now I know.