If you've looked at the "Schedule" page of this weblog, you have probably noticed that there's very little scheduled in our future. Some people have interpreted this as a message that we are about to get off the road and settle into our house, and I had to explain to people several times last week that it's not really the case.

What's really happening is that we are simply scheduling less, and wandering more. In particular, we aren't signed up for any Airstream rallies. It seems over time that we have been going to fewer and fewer rallies. I was wondering why this is, since we generally enjoy them, and I've come to the conclusion that our full-timing lifestyle just doesn't lend itself to rally participation. Roaming across the country would seem to facilitate attending rallies, but in reality it makes the situation harder. In the past our schedule has rarely coincided conveniently with events we'd like to attend.

"Where no Airstream has gone before ..."

This weekend we were forced to make the painful decision to skip the Albuquerque Balloon Festival in October. A bunch of Airstreamers are going to meet up there, and I had gone so far as to send in a $130 deposit on the event. It would be a tremendous event to attend, but we just don't have a solid schedule for this fall and so we transferred the reservation to another Airstreamer from Phoenix.

The problem with full-timing is simple: If you don't set a schedule, it's impossible to be sure you'll be at the events that interest you. If you do set a schedule, you'll inevitably find that you have to skip wonderful places to keep on the schedule, which is immensely frustrating.

After numerous frustrations, we have decided to avoid setting schedules as much as possible. If we must be in Albuquerque in mid-October, we'd have to skip Fall in New England and rush about 2,000 miles southwest in six weeks. That may seem like a lot of time to drive that distance, but it's really not. Between Vermont and New Mexico are dozens of friends we'd like to visit, dozens of national parks, and many festivals, hikes, scenic overlooks, photo opps, and museums to check out. No matter how much time we have, we can easily fill it just by stopping and partaking in whatever the local area has to offer.

So while we don't have an itinerary or a fixed route, we do have a lot of ideas of places to go and things to do. Instead of booking spots at rallies and other organized events, we are going to simply take a list of things that are happening all over the country -- including rallies, festivals, open houses, airshows, and harvests -- and see what makes sense to drop in on as we go.

While I was at the International Rally last week I also heard from many people who shyly admitted that they read this blog. In some cases it was almost like they were confessing a secret vice: "I read it every day ... just to see what you're doing." Well, that's fine, and you can all come out of the closet now. I know from the site statistics that over a thousand people read this blog every day, and many people read it every day. Don't worry, I can't tell who you are -- your secret is safe. Just don't let the boss catch you!