Archive for Home base
March 2, 2008 at 11:09 pm · Filed under Home base
Friends of ours from Nogales come up to Tucson every weekend to take advantage of the city’s offerings. (There’s not much to do in Nogales.) Since they’ve been here longer than we have, we asked to meet them in town to learn what sorts of places they like. They suggested lunch at the Hotel Congress, in the heart of downtown Tucson.
The Hotel Congress is a neat place. A fire on the third floor is famous for having flushed out John Dillinger in 1934, after a massive national manhunt failed to locate him and his gang. The hotel is still operating today, and is the kind of place I’d like to stay just to get a feel for the 1930s. The interior still feels appropriate to the period, with a few updates here and there. An old telephone switchboard is on display next to old telephone booths in the lobby which contain modern payphones. An old-time barber shop is still in operation off the lobby — I’d like to try it out.
Just off the lobby is a nightclub with frequent live entertainment, and another small pub. The overall sense I got was of an old Fred Harvey railroad hotel, probably because of the era and the use of native American designs throughout the interior. It’s very much like the way Mary Elizabeth Coulter would decorate, but the architecture doesn’t have her signature flair.
The lobby currently features art by Daniel Martin Diaz. Emma spotted one of his unusual designs and immediately had to try to copy it. She’s got a bit of talent for art that I completely lack, so I am always impressed when she does this and try to stand back long enough to let her complete it. Besides, there was enough of visual interest for me to stay busy taking pictures. I’ve set up a small album on Flickr of other images from the Hotel Congress here.
We ate lunch in the “Cup Cafe,” right off the lobby. It’s a fairly small place with perhaps a dozen tables and bar seating, and more tables outside. The floor is paved with pennies. Being in the middle of the downtown, it attracts a lively and funky crowd. Here’s the view I had during lunch …
All through lunch I had to bite my tongue to avoid making, uh, wisecracks about the view. But if the view was less than appetizing, the lunch made up for it. Pretty darned good for a $9 lunch. We declined dessert, reluctantly, and headed out.
Being downtown made me realize how little of Tucson we’ve really had a chance to explore. There are so many cultural experiences, places, events, hikes, historic sites, and people to discover here. That’s a good thing, because I wouldn’t want to feel like I’d already “done everything” before we even finished the house! We are considering re-arranging our schedule yet again, to allow more time in Tucson. We’d do this by taking a week or two on the road in the Airstream in March and/or April, then returning to the house for a bit before heading out again for the summer. Nothing’s finalized, but it is clear that our plans are very fluid right now.
March 1, 2008 at 10:43 pm · Filed under Home base
OK, no Airstream philosophy or house angst or travel news today. This blog entry is strictly for those who are interested in our life “off the road.”
Emma has graduated to her yellow belt in karate class. Needless to say, it’s a very exciting day for her, and we’re happy she’s having fun and progressing. The test was comprised of an oral question (“Who is the founder of our karate school?”) which she answered correctly, a basic exercise involving all the moves the white belts have learned so far, and a ritual board-breaking.
The school has boards of various difficulty for the students, which allows even the beginners to break a board the first time they test. The broken board makes an interesting souvenir for the day and, according to one father, pretty decent firewood too.
Being stationary means we can do this sort of thing, but I have to admit I am chafing under the restriction of a three-times-a-week schedule. To go anywhere means we’d have to miss classes, which we haven’t wanted to do. In a week the sessions we paid for will run out, and since we are so close now to our departure date (I hope), we aren’t going to renew right now.
We’ll start again in the fall, when we’re back in town. Emma now seems to be completely hooked on karate. Fair warning to Uncle Steve, Gunny, and others who would cross her path — this girl is ready on defense!
On the house front, we are a few steps closer. The couch arrived today (large and comfortable) and also our mattresses. We now have two fully functioning bedrooms and a living room to our credit. A number of smaller “punch list” items got dealt with as well, including drywall repairs, electrical connections for the kitchen appliances, and the last few pieces of baseboard. A lot of minor items are still on the list, but the big projects include installing kitchen countertops & appliances, fixing the leaking shower plumbing, and installing the sinks. Anything else that needs doing is not worth delaying our travels for, so we won’t sweat the small stuff.
February 28, 2008 at 11:59 pm · Filed under Home base, Mobile technology
Two and a half years of roaming around the country in the Airstream, and I’ve never lost my phone. Not even for a few minutes. But a couple of months sitting in the house and suddenly it’s gone.
I remember talking to Colin Hyde this morning for a while. We were discussing the Vintage Trailer Jam and how we were going to solve electrical challenges at the event. The phone usually goes right into my pocket after a call, but this time I don’t remember what I did with it. I know I didn’t make or receive any calls for the rest of the day (unusual in itself), and then this evening when we went to the local used bookstore to trade in some books, I realized I didn’t have it.
There are too many places the phone could be, especially in the mess of a house undergoing renovation. I spent forty minutes turning over boxes and re-tracing my steps before conceding it was not here. In the Airstream, if something was lost it could not remain lost for long, because there simply wasn’t enough space for something to be without getting in the way, and thus being discovered.
To my mind this dilemma is the direct result of having too much house around me. But that excuse reminds me of A.A. Milne’s story of Winnie The Pooh being stuck in Rabbit’s door.
“It all comes,” said Pooh crossly, “of not having front doors big enough.”
“It all comes,” said Rabbit sternly, “of eating too much.”
Perhaps Rabbit is right and it is really a matter of just being fluff-brained, like Pooh.
Things do get lost in Airstreams, I’m sure, but it takes real effort. I remember last winter when Rich C and I were camped in Tucson (this was before we bought the house). In a distracted fit of cleaning, he managed to put his cell phone in the trash, take the trash out to the dumpster, and only after the trash truck had emptied the dumpster 30 minutes later did he figure out what he’d done. By then the phone was halfway to a landfill, no doubt bleeping plaintively all the way.
I accompanied Rich on the drive over to the Verizon store to get a new phone. It was a long drive of self-remonstration, as I recall. I didn’t try to soften the blow for him either, agreeing with him every moment that he was a total doofus for tossing his phone in the trash. (That’s what guy friends do.) But his experience proved one thing: you can indeed lose a phone in an Airstream if you try hard enough.
The phone is an essential lifeline for full-time travelers and I would not be without it, even if I wasn’t working. That’s why we have two, and we keep them on separate networks. With two different networks we often find one phone works when the other doesn’t, giving a sort of redundancy and a slightly higher level of reliability. Being without mine feels like the time I sent in my camera for a week’s service. It’s one of my three essential tools: laptop, camera, and phone. With them operating normally, I can do anything — without them I feel naked and disarmed.
Eleanor and I have tried the obvious trick: calling the phone from another phone and listening for it. No joy. I also have contacted Verizon to put a temporary outgoing call block on it. I don’t want someone else finding it and making a few long calls to Paraguay. (This has happened to several people I know, and the phone companies are not good about waiving the bill.)
At this point I have to conclude that the phone is either quietly dead somewhere or beeping the “missed call” warning from deep in the cushions of a comfy chair at Bookman’s. I hope it passes a pleasant night. I’ll give the store a ring in the morning — from Eleanor’s phone.
February 27, 2008 at 9:19 pm · Filed under Home base, Travel / lifestyle musings
For most people, including us, it is a challenge to revise your earth-bound thinking to the world of full-time travel. There are so many presumptions that you have to toss out: the presumption of never-changing utilities (power, water, sewer, trash); the expectation that you’ll wake up every day and know where you are; the reliability of a weekly schedule.
But the process of tossing out those presumptions is very liberating, once you get the hang of it. As a full-time traveler without a house to maintain, you can focus on yourself rather than the structure around you. No tax bill, no mortgage, sure — but what about never having to sweep the front walk or paint the eaves?
We found that once on the road we had massive amounts of free time that had formerly been dedicated to mowing, shoveling snow, shopping for house items, caring for plants, and cleaning. I knew that would happen, but still it was amazing just how much time we spent servicing the house — literally 10 to 20 hours each week. It was a second job. And by selling the house and taking to the road, we’d essentially said to traditional society, “Take this job and shove it.”
Ah, those were the days, but we are now on the flip side of that, having come back to a house and finding ourselves completely immersed again in household duties. Suddenly it seems there is no time to do anything but take care of the next house-related task.
And my thinking has gone back to the mode of years ago when we last owned a house. Some of it is pretty bizarre. Case in point: I love my toilets. Yes, love. We finally found a low-flow toilet that actually works reliably (the Toto Ultramax). It works so well that I am even telling you about it, here, in public. It works so well that you could flush a live cat down it. (Note: I am cat lover as well as a toilet lover and don’t actually condone the practice of flushing cats.) As one of our contractors has said, “It makes you want to eat more just to see what it can take.”
OK, enough of that. My point is simply that homeowner-hood has taken over my brain and suddenly things like this not only matter, they are the top thoughts in my head. I am having actual concern about trivialities like leaves that blow into the carport, and decades-old cracks in the backyard wall. I am picking palm tree seeds from the gravel, and washing bird droppings off the windows. My number one goal this week is to — gasp — go shopping, for stuff like mattresses and chairs. What has happened? Did someone slip a double Prozac dose into my raisin bran?
In all this, there is no room for thoughts of adventure. I remember (vaguely) a time when we would awaken to draw back the bedroom curtains and be reminded of where we were that day. Then we’d grab the national park map and guide and plan a day of hiking, or sightseeing. Or we’d go walking around to explore a rally, or just open the windows and let the local smell (salt air, green forest, desert breeze) permeate the Airstream. I’d still have to do some work every day, but other than that my thoughts were of what we could do next to have fun or expand our horizons. Rarely did I think about cleaning or maintenance, and never about mowing, planting, or painting.
Well, in Tucson mowing is still low on the priority list, fortunately. So it’s not a total setback. But I am plagued by an emotion borne of homeownership: envy. I am horribly envious of my friends who are all in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park having fun. Other friends are getting together in Quartzsite this weekend. Worst of all, several of them have made piteous comments designed to make me feel better, like “Yep, I’ve been landlocked by my house too,” and “Don’t worry, someday you’ll get back on the road.” I want to be on the road now! If I sit here too much longer I may turn permanently green, and I don’t mean in the eco-friendly way.
I am ticking off the tasks that have to be completed before we can go. This weekend we are expecting Handy Jerry to come by and deal with some “punch list” items on the house. More interestingly, we will get delivery of our couch. (That might not seem like a big deal but it is to people who have spent a lot of time cross-legged on the rug lately.) And Emma has her big karate test on Saturday. This is all good, but it means yet another weekend stuck at home.
These tasks are passing by like a line of traffic on the highway. We’d like to get our chance to pull out, but they are so evenly spaced that we never seem to get a break. As soon as we see a break of four days or more in the schedule, we are going to hitch up and go somewhere — anywhere. And if we can’t see a break, we’ll make one. We’ll just schedule all the final tasks for the last two weeks of the month and take off between now and then. It’s risky, but worth a shot. That should get us out of homeowner-think and into mobile-think again — not to mention enlivening this blog a bit.
So let’s summarize:
- Homeownership can turn you green.
- In my world, the “homeless” wanderers are to be envied, and the stable home owners are to be pitied. (Yes, I live in opposite-land.)
- The best thing about Tucson is that lawns are optional.
- Toto makes a really great toilet.
Keep all that in mind. There will be a test later.
February 26, 2008 at 11:23 pm · Filed under Home base, Travel / lifestyle musings
At the moment our life feels like an endless stay at the airport. We’re awaiting a flight out but it never comes.
This weekend I was mentally rejuvenated by going to Las Vegas and hanging out with good friends. I came back to Tucson with a new perspective, and feeling ready to get the house project done. It’s a good thing too, because the news has gotten worse and worse, and without a break I might really be depressed about it.
The story behind this is too tedious to detail. Suffice to say that our countertops will not be installed until late in March, which means we won’t have appliances or sinks until nearly April. We have a choice: we can blow off the house and leave it unfinished, to be resolved this fall, or we can blow off our schedule and stay here until the house is at least habitable.
We’ve decided to stay, sort of. This means a major disruption to the schedule that I had posted about a week ago. The worst thing is that we will miss the Heart of Texas unit rally in Ft Davis entirely. We’ll also have to shove our scheduled stops in Weatherford, New Orleans, and Florida back about three weeks, and cut some other stops out entirely. Nobody is happy about this.
But there’s no point in agonizing about it. If we left things unfinished here we’d only be coming back to a project in October or November, and we don’t want to face that again. We want to come back to a house we can enjoy, not a project that drains our energy. The whole point of having a house was to have a comfortable and relaxing place to land between trips. The only way it can fill that role will be if we get it to a point where we can settle in when we return.
This is not all bad news. Since we have little to do in the house during March, except wait, we will look for an opportunity to take a shorter trip for a week or so between projects. This means we can re-visit the idea of going to Sonora with some friends who have expressed interest (and who happen to have spouses who are native Spanish speakers). We can also do some long weekends in southern Arizona at places that weren’t available to us during the coldest part of winter, like the Chiricahua Mountains.
I wish we could take off this week and join our friends at Anza-Borrego. As it turns out, several of our friends are coincidentally going to be there this week, including several characters you know if you’ve been reading this blog regularly: Bobby & Danine; Bill & Larry; Rich C and Sadira; and Jay and Cherie from Cheyenne. It sounds like a party — and we can’t go!
One happy reason that we can’t go has to do with Emma. She has made such tremendous progress at karate that she has achieved three stripes on her white belt. Her instructors have decided that this Saturday she will test for her yellow belt, which is a real compliment. Normally it takes at least three more weeks for a kid of her age to be ready for that test. To be ready, she has to learn some more phrases in Korean, study some rules, and learn one more new form. So this is a critical week for her.
The moral of the story is that delays happen, in any kind of traveling life. Long ago we learned to stay flexible. It will be a huge drag to miss our friends at the Fort Davis rally, but every setback opens up a new opportunity. It’s sort of fun not knowing exactly where or when we will be going, but having confidence that something interesting is about to happen. One way or another, we are going to get this Airstream back on the road. And we’ll find our friends again at some point. Like us, they are irrepressible travelers and they will pop up, sooner or later.
Once we get a few details squared away, I’ll post a new schedule here. Right now only know that we will be back in Vermont by June, and attending the Vintage Trailer Jam in Saratoga Springs NY during July 10-14. The rest is unknown … and as long as it is, I’ll enjoy the sensation of anticipation and the thrill of all the possibilities that lie ahead. Perhaps this “delay” thing isn’t going to be so bad after all.
February 19, 2008 at 11:50 pm · Filed under Home base
Our driveway campground is once again down to one Airstream. Our friends the Welshes have departed for adventures west of here, and I doubt we will ever see them in our driveway again. They plan to sell their Airstream when they complete their year of travel, because they’ll need to buy a new house, and it’s difficult to find a place to store an Airstream in their home area of northern Virginia.
I am saddened by this because I’d like to think they’ll return here someday, or that we could go camping together in the east next summer. I’m hoping circumstances will change to allow them to have some Airstream, if not this one, in the future.
It’s just 26 days to our departure too, if various factors come into alignment before then. The house is in a pretty good state, but not quite good enough to call “move-in ready”. We’ve discovered that the shower faucets in the hallway bath are also leaking behind the wall, and so yet another project has joined the list. We have, slowly and haphazardly, had to replace every single faucet in the house due to leaks. That includes all the outside garden hose spigots, the main house shutoff valve, the washing machine faucets, both toilets, both bathroom faucets, the kitchen faucet, and our hookup in the carport. This house was a water-conservation disaster. I think it was probably using a few hundred gallons a week just sitting here empty before we bought it.
We’re still reviewing our plans for the next voyage. We expect to be out in the Airstream for about 6-7 months this time. We’ve tentatively scratched Canada from the schedule, due to high fuel prices (even higher in Canada, and the weak US dollar doesn’t help), and the cost of the ferry to Newfoundland. If we find a sudden windfall that could change, but it’s not likely. However, we have been able to add in some interesting spots on the return trip west, including Arkansas and the four corners region (CO, UT, NM, AZ).
I am told by reliable sources that the Spring 2008 issue of Airstream Life has begun to arrive in the mailboxes of subscribers. If you don’t have yours yet, don’t worry because delivery time varies quite a bit across the country. Some people won’t see it until the end of the month. If you like the cover art, you can buy it printed on canvas here.
Since the magazine is arriving, I can make an announcement of the first-ever “Vintage Trailer Jam” to be held July 11-14 in Saratoga Springs NY. It’s co-sponsored by Airstream Life (me), Colin Hyde, and Vintage Trailer Supply (Steve Hingtgen). We’ve been working on this for several months, and I think it will be a great event. We’ve got educational seminars planned, slideshows, on-site demonstrations, a catered dinner, an Open House, and all kinds of other stuff. We’ll be camped on the grounds of the Saratoga Automobile Museum, and everyone who attends will get free admission to the museum.
Colin is down in Florida right now spreading the word at the Florida State Rally and at last week’s Tin Can Tourists rally, so I expect the event will fill up fast. It’s not just for Airstreams — so if you have any kind of trailer or motorhome more than 25 years old, we really want to see you there!
In the meantime, we’ll dream of fun times to come while we sleep in our concrete carport campground. It’s a little bit lonely without our friends next door, but soon we’ll be out there again, roaming around the country and meeting new folks.
Uke song of the day: “Kaze ni Naru” by Ayano Tsuji. It was the ending theme song for the anime movie “The Cat Returns.” (Chords here).
February 19, 2008 at 12:38 am · Filed under Home base
The older girls from next door and the girls here in our “campground” have gotten together, and weird things are happening. There are dance costumes all over the place, decorated cardboard boxes, and the odd head lying about. We try not to ask questions.
Since Bobby & Danine gave us the night off by taking the girls, Eleanor and I had a chance to discuss our travel plans over dinner. We are in danger of having to delay our departure because the countertops are likely to be late, and our couch may be too. If the countertops don’t go in on schedule, the appliances can’t be installed, nor the sinks. We worked out some contingency plans for every foreseeable circumstance — I hope.
One small step forward today: the cellular shades have been installed. We now have viable privacy in the house, which means that we could start sleeping in here if we had mattresses. I guess that’s the next item to be purchased, but since we’d still have to go the Airstream for cooking I think we’ll just keep sleeping in there too. We’re perfectly comfortable in it. In fact, I think the Airstream is more comfortable than the house, emotionally. The Airstream has been home for over two years, whereas the house is just a place where we work and spend money. Nobody is in a hurry to move out of our Airstream home just yet.
Today has been media day. I’ve uploaded a lot of photos to our Flickr album. You’ll find new photos of the Tucson Rodeo, the ASARCO copper mine, the Writer’s Roundup in Patagonia, and Sabino Canyon. I’ve also made a short instructional video about how the “changeover” gas regulator on an Airstream works, which is posted on the Airstream Life Media Community. I plan to shoot more such videos if people find them valuable. Let me know if there’s an Airstream-related topic you’d like to see explained or demonstrated in a short video.
We have only about three weeks left in the schedule, and there is still much I want to do. Bobby & Danine are heading to Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument tomorrow and I’d like to tag along. The Fabers want us to go to Sonora with them soon. Our friend Brent from Tempe want to go camping for a weekend. And I’d like to get out to San Diego to play uke with friends there. But we can’t do everything, and when we arrived here we committed to getting the house done first and foremost. That’s still the plan. With the small amount of time left in the schedule, it seems likely that we’ll need to stay put until the Big Departure.
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