March 3, 2007 at 10:05 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
I’m counting down the days until Eleanor and Emma are back, and now there’s only one day left … I hope. Eleanor is still not completely clear of her cold. If she’s not ready to fly Sunday, we’ll have to reschedule their flights AGAIN. Needless to say, none of us are happy about this. We’ll be thinking long and hard the next time we schedule air travel in the winter cold & flu season.
This morning I met up with a fellow Airstreamer (and blog reader) at his encampment just a few miles from our site. Bill and his wife are parked in a slick 2005 International CCD 28 amongst the mesquite trees and creosote bushes near the Tanque Verde wash. We killed a couple of hours talking about Tucson and the area, and then I had to head out to go look at more houses.
Since I’m on my own, I am free to roam around and go do “guy stuff”. On the way back to the campground I spotted the Pima County Fairgrounds and decided to go check it out. The fairgrounds have hundreds of hookup sites and apparently large rallies are held there. But more interesting was the nearby racetrack. I wouldn’t have spotted it except for the sound of roaring engines.
With a little investigating it became apparent the races were free & open to the public, so I put the long lens on the Nikon and climbed up into the stands. There were virtually no spectators other than the participants themselves.
Just about every sort of thing you can imagine was racing there: drag cars, motorcycles, stock cars, jalopies, trucks, and some wheeled things that defied categorization. Many were (apparently) street legal cars that people just took out for a quick sprint. I saw some pretty mismatched races too, such as the VW Beetle versus the Chevy Camaro. Everyone was just out to have some fun on a typical clear winter day in southern Arizona.
This Airstream was not racing. In fact, it wasn’t even open for business. I’ve been seeing so many converted Airstreams selling food & coffee lately that I’ve stopped taking pictures of most of them. I used to think there were only a few in the country, but really there are dozens if not hundreds. I’ve spotted three in Tucson alone so far.
Having time to myself has been fun but I am looking forward to being reunited and getting on with our adventures. Cross your fingers for us!
March 2, 2007 at 9:03 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
It does not look like this in Tucson.
That’s Lake Champlain, with the ice breaking up. In the middle foreground you can see a row of Adirondack chairs and a set of stair down to the beach. On the horizon is New York state. This is the view Eleanor and Emma had today, as they nursed their colds.
Out of mercy to them I am not posting a photo of what it looked like in Tucson today, but you can probably guess. Endless sunshine, dry air, cactus and hillside. I suppose it might get boring but just when it does a little bit of weather comes through.
I think any place would get monotonous to us, after the ever-changing scenery of travel, so if I have to pick a sort of monotony I will happily pick the sunny kind.
I am getting to know my way around this town better every day. Hunting for houses will do that to you. I am forced to cruise from neighborhood to neighborhood as I follow the GPS’s directions. Already I find myself spotting handy shortcuts. Today’s list of house “drive-bys” was seven addresses long.
As if this blog weren’t enough, I accepted an offer from Gather.com to be a twice-monthly contributor on the subject of “travel with family.” I’ll be digging through my archives from the past 17 months of this blog to find some of the most relevant posts, and revising them specifically for the Gather audience. You can find those posts at http://travel.gather.com around the 10th and 24th of each month.
March 1, 2007 at 5:30 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
I’m back in the Airstream! Yahoooooooooooo!
Seeing all my friends in Florida was great, but it’s just as great to be home again. The Airstream was just like I left it (perhaps a tiny bit dustier) and moving back in was like putting on a pair of comfortable old shoes.
But it’s particularly good because we’ve changed our plans again and will be hitting the road next week! On the road again at last …. ahhhhh …..
This happened as a result of a bunch of coincidences: Eleanor decided she wanted to see Anza-Borrego Desert State Park again, our friend Rich C announced he’d be coming back to Anza Borrego next week (he’s there now, but plans to leave and then come back), and our friend Bill Doyle (and his partner Larry) said they are going to be in Anza-Borrego next week too! Plus, our monthly site here in Tucson expires on the 7th.
I can’t resist that sort of karma. So instead of extending our reservation here, we’re going to head out to Anza Borrego, which is about two hours east of San Diego, spend a few days, and then come back to Tucson to resume house-hunting. We’ll probably detour to Puerto Penasco on the way back too, so we’ll finally get the Mexican jaunt we’ve been planning for.
Perhaps if you live in southern California you can join us too? It’s one of our favorite spots in the entire USA, and the more the merrier! We will be camping in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park from March 7-10. We’ll be in the Palm Canyon campground on the first two nights, and then head out to the desert just outside town and boondock for the weekend there with all the other desert rats.
February 28, 2007 at 8:58 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
It seems the only constant of our travels is that nothing stays static. Especially plans.
With all of us dispersed to the corners of the United States (Rich in Florida, E&E in Vermont, trailer in Arizona), and reuniting a week later than planned, the rest of our schedule has been pushed back as well. I was already concerned about having time to complete the Summer magazine and get ready for Mexico by March 10, and now time is even shorter.
Moreover, we haven’t invested as much time in house hunting as we would have liked, so taking off to Mexico for two weeks seems like a poor choice now. On the other hand, I really want to go to Mexico, and mid-March is likely to be the best time for me to take off from work … so it has been hard to decide what to do.
But the decision is made: instead of two weeks in Mexico, we will go for perhaps 3-6 days, and only as far as Puerto Penasco instead of deeper into Sonora. This will at least give us a taste of the procedures involved in crossing the border with an RV and it will have the advantage of keeping our Mexican insurance costs lower. We’ll make notes for a longer trip later this spring or next fall.
This will also lower the pressure so that we can make time for a trip to southern California in March or April. Certain friends in the San Diego and Los Angeles areas are expecting us, and I don’t want to disappoint them.
Also, Bert & Janie have been in touch. They’re in New Orleans and heading our way. We expect to see them in a few days out in Tucson. I plan to take Bert out for a long bike ride or hike … but he doesn’t know that yet.
Tonight I am packing up to head back to Arizona. I’ll reopen the Airstream and get some work done while I wait for Eleanor and Emma to return on Sunday. It has been too long since the Airstream roamed the roads, so I’m looking forward to getting it out again the minute I’ve met my deadline for the Summer issue — assuming that our plans don’t change again!
February 27, 2007 at 7:57 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Tonight Brett and I drove about 50 miles over to Haines City, where Wendimere and Bill live. You might recall that we parked the Airstream here last November. Wendimere has just published her first book and the first review copy arrived on Friday, so we came over to celebrate it and have a really nice organic dinner.
Wendimere and Bill with the first copy of her book
Wendimere’s book is entitled “The Health Chic Guide: Hip, Fun, and Delicious Living” and although it’s not directly related to Airstreaming we’re going to carry it in the Airstream Life store. I was really impressed with the quality of her work and the diversity of topics Wendimere managed to cover in it. Since she self-published it, people won’t be able to find it at very many places and I think it’s a really relevant topic to a lot of people who are concerned about living a more healthy life. Check it out here.
So now I can announce the rest of our plan for the bookstore. Over the past few months I’ve mentioned books that I found particularly good for travelers, like the Mexico camping book by Mike & Terri Church. I’ve decided to try to carry as many of those books as possible in our web store so you can find them if you want, and hopefully some of you will support this blog by buying the books from us instead of from some other online retailer.
As part of this, I’d welcome your nominations for great travel books. I’m interested in unusual books that make good reading or exceptionally good information. For example, a few months back Andy recommended “Sailing Around The World” by Capt Joshua Slocum. Mike recommended “A Cook’s Tour” by Anthony Bourdain, Wendimere gave me a copy of “Blue Highways” by William Least-Heat Moon, and Bobby lent me “Over The Edge of The World,” by Laurence Bergreen.
I liked them all and in the past few months I have recommended them to you. Eventually we’ll get some of these in the store too, and hopefully a few newer books. So let me know if you’ve got a favorite tale or travel resource book that we might want to include in the store and recommend to other blog readers!
February 26, 2007 at 9:03 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
These days Tampa is like my second home. I hadn’t expected to be here this long, but hey … enjoy it.
However, today is Monday and that means plenty of work to be done. Brett & I parked ourselves in his home and spent the day pounding the keys of our computers. It seems like a million projects needed to be addressed: new products in the web store, article editing, planning for the Fall issue, tax returns, customer service issues, bills, etc.
I was asked last week at the rally how people can become full-timers and still make a living from the road. I get this question a lot. It’s a tough topic because the answer is so dependent on the person asking the question.
Basically my answer is that you need to look inside yourself, decide what you like and what you are skilled at doing, and then follow your heart. Going full-timing is a choice made by people who are willing to take a chance at their dream. It’s only one step further to do the same with your career.
The second thing I tell people is that they need to consider whether their goal is to make money or to travel. It’s hard to do both well at the same time. Many full-timers I know choose to alternate working and traveling, two or three months at a time. Others work casually on small background projects all the time.
I rarely meet people like myself, who work every day and try to wrap travel around a “regular” day job. It’s a difficult arrangement. It works for me because I really like what I do and the feeling of growing a small business is a big reward. Also I have an essential asset: my family is supportive of mixing work and play into one seamless lifestyle.
So now you can see why I say, “It depends on you,” when someone asks me how to make money on the road. There’s no simple answer. But — it can be done.
Tonight we decided a nice break from work would be dinner and a movie. Here in Tampa you can get both at the same time, at the Pitcher Show. Tonight’s flick: “Ghost Rider” with Nicholas Cage. It was actually much better than we expected … nice escapism from a long day “in the office.”
February 25, 2007 at 9:14 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Last night when we got back from the campfire Brett commented that Sunday would be a good day to sleep in. But there was no chance of that. The crowd departs this rally early. At dawn we were awoken by the sound of rattling diesel engines, spouses calling to each other, the squeaking of awnings coming down and hitches being tightened.
I rolled over and managed to sleep to 8 a.m., then got up to watch the load-out. It’s fun to see hundreds of Airstreams slowly ambling along the dusty fairground roads, before hitting the highway.
Before they get to hit the road, however, most stopped at one of the three dump stations at the fairgrounds. The line runs about 45 minutes at the peak time, which is between 9 and 10 a.m. By 11, the fairgrounds are mostly empty.
It turns out that Emma has a cold and so we have delayed her flight home from Vermont until next Sunday. Since I don’t have any particular reason to run back to Tucson and have plenty of friends here, I also set my flights back a few days, so the blog will continue from Tampa until Thursday.
In the picture above Emma is by the frozen lakeshore, but Eleanor reports from Vermont that the ice on Lake Champlain has broken up. I like getting these pictures but each one makes me glad for the sunshine and swaying palm trees of Florida.
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