My blog may still be unfocused, but I’m starting to gain a bit of that elusive edge in my life. I’ve finally quit straddling the fence on what I plan to do next with my life. I’ve spent my last multi-hour session on eBay salivating over RV options for the foreseeable future. I’m no longer going to be visiting all the forums and blogs dedicated to the “on the road lifestyle” and conversion vans will no longer catch my eye… at least not for a few years.

Last week I bought a small truck. It’s an old one, but it’s solid. I will be replacing the transmission before long, but the body, interior and engine appear to be in fantastic shape. If I get a wild hair, I may paint it. Time will tell. (I always have wanted a seriously purple truck!).

Confession: I love driving a small truck. It makes me happy. I prefer a stick-shift, but this little automatic is still pretty darn sweet. The truck gets excellent gas mileage and I don’t believe in keeping up two vehicles, so once the truck is on the road, I’ll be selling my car.

With that truck and a relatively inexpensive topper, I can do most of the travel/camping stuff I want to do — without the need to purchase an expensive RV and learn to maintain all the systems onboard. I’ll go more simple in my plans and will actually be able to begin the traveling (at least the shorter trips) sooner.

I’m already planning a woodworking project with my father, the moment I have the truck and topper ready to travel. He’s going to help me build a bed-frame in the back with storage space underneath for holding all the camping stuff. I’ll be able to fit a marine-grade cooler, my kerosene cook stove and my good-sized tent under one side with food, clothing and supplies under the second half.

At some point in the future, I may invest in one of those tents that connects to the topper to make a “living space” while retaining the truck bed for the sleeping area. I’m not sure at this point that it offers anything worthwhile over having one of the two tents I already own pitched right beside the truck. Heck, since I prefer the one that is large enough to permit me to stand up, I may give the smaller one to someone else. After all, simple camping will soon be possible without even PITCHING a tent! I’ll only pitch the tent if we are staying put or more than a couple of days — at which point I’ll prefer a larger one with more creature comforts.

If I’m feeling particularly inspired while building my little travel thingee, I may even do long “drawers” so there’s no crawling back in the hole to pull out stuff — and so nothing gets lost. I already have a memory-foam mattress that I think will make the sleeping experience pretty darn awesome. And if I like it and use it alot, I may even insulate it for more “all season” use.

It should also break down easily for storage outside the truck, so I can still use my truck to haul wood, move furniture, bring in fruit trees for planting and whatever else inspires me.

I figure the truck will buy me quite a bit of independence/automomy without much sacrifice. It has three seatbelts, so Alex and Prince (my puppy) and I can travel in comfort — and if it’s necessary, I can squeeze in one extra person from time to time.

I’ve listed Serenity, my airstream, on Craigslist and will (hopefully) have her sold within the next few weeks. I posted her on Facebook marketplace a few months back, but had continued to battle with the “do I want to sell, do I want to keep” decision. There was basically no traffic on the marketplace, so I was able to continue with my internal battle. It was a tough decision, but selling her is the right one for me now. I’m simplifying!

With my new emphasis on the 80/20 rule as it applies to my life… I figure using the truck and setting it up like this will give me 80% of the joy of being able to travel, camp, take off and be free at a moment’s notice with only 20% of the expense, effort and hassle.

One major life decision down, a few dozen more to go!

I just saw this today and had to share it. Interesting find for this morning, since I was up late LATE last night looking at RVs. Just before I did finally go to bed, I determined that it was time to either decide to travel or to decide to stay still on my farm — but to make a decision one way or the other and quit wasting all my time juggling scenarios.

I haven’t been able to make the decision yet, but this car seems like a little of both worlds, doesn’t it? 360 degree monitor in the center? Now that’s cool.

Sleek and silver airstream car, by Ford

I wonder if this will bump-up the sales of the Airstream Basecamp?

GrassRoads.Blogspot.com recently published some great shots of Pakistani “Magic Buses” (including the one to the left). I’ve always thought that the gypsy look with wagon homes was a cool, overdone look, but this style is even MORE ornate and creative!

There was a book I read back in 1989 — I actually got it from the public library in Lexington Park, Maryland — that had tons of photos of gypsy and alternative mobile homes. Most were hand-built and all were amazing.

I think I can trace my fascination with tiny homes in general and mobile homes (non-traditional) to that book, way back when. I only wish I could remember the NAME of the book.

I’d love to have it in my own personal library now.

I found a cool “tiny house” RV online today — a 1978 31′ Airstream on eBay that is simply too pretty not to go and ogle. This classic Airstream has been taken down to the ribs and built back beautifully — and better than it was originally. (The owners took the 6-Million Dollar Man approach… “We can make him stronger, faster, better…”) And better he is.

The pricetag is a bit higher than your average Airstream, at $170K, but it’s oh-so-nice. Look at all the custom Airstream photos here.

Need another bonus? This particular Airstream was featured on Wonderfalls (a great little TV series — and one I enjoy on DVD at my house). So it’s not just pretty and cool — it’s also FAMOUS! *grin*

Download a PDF of interior Airstream renderings here.

Ok, this one is a new concept in my tiny house experience. How would you like a fold-up house that is only 8 foot across during transport, but rather spacious when it’s set up?

It only takes a couple hours to go from transport stage to fully habitable in this “habitaflex house”

Be sure to check out the sizes and the floorplans on this customizable folding housing/working/office unit. When folded out, the houses range from 18×22 to 34×22 ft. Amazing design!

Ok, today I made the decision that I was going to sell Serenity, my Airstream trailer. My dream was always to have an Airstream Bambi, and pull it with a 4-WD small to medium sized vehicle. I purchased a larger RV because my former spouse refused to consider a Bambi as a real travel option. Now, I’m going to look for a smaller option to avoid buying one of those uber-large trucks to pull the RV. I’d rather not. I have a little Honda scooter, and I’d like to have a bambi with a bike rack to hold it and pull it with a Jeep or an old Land Rover. But I digress…

Tonight, I was over on eBay preparing to list my Airstream when I started looking around (I have a bad case of the can’t-help-its when it comes to such things) and I found the following listing: (more…)

I love the concept of a roll-up computer the size of a largish dinner napkin. Don’t you?

The design (and it is a design concept only, btw) is like a latex tablet pc that’s uber-thin. Kinda cool.

On the topic of tiny houses, this one is another oddity. But isn’t it fun?

See more of the interior and exterior here: http://itsjustabitoffun.com/date/2007/8/20/.

The cruise was wonderful. It was just what I needed… pure relaxation. On the boat, cruisers are treated like babies… rocked to sleep each night, entertained constantly and fed every three to four hours. The only way to be bored is to choose to be that way. Eating that much (and that often) is nearly an Olympic event… and it’s exhausting. I’m afraid to step on the scale! (more…)

Byron’s Art Club took a trip to the Cincinnati Art Museum Saturday. Some of the parents went and I took Alex and Brittney along with us just for kicks. It was a wonderful day. The museum was enjoyable and when we returned to town we went to Joseph-Beth Booksellers and enjoyed a Mocha Latte and browsed the stacks. (more…)

I’m working toward the move to the farm while planning our Christmas trip. (I’m taking the kids on a cruise instead of doing a traditional holiday this year.) Honestly, with everything that’s been going on, I could use the break.

Of course, despite my long-term planning, the day is coming at me quickly, and I still have not finished all the preparations, the shopping, the packing, the “stuff” affiliated with this trip. I will, but it’s starting to be a source of stress rather than the holiday stress relief I’d hoped it would be.

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This morning, I’m having a hard time staying focused. I’m headed out in December for a Cruise and that’s really prompted my travel bone to ache with desire.

It hasn’t helped that my mother recently gave me information on SkyBus.com.

I’ve been cruising the $10 flights (No, I’m not kidding) and wondering if I cared that I’d have to re-arrange my life to take a three day jaunt to Boston, or that for only $50 each way, I could plan my first visit to Canada (Vancouver). (more…)

I tripped across a great little explanatory blog about the wavelengths used by satellite ISP services (WildBlue in particular) and I thought I’d share that resource with any rural readers considering this option.

Personally, I had DirecWay as a satellite ISP when I was on the farm. When it worked, it was great, when it didn’t — it sucked. And the longer I had it, the slower it got — as more users came on and they throttled it more and more each day to pull in more people without increasing bandwidth and we all had to share.

It got pretty bad toward the end.

Having seriously considered getting WildBlue Internet recently, I found this information to be timely and welcome. Thanks, Tom!

Want to call information for free? Willing to listen to a 15-second audio ad to avoid the usual information charges? Maybe you are out on your cell phone (like I was this weekend) and need some info to save drive time? (more…)

I found this today and wanted to share. It’s a swiss army knife for the girly-girl. (My daughter would LOVE this one… maybe for Christmas?) I’m not even a pink lover, but this is pretty cool. According to the site, it includes: mirror, flashlight, scissors, nail file, tweezers, pen, pill box, perfume bottle, knife, ruler, bottle opener, screwdriver, corkscrew, safety pin, needle + thread, key chain. Whew! That’s a lot of stuff in a 0.75″w x 1″d x 3.5″h package!

Not everyone is a bag lady at heart — but (as most of you know) I love “go bags” and boxes and containers — especially those made of wood and leather. With that said, maybe this “write up” pulled a little harder at my desire to purchase than it should… (more…)

Next Friday, I’m headed out the door to Florida. I made a promise to myself a few years ago that traveling was important and that I was not going to turn down any opportunity to travel or see something new that I’d not seen. Sometimes that makes life a little difficult, sometimes it makes things a bit more interesting.

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This weekend, I got a wild hair. No big surprise for most of you, but it happens from time to time. I decided I needed to start arranging my office in the Airstream to take up less space. Right now, the Airstream is only for my office, but in a couple years, it will be “shared space” when we hit the road. Between now and then, I need to determine how to get everything I need into a much smaller footprint. MUCH smaller. So, I’m starting now. After all, if there’s something that’s horrible that I simply cannot abide, I’d rather know now. I’d like the opportunity to discover and fix the problem before three of us are living full time in the space I’m currently calling “My office” (emphasis on the ‘MY”).

I thought I’d be able to live with just the tablet, for example. So I tried going back to working on a single screen. It ain’t a’gonna happen. Period. I despise the conformity of not being able to keep a window I’m using open on a second monitor and cutting and pasting, dragging or referring to that material in the other screen.

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We arrived in Memphis just after 1:00 a.m. and after a few hours of sleep, we hit downtown today. I was looking forward to spending my birthday in Memphis and it was a wonderful day. Sushi for lunch (check out BlueFin if you are ever in town — or if you are looking for a great place to eat while at the NCMR2007 conference.)

My sister and new nephew came down with me, so I had excellent company on the trip and have had fun out and about today. It’s much better than flying solo. Ezra, now at the ripe old age of four months, was a real trouper. We kept that poor baby out and about all day long. He seemed to love it. Tomorrow, the two of them will be doing her own thing while I’m in sessions.

This afternoon we then went to Peabody Place where we did a little
window shopping, picked up a couple items, checked out the Asian art
museum and relaxed with a large coffee and some gourmet chocolates.
Yeah, the diet is shot until I return home… then vigilance! But for
now, I’m loving life… and wondering why I don’t spend more days like
this.

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This WAS the year that was supposed to be less stressful, right? This was gonna be THE year for me… wasn’t it? So how come we are already past the one week mark and I’m still playing catch-up?

So far, almost everything that could go wrong HAS gone wrong. My Tablet started acting up, so I spent last weekend (and much after-hours time yesterday) getting it back from a ground-floor regen in preparation for my upcoming trip. My Hubby’s birthday was nearly ruined when I left the grocery store with only half of the bags I purchased… leaving the jumbo shrimp splurge for his dinner in the self-checkout lane. (Note to self: when stressed out, let someone else ring up my groceries, so I’m sure I get my goods in my basket after paying for them.)

My sister called, over the weekend inquiring about all the details of the trip. There are some times in my life when I think I am a planner. All my friends laugh at my “every detail planning” methods. But, I’m trying to reform. I’m trying to plan less and live more. My sister… she’s a planner’s planner. She wondered if I’d done the MapQuest on how to get to the hotel and if I knew the best restaurants around that area and would I like her to do that for me.

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