Into the Future!

A little update from the road - don't worry, we are still alive :-) we wrapped up an epic 30-day road trip some time ago in our trusty van. We saw so many beautiful west coast scenes like this one from a stretch of Hwy 101 in Oregon - so magical. We also made it to the desert and the Grand Canyon before landing in Colorado!

Life in the van was simple- not too unlike our life back home in the Airstream. We lost track of days pretty quickly, and there was even an entire night where we didn't know exactly which state we were sleeping in. Ahh, the luxuries that only life on the road can bring :-). But eventually we started craving a real bed and indoor heat, especially as we crept toward our childhood hometown and our families. 

We spent the holidays with our loved ones, and Agnes enjoyed stretching out in a real house after life in the van. And now...we are headed into the future!! Seriously, they are already a day ahead of us in New Zealand, so we are taking that time-warping flight to see what's going on in the 'morrow land, kiwi-style. We'll give you a full report from the future. Until then, Happy new year!

A Tiny House Goes Home

There was much to celebrate last weekend on Bainbridge Island, where our friends are forging their own tiny house adventure! It doesn't seem like so long ago that Meghan and Christian bought a flat-bed trailer and started framing out a tiny cabin on wheels in hopes that they would someday move in and live small. They are nearly done putting the finishing touches on their home and the time came to hitch it up to a big truck and haul it down the road to it's new home. I joined several of their friends to offer moral support and take pictures :). Having suffered through my own anxiety about hauling the Airstream for the first time, I knew a little about what they were going through! But, their house weighs about three times as much as our Airstream, and is quite a bit taller -- so I'd say they had a much bigger challenge on their hands! 

First, we drove the route and measured for low-hanging branches that might hit the tiny house. There was a bit of branch trimming to be done. We also measured the power lines! Fortunately we didn't have to cut any of those...

Then everyone got distracted for an hour or so by the massive amounts of apples just dripping from the trees and the fact that this cider press was just sitting there, so everyone started picking fruit and pressed a gazillion gallons of cider!

Time to get serious! The house was hitched up and they were on the road. I am always amazed and what big trucks can do. A serious hill up a gravel road was the first part of the drive this rig had to tackle, and aside from the stress on the driver (Christian), it went up no problem! Freddy (in green above), set up a Go Pro camera on the truck and made a fun video of the move if you want to see more!

Flowers, apples, and champagne. All you need to move a tiny house!
(Plus one big-a** truck!)

And friends, of course!

And because this is an Airstream blog,  here's the tiny shiny coffee trailer I found comfort in at the Bainbridge Harvest Fair the next day :)

Goodbye Summer, Hello Big Adventures

It took us nearly all summer to get the party lights up, but we did get them plugged in just before Fall began, and we did have a party!

Some big changes are coming up for the Blue Moon residents. J, myself, and the furball Agnes are packing up and going adventuring for awhile! We've decided it's time for some travel, so in just a few weeks we'll be climbing into our trusty van and beginning a long road trip. I know it would be way more awesome and blog-worthy if we were hitching up our Airstream to Trusty Van and taking it with us, but in truth, we are light travelers, and we don't need to take our tin can home with us. The van will be our even tiny-er home on our road trip. We're planning on about five months - part of that time we'll be in New Zealand! Blue Moon will be here waiting for us on our island when we return to living in it in the spring. Here's some pictures from the end of a beautiful Airstream summer, and a nod to what's ahead for us...

Partying Airstream - style with other tiny house friends - all of them are nearly done with their own Tumbleweed Tiny Houses! Sorry you got the floor Andrew :-/

New Airstream resident (outdoors)

I have pretty strict standards for what counts as a Beach Day. You have to actually lie down on the beach and relax. Walking the dog on the beach doesn't count, and driving by for a quick look at the beach does not count. So, 12 is maybe not quite as many beach days as we had hoped for this summer, but as J puts it, "That's nearly two weeks of just lying on the beach!"

Savoring Summer's last blooms from Lopez Island

Mmm Peach Cobbler in the cast-iron skillet

Full Disclosure Time: So, it's time to face some behind-the-scenes of the blog realities. The first of which is that we have this room full of stuff (it's like our "shed" of sorts). We have done a TON of downsizing over the last two years - just yesterday we took another sizable load to the thrift store. We're not big purchasers either, but we do own a lot of toys. You know, like two complete sets of kayaking garb (one for each of us), two complete sets of ski gear, a whole bunch of rock climbing equipment, camping gear, spare bicycle parts...you get the picture. These of course are things that adventurers cannot part with, and some of them will last a lifetime. Another reality is that almost all of the stuff pictured here would actually fit in the storage we designed under our bed and under our couch, and that's where it started out, but...in the winter we started to see mildew growing on our stuff that we put under there :(

So, as adventure awaits us we'll be sorting, packing, re-sorting and organizing all of this gear and deciding what to take. Skiing in Colorado and surfing in New Zealand, down coats and swimsuits! It's taken me awhile to stop stressing about this big change, the unknown future, and the open-ended-ness of it all, but i'm coming around :)

You may not see very many Airstream-related posts over the next five months - or very many posts at all depending on how much fun we're having! But have no fear, the Blue Moon Chronicle will carry on in some form or another, and if nothing else, come spring of 2015 we'll be back to all-things-Airstream!