Vagabond Dreams

A couple of nights ago Sam and I were laying in bed talking while she drifted off to sleep. At some point the conversation changed and Sam suggested that as soon as we are able, we should buy a vintage Airstream trailer, remodel it, sell or store all of our belongings and hit the road with dogs for a year or until we feel like giving it up. Sam doesn't make declarations of this sort very frequently and when she does, she is serious. I know this because I used to always say crap like this in a sort of casual dreamy way, like "yeah we should totally hold a scrabble tournament," or "yes we should get a hold of a monkey and a saddle and teach it to ride The Baron," and she would fully expect me to have the entrance fees collected, the brackets drawn up, and have purchased the tiny cowboy hat. I meant like "wouldn't it be awesome" and she you know, took me on my actual word. I say all this to emphasize that she is not fucking around here.

She fell asleep and I just laid there, my brain reeling. I generally can fall asleep easily at the slightest provocation, but I was wide awake, thinking about the prospect of this venture. She could not have picked something that better summed up my own interests and our favorite activities. We love road trips. I can absolutely say that I am at my happiest when we are traveling somewhere together, listening to podcasts on the stereo, pausing it after every interesting note to discuss what we just heard. Sam has mentioned it to me and I feel the same that this is what I always imagined that being grown up and married would be like. Also I love the idea of living in a small, self-sufficient space, living ultra efficiently off the grid.

So despite my best efforts to doze off, I could not suppress my giddiness while visions of trailers and travel danced in my head. I spent next several hours scouring the web for some idea of the cost of a vintage trailer and got hooked on a couple of forums dedicated to Airstreams. I also discovered that there are actually quite a few folks out there who are "full-timing" in their trailers, traveling the country who aren't silver-haired retirees but in fact are people like Sam and I, young marrieds who work along their voyage. Exhausted, I finally passed out but worried that I was getting too excited too quickly.  I was worried that maybe Sam was just speaking out of drowsiness,  but when she mentioned again the next day I knew it was for real. She had discovered some folks on Offbeat Home (a new website by the woman who wrote Offbeat Bride which was a helpful force in our wedding planning) who were doing just this thing. She even turned me on to several other blogs of folks out there "full-timing" in their Airstreams.

Its going to be a while before we make our vagabond dream come true. We both agreed we need to get our financial house in order and try and save up for the trailer rather that trying to buy it on credit but I feel like we are both committed to the idea and in a year or so we will be hopefully on the road, Vanna and The Baron in tow exploring the USA, trying to figure out where we will make our home.