Airstream Life

Well, it looks like we’re finally getting out of the Airstream, our habitation extending much longer than anticipated. Tonight is our last night. Like the passengers on Gilligan’s Island, this is the tale of how our 3 hour tour turned into a 7 month long sitcom.

When we moved in on April 26, the plan was Airstreaming until the kids got out of school while finishing the garage apartment to move into.  One month into homeless, rainy, cold camping at the Woodchip Campground, it became clear we weren’t going to be able to finish the apartment in the way we wanted, while building the main house.

Enter plan #2: Keep Airstreaming with family for the summer, and find a place to rent for 8 months when school starts. No problem, right? After a month of calling, apartment visiting, and coming up short, we returned from our August month in Maine to our driveway, now cleared of Durisol, for the kids to start school.  Still no place to live. So we set up camp in the driveway, complete with hacking into the sewer and electric.

Enter plan #3: Keep Airstreaming in the driveway, hope the city doesn’t kick us off our property, and find a place to rent. I spent every weekend in September looking for a short term rental. I put out two Craig’s List ads. I called every home-seller in our area with homes on the market longer than 4 weeks, hoping they’d consider renting. No luck. I was sitting with $10K to (grudgingly) spend on renting a place to live, and couldn’t find anyone willing. It was nuts.

Enter plan #4: Boone. 

Turns out, one of my partner’s parents go to Florida every winter and leave their beloved golden retriever, Boone,  with a local family to watch. This year, that family was unable to watch Boone.  So Boone had a home, but no family.  And we are a family without a home.  Perfect match.  All we had to do was stay afloat until December 8.

And we’re almost there. I’m not going to say the time flew by. It didn’t. It’s been a very long 7 1/2 months living with 5 people in 200 square feet, while still working full time professional jobs.   7 1/2 months without real internet, freely running water, normal plumbing, or kitchen appliances.  7 1/2 months of going to bed and waking up with the kids, while mountains of emails and work usually done after the kids went to bed piled up.

Cooking has been challenging, baking nearly impossible. Not being able to simply order take-out or buy bread and baked goods at the grocery due to food allergies has made this a particularly crazy challenge. Ryan made lasagna in the Airstream once, and it took nearly 6 hours. We’ve had too many smoked meats and far too few vegetables. I shudder to think what my cholesterol and LFT’s are right now.

On the upside, it was mayoral election year, so the mayor took a break from hassling us. Other than some random person complaining about our Porta-Potty, the city seems to have taken a blind eye to our squatting on our land. The weather has been ridiculously warm this fall. Just one little dusting of snow, and now it’s 60 the first week of December.

I think we’re going to make it.  Let’s just hope those 18 months of allergy shots will help us with Boone.

Life in the construction zone is coming to a close. 32 weeks have gone by reasonably quickly.  Like Mark Watney stuck on Mars, this has been a test of adaptability. I think we can safely say, the kids are going to remember this year forever.

We spent time at the fancy laundromat, the one with big TVs, WiFi, a coffee shop and creperie.

We ate reasonably well, despite not having a kitchen.

We wore headlamps quite often, in this case because the ice cream for rootbeer floats was stored in the deep freeze out in the garage.

Or in this case, because the espresso machine was out in the garage as well.

We did Halloween.

We watched movies, some very appropriate to life in contained quarters.

We tried to rig up something to practice piano.

We tried to keep our day jobs, often converting the Hab into an “office”.

And I think we successfully deceived ourselves into thinking this was totally normal. Heck, there’s a whole magazine dedicated to people who choose to live this way.

And while I wouldn’t choose this lifestyle, it’s hard to explain the feeling of coming home to a quiet, pitch black driveway…but if you focus very carefully, you can see home.

Once you open those doors, the warmth and chatter and laughter come spilling out.  The party begins, because we’re all home in the Hab together.

Movie night in the Airstream tonight.  We watched Rocky a while back, tonight it was time for Rocky II.

I forgot how many good life lessons are in that movie, lessons about squandering money, getting a “dirty job” to pay bills, losing a job due to “union rules”,  selling extravagant items when the payments are too high.  But the ending, the ending of Rocky II is just the best. Jack nearly crawled out of his skin, sweet kid.

Winter is coming. We have another 2 1/2 weeks in the Airstream. Today was the first snow.

Historically, we’re pretty lucky. Last year at this time we’d already had 28 inches of snow. I can’t even imagine.

Jack and Nick thought it would be a good idea to hide their snowballs from the girls in the PortaPotty. Smart, but gross.

The view from our bedroom window.

There are a few things about living in an Airstream that are so surreal, they’re just plain comical. Rolling out of a camper to go testify in Lansing in front of the House Health Policy Committee on behalf of MSMS in opposition to the FSMB Interstate Licensing Compact has to be one of them. I think I did ok.

It was the hospital systems, GOP representatives, and the AARP against me. Here’s what I said. We’ll see what happens.

Katahdin, even the “easiest” route of Chimney Pond to Saddle Trail is 5 1/2 miles one way, gaining nearly a mile in elevation.

We weren’t exactly sure we’d make it, as our first attempt summiting nearly 15 years ago was thwarted by a wind and hail storm at the Tableland, 1/2 mile from the peak in the middle of summer.  Because we were young, we tried again the next day and reached the peak.

This time we had one shot. The day started out beautiful, but with forecasts of 90 degree weather. Say what? 90 in Millinocket? It was only 94 in Tuscon.  As we reached the Tableland, deja vu set in as a storm system parked firmly over the peak with thick fog and a temperature drop to below 50. It was nuts.

The kids still did great. I actually had to tell Jack not to run around at the peak, afraid he’d run into someone or slip off the edge.

The next day we got up and hobbled a shorter 3 mile hike to Blueberry Ledges and the waterslide…with leeches.