The Airstream Dream is not... dead

[Ray Eklund]

Boondocking is a matter of mind over matter. Because if you do not mind, it does not matter.

Make your trips less than two weeks. Ten days are perfect. Experience the Airstream Dream within your trailer, not within the Tow Vehicle, driving. Often, long drives can ruin your vacation and drain the enthusiasm, faster than your fuel tank. Frequent stops, make interesting conversations, when moving on further away from these…' interesting stops'.

Avoid making reservations and a daily planner. This takes up too much precious time. DO find a PURPOSE for your trip. It could be something everyone is interested in doing. It could be found without a decision made, at all. Be flexible.

Seasonal travel is better than expecting the weather to be more pleasant, where you are not. Camp in season where you want to go. Early birds may get the snow and ice.

Everyone needs some responsibility. Nancy is in charge of what goes into the trailer. I am responsible for the maintenance, upkeep and what goes into the back of the tow vehicle.

The passenger is ALWAYS in charge of following the Atlas of the State you are traveling. The driver sees a potential area that could possibly be a good area to explore and find an Off the Grid campsite. The Captain of the Map can see where and how far the turn off will be and you, the Captain of the Tow Vehicle, use your best judgment, before or after the turn is committed. The best campsites are not next to the Highway, but beyond that hill or mountain in the distance.

Most of all. If one or everyone is tired, pick a place to stop for the hour or for the evening. An enchanted evening at the Walmart Resort, beats a truck stop, idling diesels and no one is able to rest or catch any sleep.

The first and second years of an Airstream ownership are the best. Make the third and fourth years, the next first and second years. Try things you had never dared to do. It may be the best of times and a beginning of the fifth and sixth, first and second years of renewed enthusiasm.

Your Airstream has managed to follow you for years. It will go where you take it. Explore at your comfort level and beyond. If you do not try to 'discover' new places, you will find yourself reading this post and understand. We all have been discouraged at least once, with the belief ‘I have done and seen it all’. That may seem true.

Be a Christopher Columbus. Find that 'short cut' to Eden. It is there.

Just THIS time, attach your Airstream and go with only a direction and no idea of what to expect. And… you know what? You may be living the Airstream Dream, like Nancy and I.

The map just needs you to place the X.

[pt.reyesfan]

Very well put.

We often have final destinations, but we leave a LOT of time to get there. Our top priority on most of our trips is to find the best ever boondocking spots. We have found some duds, and we have found some amazing, secluded, quiet, pristine spots with great views and great weather. The whole family agrees that the journey to get to the destination is usually the best part of the trip.

[samb]

Ray, you say to find a purpose for your trip. I have always called it an EXCUSE to hook up and head out. I usually start with a destination in mind (or a purpose). I often never reach the destination because I find that where I am is more interesting than where I was going. The benefit of that is that it still leaves an unexplored destination for a later excuse.

Two weeks does seem to be my usual trip, although I once was at one place for 28 days. It was 3 1/2 hours from the nearest pavement and 5 hours to the nearest town of more than one building.

I find that maps are my friend and are the source of many of my excuses for destinations. A good map and a compass are necessities.

I never seem to run out of things to do. I hunt for stones... sunstones, garnets, sapphires, thunder eggs, petrified wood, agate, panning for gold, and any "sparkly" that catches my eye.

Old homesteads and early wagon roads, and fish for supper are also on the list. In other words, I just pick a "treasure" and then go look for it. I love the hunt. I carry a small 2 wheel "scooter" for travel beyond the end of the road ( I am getting a bit arthritic and can hike only 4 or 5 miles and I always want to go farther) and a canoe for when the road gets too wet.

So get out after your own excuse.

Sam

[mefly2]

No purpose for us sometimes ... often the neighbor asks where we are going and we respond with ... N, S, W, or E will be decided when we get out of town ...

[rmkrum]

“Just go...out there”—Captain James T. Kirk

[Len n Jeanne]

"Go where no one else will go. Do what no one else will do."

(Mary Lyon, 1797-1849, founder of higher education for women)

[Muriel 1]

Ray,your posts are great!
Keep them coming.
You are what I consider a hard core airstreamer.
Not all of us are there yet, but someday maybe.
Great reading!
Tom

[Padawan]

Ray, ABSOLUTELY!! We have been camping for 40 years; the last 2 years in an AS!! Both retired this past year and are looking forward to that first trip of the season. Since working schedules dictated our previous trips, our camping had to be time managed. NOT this year! If we are gone for a month, 2 months...ok, If we go 50 miles in one day and like the area...ok! Always, always enjoy the moment.

[nvestysly]

Enjoy the ride! We recently drove the backroads through part of central and north Florida. While it's not exactly the boondocking experience that Ray & Nancy typically undertake, the backroads (some call them blue highways) are certainly a nice diversion from Interstates and other four-lane roads.

On this cross-Florida trip we took the better part of two days to travel what most would do in just a few hours. We stopped at a museum, ate at a local pub and sampled their beverages and stayed overnight at a Moose Lodge with water and electric hookups. As I said, not boondocking, but certainly off the beaten path.

We hope to take another trip out west/southwest again sometime soon. Ray and Nancy showed us the ropes a few years ago and we had a great time.

[KCCO]

I love these posts - thank you for your contributions Ray.

[JamuJoe]

Originally Posted by Ray Eklund

Boondocking is a matter of mind over matter. Because if you do not mind, it does not matter.

Make your trips less than two weeks. Ten days are perfect. Experience the Airstream Dream within your trailer, not within the Tow Vehicle, driving. Often, long drives can ruin your vacation and drain the enthusiasm, faster than your fuel tank. Frequent stops, make interesting conversations, when moving on further away from these…' interesting stops'.

Avoid making reservations and a daily planner. This takes up too much precious time. DO find a PURPOSE for your trip. It could be something everyone is interested in doing. It could be found without a decision made, at all. Be flexible.

Seasonal travel is better than expecting the weather to be more pleasant, where you are not. Camp in season where you want to go. Early birds may get the snow and ice.

Everyone needs some responsibility. Nancy is in charge of what goes into the trailer. I am responsible for the maintenance, upkeep and what goes into the back of the tow vehicle.

The passenger is ALWAYS in charge of following the Atlas of the State you are traveling. The driver sees a potential area that could possibly be a good area to explore and find an Off the Grid campsite. The Captain of the Map can see where and how far the turn off will be and you, the Captain of the Tow Vehicle, use your best judgment, before or after the turn is committed. The best campsites are not next to the Highway, but beyond that hill or mountain in the distance.

Most of all. If one or everyone is tired, pick a place to stop for the hour or for the evening. An enchanted evening at the Walmart Resort, beats a truck stop, idling diesels and no one is able to rest or catch any sleep.

The first and second years of an Airstream ownership are the best. Make the third and fourth years, the next first and second years. Try things you had never dared to do. It may be the best of times and a beginning of the fifth and sixth, first and second years of renewed enthusiasm.

Your Airstream has managed to follow you for years. It will go where you take it. Explore at your comfort level and beyond. If you do not try to 'discover' new places, you will find yourself reading this post and understand. We all have been discouraged at least once, with the belief ‘I have done and seen it all’. That may seem true.

Be a Christopher Columbus. Find that 'short cut' to Eden. It is there.

Just THIS time, attach your Airstream and go with only a direction and no idea of what to expect. And… you know what? You may be living the Airstream Dream, like Nancy and I.

The map just needs you to place the X.

Detours are the spice of life!

[Ray Eklund]

Originally Posted by JamuJoe

Detours are the spice of life!

*******
As JamuJoe and I understand... Mountain Roads can be wonderful... or, as JJ says, "the spice of life".

You decide. Grey's River, western Wyoming, 3 August 2018... we backed up the road aways and managed to turn around.

This road is on the State of Wyoming map as a 'maintained road'. When, maintained... I am not sure if in the 20th or 21st Century.

[drbrick]

"Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us. Tour masters, schedules, reservations, brass-bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip. Only when this is recognized can the blown-in-the glass bum relax and go along with it. Only then do the frustrations fall away. In this a journey is like marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it." - John Steinbeck

[OTRA15]

Bingo!

A great quote from Travels With Charley: In Search of America.

" . . . a trip takes us . . . "

[Len n Jeanne]

Terrific quote, Dr. Brick-- Thanks.