Blue Ridge Parkway
We traveled along the North Carolina section of the Blue Ridge Parkway. We camped along the way and enjoyed hiking and exploring.
West Virginia Boondocking
As we drove through the rolling green hills then the thick woods of West Virginia, our excitement rose higher and higher with each mile. After all the months of hard work restoring the Airstream, after all the work to pack our things and sell our house, and after the last couple weeks of driving across …
The Heart of America
We spent a few quick back to back drive days getting across the midwest. I didn’t expect much more than wheat fields, but it turns out the Heart of America is quite beautiful. Once we hit east Kansas we were pleasantly surprised by the rolling green hills, thick wooded areas and adorable farms. I’ll always …
First Stop: Colorado
In my last blog, I said we were done. Of course, we weren’t actually done… Are we ever done? We were done enough to live in the Airstream and we were mentally and emotionally done with having not left Phoenix yet. So we started our journey to Colorado where we could knock out another week …
And we’re off!
I hope I can always remember what this day felt like. I hope I can always remember the way we exhaled a year and a half of really hard work to get to this day. Or the way Tom’s shoulders seemed to relax and he seemed to stand a little higher without the weight of …
Havelock Wool for our Airstream insulation
Back in the first weeks of our renovation in the demo phase we took down the skins and removed all the old pink fiberglass insulation. It was terrible. It was toxic and filthy. I wore long sleeves, gloves, goggles and a mask and still my skin itched and my throat burned. We decided right there …
Airstream Restoration Step 3 & 16: Belly Pan
Airstream Belly Pan Removal Removing the belly was straight forward enough. The seam of the side panels and banana wraps is under the rub rails, so we took those off first by drilling out the pop rivets with ⅛ drill bit. Before this project I hadn’t ever used a power drill…. I kept breaking drill …
Airstream Restoration Step 2: Removing Skins and Insulation
Once we had the interior furnishings and parts removed the next step was to take out the walls (they’re called skins but I’m just learning all the Airstream lingo as we go.) I am happy to report that this was way easier than I built it up to be in my head. It was fairly …
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Airstream Restoration Step 1: Demo
After a blissful season of memory-making travels with Ramona, it was finally time to start our renovation project. Step one: Take out all the things. On demo day Tom and I stood in the trailer with our tools in hand looking around with no idea where to even begin. Finally, I said, “find a screw …
Meet Ramona, our Vintage Airstream
Ramona is a 24 foot 1973 Tradewind Land Yacht. It’s easy to find vintage Airstreams that are beyond their glory days after sitting in a field for 30 years or ones that are ripped apart from a project with good intentions and poor follow through. It’s harder to find one in decent condition. We knew …