WHEN THE END IS A BEGINNING

THE END OF WHAT? The story or a chapter?

Here's the short version: I wanted to see if the rumors are true--Airstream travel trailers are in short supply and high demand; so, people are willing to pay a big price for one. Turns out the stories are true. I came up with a price based on some significant numbers for us--a price that was also beyond what I thought anyone would pay. The next day it was sold.

Having an Airstream has been wonderful, but that was for a season. Want to hear something crazy? We were visiting with a lady while delivering our Airstream to its new owner. She has a vintage Airstream that "might be for sale." What's the word I'm looking for? Tempting? Crazy? Unsurprising?

I belong to a group called "Airstream Addicts". Maybe it is an addiction. There is something about those silvery, capsule-shaped, adventures-on-wheels that gets in your blood. Wanderlust is real.

Stay tuned.

Reflecting on the journey... I've been looking back through photos and reading old journal entries. Here are the highlights of our Airstream adventure for me.

FRIENDSHIPS

We have met people we never would have met without the Airstream. Airstreamers are a tight-knit group and prone to a healthy-elitism or maybe it's tribal pride. For example, for these folks there are two categories of travel trailers: Airstreams and SOBs (Some Other Brand). Early on we joined a group called "Air Midwest," an Airstream rally club of folks mainly from Missouri, Illinois, Kansas, Arkansas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. The thing I love about the Airstream community is that it is extremely diverse and people manage for the most part to leave politics outside the campground and do what they do best: tell great stories, share amazing food, laugh out loud, all the while sitting around the campfire as it reflects off of the circle of shiny Airstreams.

FORCED SOCIALIZATION

As a hardcore introvert the Airstream has been good for me. The mixing and mingling at a campground is not only good for making friends that I never would have ventured to know. Pulling an Airstream also starts conversations that might go something like this:

[at the gas pump with the trailer hooked behind]
GUY AT NEXT PUMP: Airstream? Wonder if they still make those?
ME: Yes, they do.
GANP: Are they expensive?
ME: Cheaper than a ride on a Jeff Bezos rocket.
GANP: Mind if I look inside?
ME: Sure.
GANP: No slide out?
ME: Nope.
GANP: Bet you coulda bought a motorhome with a couple of slide outs for what this cost.
ME: Have a nice day.

See, I wouldn't have had those random conversations and social interactions without the AS.

QUARANTINE ESCAPE

Our Airstream provided a mobile bubble during the Covid quarantine. We had our own bathroom, bedroom, kitchen and lounge. We could join other campers and social distance around the campfire in the great outdoors.

This wasn't the first time an Airstream was called into quarantine duty. Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins spent quarantine time in an Airstream after returning from the moon on Apollo 11 in 1969.

ADVENTURES

We have now owned two Airstreams: a little 16-footer called Bambi. Next we moved to a little more room in a 23-footer named LUM NUM. It's a play on a word. When people ask what the Airstream is made of, like a good Okie, I answer, "Lumnum". Between the two we've logged over 30,000 miles of adventures on America's highways and byways. We've been through heat, hail and high winds; cold, snow and ice. We evacuated to shelter during a tornado warning and rode it out during an earthquake. Turns out an Airstream is a great place to be during an earthquake. It just bounces a bit, just like it does going across Oklahoma's lousy highways.

KNOWLEDGE & UNDERSTANDING

I saw a sign in Alva on a recent visit to see our kids and grandkids: "Geology rocks but geography is where it's at!" We've learned about both. We've learned history, We've learned some physics and chemistry, and lived in the midst of sociology and anthropology. We have been awestruck by the sublime. We have wondered and wandered.

WANDERLUST

Two of my personal core values are curiosity and creativity. They are life givers and fuel the fires of wanderlust. Two things I fear in life are stagnation and squandering the opportunities of each day. Airstreams were born out of the wanderlust of a man named Wally Byam, a study in creativity. I know it will be possible to stay curious and creative without an Airstream, but I am so grateful for the time we spent in ours. It provided a challenge and motivation somehow to experience life a bit larger.

AN INSTAGRAMABLE LIFE

I'm 70-something. I should be old enough to not care about "social media" but the fact is that I really enjoy seeing the posts of people who share their curiosities and creativity with a camera, a brush, a needle and thread, a van, a bus, or an Airstream. And to be totally honest I do find it nice when someone "likes" a photo I post. The Airstream provided a source of content and an entry into that world with a dash of hipness-- [an old man driving a gas-guzzling pickup truck... I use it to pull our Airstream... OH, you have an Airstream! I would love to have an Airstream and a gas-guzzling pickup to tow it.]

THE OPPORTUNITY TO LIVE SOMEWHERE ELSE (for a brief time)

Especially early in our travels we could travel somewhere and spend enough time to experience the cultural quilt that is America. We could visit local places, eat local foods, learn a little about the stories of what makes this place or that place so unique and valuable.

The Airstream provided a base camp for living in the midst of it all beyond the typical tourist stops. Once people discovered the opportunity for RVing as an escape from the pandemic, RV parks and campgrounds began to fill up. Prices increased and the paradigm shifted. Still, with careful planning way ahead it' a great way to go.

WE DID IT TOGETHER

The best part of our Airstream life was that we did it together. We were a team. We would pull into a camping spot late afternoon or early evening. I would do the outside routine: unhook from the truck, level, stabilize, hookup that kind of stuff. By the time I would finish and go inside, My Amazing-Missus would have our little home all set up and we would sit down for tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches. She might work on a sewing project. I might read/sleep or go outside to start a fire. Occasionally I would go to a quilt store with her and occasionally she would go to a minor league baseball game with me. Often our most interesting stops and memories made were totally spontaneous. Just like life.

WHAT'S NEXT

I don't know. I just know I want to do it together--with her, with our sons and beautiful daughters (in-law) and our seven phenomenal grandkids.