New Project: 1966 Airstream

We are so terribly excited about our newest (giant) project!  Meet our (currently nameless) 1966 Airstream Sovereign Land Yacht!  Isn't it dreamy?  Our lovely little home on wheels came to us from Boulder... from Minnesota... from Arizona... and originally from California we think.  We are pretty much obsessed.  97% of our conversations revolve around the trailer: oogling over how awesome it is, organizing our schedule to work on it as much as possible, our dreams and plans for the gut job and subsequent rebuilding, and planning the adventures our little family will have when it's done.

Photo Credit: Nesting Gypsy

We've been researching and scouring Craigslist for over a year in search of the right RV or travel trailer for our family.  Our current dream, (because as I've learned, dreams are constantly changing and evolving), is to take a sabbatical and full-time in the airstream for a while.  In the last few years, the idea of paring down our "stuff" and beefing up our life experiences has really appealed to us.  We love our home and friends where we currently live, but we also dream of running away and becoming eternal nomads.  We've had an awakening of sorts, and don't want to overlook truly living in order to simply make a living.

We initially pictured ourselves in a Class C RV.  Class C's tend to be family friendly because they generally have a bed above the cab (for chillins) and a bedroom in the back (for Mama/Dada).  Then we shifted to the idea of a bunkhouse travel trailer, which offers more space, bunks for kids, and the ability to detach your living space from your vehicle.  We spent a handful of weekends visiting RV lots and checking out Craigslist deals.  We almost pulled the trigger on one of the travel trailers we checked out.

But a few weeks ago we decided that if we're really going to do this thing, we may as well do it right.  And by right, we mean dreamy, beautiful, iconic, and fan-freaking-tastic.  We had to have an Airstream.  We happened upon our little beauty on Craigslist one Saturday morning.  We called up the owners, who turned out to be Matt and Sara, of the Nesting Gypsy blog.  We drove up to see it that very morning and fell in love.  We staked our claim, wired a deposit, and by the next Wednesday, a giant hunk of mobile metal home was sitting in front of our house, begging for a neighbor to file an HOA complaint.

We have grand plans in store for the Airstream.  We're going to gut the whole thing down to the shell and frame, make sure everything is sound, and then build it back up from the ground.  It's going to be a crazy amount of work-- we're estimating between 1-2 years if we really hit it hard.  The line from Runaway Bride has been running through my head since we decided to buy it:

"Look, I guarantee there'll be tough times. I guarantee that at some point, one or both of us is gonna want to get out of this thing. But I also guarantee that if I don't ask you to be mine, I'll regret it for the rest of my life, because I know, in my heart, you're the only one for me."

Yep, thats pretty much how I feel about it.  Perfect marriage proposal to an Airstream... (We may as well have proposed for the amount of time and work we're in for!)

Whadda ya think?  Are we crazy or what?  And any name suggestions?  We've got "Tilley" and "Swaggly," both Grant-isms, and both feeling like sad little names for a trailer with such character.