Tiny House Living

This is the longest time we’ve spent living in our Airstream. Up till now, we have traveled for 2 months in it, but we make stops in Charlotte and stay at my mom’s house and then spend time in Florida, where we’re outside most of the time. This trip is different. We have already driven almost 7,000 miles and made about 25 stops on the way, so we’ve been in the truck together a great deal of time and the Alaska weather hasn’t exactly been beautiful. Sure we’ve had some drop dead gorgeous days, but it has basically rained about 12 out of the past 14 days. The only breaks we had was when we flew to Lake Clark National Park (see “A visit to one man’s wilderness” post) and our day of bear watching in the Katmai bush (soon to be posted).

The trailer is 30’ long and about 8’ wide, so it’s somewhere between a Manhattan starter apartment and a “tiny house” like you see on those TV shows. Neatness and organization are CRITICAL to maintaining sanity – it’s like living on a boat. Old Ben Franklin had it right when he said “a place for everything and everything in its place.” 

On Wednesday 8/17 we went to the Katmai bush to view bears. We left at the crack of dawn so needed to stage everything for our departure, and much of what we need for the day are clothes and equipment that hasn’t been used yet on this trip, so is stowed in the deepest bowels of the trailer. As a result, the inside of the Airstream looks like a bomb want off. 

I won’t show you what it looks like in here, so you’ll have to use your imagination. My only solace is a pretty bouquet we bought at the Farmers Market a few days ago.

The bear viewing was spectacular, but it was preceded by total chaos!