Airstream on a Budget

There's something to be said about seeing the American classic, Airstream trailer going down the road! We sort of stumbled into our 1953 Clipper Airstream by accident, or by family if you would like to know the truth! We didn't even know what an Airstream really was or what it is worth, until my uncle started to do the research for us in an effort to get us to take his off his hands! We finally made the trek across the U.S. with a borrowed truck and trailer to pick up this little treasure in the rough. Little did we know how it would change our lives!

Who could imagine how much fun we would have? Although that first year was a lot of work, replacing the entire floor and dura-coating the frame (since we had it apart), but in reality, we were saving ourselves a lot of money by doing it ourselves. We did a few other things, too, like lay linoleum, update all the wiring, and we added an apartment refrigerator instead of the propane one. (Yes, we did keep the original!) But other than that, we really only put a few thousand dollars and a lot of elbow grease into making it our little palace on wheels.

We could have never afforded a new Airstream. It's just not in our budget with 4 children, and homeschooling on one income! The quality of an Airstream is like no other travel trailer on the road! We will never go back to any other kind since experiencing life on the road in an American icon! Strangers come up and talk to us all the time, curious about what we have. Men try to buy it from us all the time, hoping we don't know what it's worth so they can get a steal! We even get stalked by other 'Streamers! (Trust me, we stalk a fair share of them ourselves!) And although our "rig" is only 18 feet long, we hold our heads tall, because we have a one-of-a-kind that is our own!

Now, as you can see from my past post, we have moved into another era of Airstream rehabilitation! Our little Clipper, although we are blessed with it, we can not get all of us into it overnight with the dog. We, of course, can't buy another new one. We also can't get rid of our family heirloom, so we are doing the economical thing, we found one in a junkyard. We are gutting the entire thing and starting over from the pavement up. I will try to put up a weekly post on our Airstream Adventures, because I think it is definitely a frugal and budget friendly way to live your leisure life. I hope that it will be both informative and entertaining. Please leave comments on what you would like to know more about. Also, any ideas about what to call this column? Freewheeling Fridays, Airstream Adventures, etc....? Please give me some ideas.