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Demolition
Tosha Tingey • May 9, 2019
Gutting out the Airstream
Demolition day began the day after we brought our Airstream home. After getting her parked in the backyard by the garage, we got a fair share of “before” pictures and then got to work.
We invited the missionaries from The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to come to help us rip out the insides. The Elders helped speed up our first demolition day so much!
To check out the before pictures click here!
We saved as much wood as we deemed reusable in the future build. At first, we held onto a lot of the original pieces and parts in hopes to resell them to those looking to restore vintage airstreams. But we did some research and talked to other renovators and the consensus was that it wasn’t worth the time and effort. So off to the dump it all goes.
After all her guts were out we found that the subfloor was in pretty good shape. The only exceptions were the front, under where the couch was, and the bathroom floor was also SUPER soft. We came to the decision to rip out all the floors anyways that way we can have a fresh sturdy floor with a long life ahead.
Underneath the subfloors, we found mice nests in the insulation. We also found that two beams underneath the bathroom had completely rusted out. Overall we are very grateful we replaced the insulation and the subfloor in order to find and fix those problems. To learn how we replaced our floors click here!
To sum up, demolition didn’t take us as long as we thought it would. From start to finish it took about 2 weeks. Keep in mind we work full time and have a baby we can’t leave alone. So hour-wise we would guess it took about 20 hours of labor. Jon would often get up early and work for a couple hours before it got hot. And then we would both work all day on Saturdays.
When you're on a cruise it can be difficult to experience the island or country you are in when you only have a few hours. The other challenge we had was finding an excursion that our entire family could join. And by entire family I mean my parents, my sister's family with four kids, and our family! So when we found Chukka Caribbean's excursion that included Zip-lining, River Tubing, ATV ride, lunch, and a bird aviary - it was the plan for a perfect day!
If you’ve ever gone to Rocky Mountain National Park, you most likely came through Estes Park. It’s pretty well known but from now on when we go to the National Park we will be going to Granby. Granby is on the western side of Rocky Mountain National Park. We found an AMAZING campground to stay at that has so many amenities and the area all around is packed with fun things to do!
I always want to be real with anyone reading this blog about full-time travel, tiny living, Airstream life… all of the above. So I want to share some of our hardest moments that had us either wanting to quit or had us seriously questioning, “what are we even doing?” So here we go…
Glacier National Park is one of those National Parks that you hear about and just KNOW that it is going to be amazing. And it was. Right upon entering the park it felt more like home and less like a tourist attraction. The park itself is huge but upon arrival, it feels like you’re entering a little town with an ice cream shop and café, boat rentals, and a small visitor center. After going to the visitor center we headed to get our kayak inspected. The inspections are free and pretty basic. You will have to rinse it off if it’s wet or dirty but that’s about it. If you aren't bringing your own gear you can rent for a good price right across the street from the lake. Life jackets are required to be worn by children and adults must have them in the boat with them or worn. After that, we went right to the dock next to the Village Inn and set sail! The pictures can show just how gorgeous this place was better than I could ever describe.
Pike’s Place Market place is the longest-running farmer’s market in America! The hype and the buzz of the atmosphere is palpable. You have flowers lining one side and the most unique crafts, food, art, jewelry, anything you can think of on the other! On the lower level, you’ll find shops dedicated to vintage prints, toy cars, magic shops, and more unique products! And of course, the famous fish throwing vendor will not leave you disappointed. I usually get anxiety in large crowds and people trying to sell me stuff. But the vibe here was so family-friendly. The crowds felt less annoying and more like I just found the after party of Seattle. Just a short stairway away is the somehow popular and extremely gross, gum wall. This alleyway is just covered in gum on the walls and it looks really cool, just don’t think about it too much.
As with just about anything in life, you can only prepare so much until you are actually living it. We have been living in a 150 sq ft Airstream for the past 3 months and here are 3 things we love and 3 things we don’t.
1. Self-Cleaning Vacuum We have a little hidden cubby where we keep our Deebot (googly eyes not included). This almost didn’t happen and I am SO glad it did. I learned within one day how dirty our floors get. It’s awesome to run the little robot vacuum while we are gone or asleep or packing up and have it do all the work.
Pacific City RV Resort had so many amenities and the biggest, most private campsites we've ever had! It's across the street from the beach and lives in the beautiful small coastal town of Pacific City, Oregon.
The Thousand Trails campground, Russian River was just a half way stop near Santa Rosa, CA and we were pleasantly surprised with what this RV campground had to offer!
The Yosemite Lakes campground was actually the one that got us interested in a Thousand Trails to begin with. This campground is chuck full of amenities in the campground itself, and it’s 10 min away from the Yosemite National Park entrance. And I’m apologizing in advance, we were enjoying it so much that we forgot to take pictures until we left! So I only have a few but hopefully it’s better than nothing.