We used to do Show & Tell Friday Posts, which can’t believe that was two years ago. As a throw-back to those days – here is a chunk of our winter story we haven’t shared. I’m sure we’ll sing ballads of that time that we drove our 26′ Airstream through the Siskiyou Pass in the middle of winter, 700 miles down to Santa Cruz. (Literally, up hill both ways.)

It never snows in Portland; except this one night when we were trying to get going down the road. We’d had it bouncing around from side street to side street for a few weeks; trying not to get a ticket. After packing, re-packing, reading terrifying articles about what to do when your trailer slides and you’re driving down a mountain, and a quick stop at a welcoming welder (that makes amazing fruit wines) for a late-night, last-minute “sway bar trailer mount” job – we headed out.

We decided that driving in the rain and darkness was better than blizzards in the daylight, so drove late into the night to beat a snow storm in the mountains. Then in Napa, we stopped to visit some friends, and work on the interior of the airstream a bit. They’re modern-day pioneers that have lived out of a 13′ vintage trailer for over a year; and with three large, mostly inside, dogs. They were our small-living compass in figuring out how to go about doing it, and had an array of power tools that made so many things possible.

Hindsight Facts: The Bronco is a little small to pull the airstream down the highway next to semi-trucks. Four-wheel drive should be turned on when driving up a one lane mountain road next to a ravine. Sleeping in the back of the Bronco was cozier than we estimated. Our cats are way better at traveling than we’d ever hoped.

[To be continued.]