Lions and Tigers and Bears... oh MY!

August 24th, 2012 - Mt Madonna - Watsonville, CA

Our first full weekend in the airstream.  We got a bit of a late start on Friday leaving the storage facility all buttoned up around 7pm.  We made it to Mt Madonna a little before it got completely dark.  Our little spot in the RV section looked great.  Rob backed right in, no problem!  As Rob got us leveled, stable and hooked us into our power and water (partial hook-ups) while I got dinner going.  This is our second time in the airstream and we have found that prepping something for dinner on Thursday night and warming it up or finishing it on the airstream Friday night works the best!  This time we had LARGE meatballs and speggetti!  Worked out great.  We jammed the sheets on to the bed and fell fast asleep.  

(in the middle of the night) Ping ping ping ping..."Rob..Rob what is that noise?"  ping ping ping..did we not plug the water into the right spot?? "hummm it must be raining"  I thought that is really weird it is the middle of August in San Jose, there was NO rain in the forecast.  It was supposed to be 90 degrees.  Oh well... we shouldn't have put the awning up...should have brought pants and shoes instead of shorts and flip flops...so we had our first night of rain.  

We got up bright and early Saturday morning to the rain still really coming down.  We turned on the local Salinas news, the weatherman came on and said it was going to be 75 and clear skies... we looked outside and it was still raining...there were no clear skies! We even saw people building fires... we were like oh thats too bad that they have to build a fire in the rain!

Our view....

So Rob made a run for the car to pull out a few breakfast items and this is what he found...

As you can see it is only soaking wet MUD back by the trailer.. the FJ was barely wet!!!  And here we thought we were in a hurricane the night before!  Well come to find out it was just tropical storm campsite 112.  There was a redwood tree right beside us, that caught the clouds and dumped ONLY on our campsite.  ALL the other spots were completely dry!!  Now we know!  Even people came by and told us on Saturday about the clouds....too little too late!  

Once we dried out a little we ventured out to Watsonville.

We then made our way back to Mt Madonna and watched some of the Little League World Series... I know right?!?!... and had our Veuve christening! :)

Then we watched some Nascar...keeping with the airstream style we had our Veuve while watching Nascar with our new champagne flutes!

But then we decided we were CAMPING...so we should go outside and enjoy the beautiful outdoors

Oh wait this is GLAMPING!  Who needs an outdoor TV?  We can see NASCAR through the window!  With the campfire roaring! (You can see we tried to pull the airstream into the dry area for the second night!) 

Rob made an amazing dinner on Saturday night.  We stopped by a butcher during the day and pick up some marinated tri-tip.  We also picked up some brussel sprouts and grilled those on the fire.

But our SPECIAL treat for the night was Robs new purchase....a whirly pop!  I was a bit hesitant to have such a uni-tasker in our very small space.  But I was wrong... it was the BEST popcorn I have ever had!  (whenever Rob cooks he pulls out the smoke detector battery! that is what is hanging down in the picture!  Dont worry we put it right back once we are done cooking!) 

We had a great second weekend!  It will be a bit before we get back out, but we can't wait.  I think we have the whole towing thing down now.  We hitched up on our first try a couple times now and I think we have the airstream fully stocked, so we just need to grab some clothes and we are off! 

Casa de Fruta Casa Di Fruta..la la la

August 18th, 2012 - Casa de Fruta RV Park - Hollister CA

After pulling out of the dealership we drove about 50 miles to Casa de Fruta.  Rob did a wonderful job of driving over Pacheco Pass.  We pulled into the campground, checked in and pulled into our first site (a nice pull-thru!)  And score! the hook ups were on the correct side!  We undid the hitch and Rob pulled forward (just a little) so that we could practice re-hitching in the morning!

Rob got us all plugged into power, water and cable and put out our Zip Dee awning and even our cool little awning lights!

I started cleaning the inside and setting up.  It is so small, but we found a place for everything. We went for a little walk, did some wine tasting at Casa de Wine, then came back for some cheese and crackers and AIR CONDITIONING it was over 100 degrees at Casa de Fruta.  

A little later we started making dinner.  On the menu for our first real night in the airstream was a heirloom tomato salad with fresh mozzarella and homemade hamburger helper.  One of my first memories on our family boat when I was little was my mom making tuna noodle helper, I LOVED that stuff.  Now 22 years later I am not the biggest fan of canned tuna and I didnt think the box stuff was classy enough for the Airstream. So we made a version from scratch.  It turned out pretty good!  We were going to go back and get a pie from Casa de Fruta but it was dark and we were exhausted and cable TV and the AC were just to good to walk away from!  We tried out the wet bath for the first time (worked better then expected!) Much better night of sleep the second night! 

We got up Sunday morning feeling great!  Tent camping has been fun over the last 10 years, but nothing compares to having your own bathroom, shower, sheets, a duvet, TV, power for laptops and most importantly in Hollister, air-conditioning!  We are hooked and loving the Airstream.  Rob made amazing "Rob McMuffins" one of his specialties that won me over back in our courtship days!  We did one more thorough cleaning (which only takes about 30 minutes including washing the floor on my hands and knees...Rob said the mop was too big!)  Rob got us all un-hooked and we dumped the tank.    

Then the nail biting part came... would we be able to get it hitched back up?!!?  I looked around and decided that if all these people could do it... so could we! and we (or mainly Rob) did it.  We did a couple practice rounds of backing up in the empty camp spaces (we still need some more practice).  Then we hit the road! 

We got to our storage unit, unhitched, did our final check and said "We will see you next weekend!"

We did it!

We left the Bay Area shortly after work on Friday headed for Los Banos to pick up our Bambi.  The RV dealer was nice enough to let us spend Friday night in the trailer on thier parking lot!  We picked up a pizza in Los Banos and headed in the back entrance of the RV dealer around 9pm (and it was still over 90 degrees outside)

Pizza and Root Beer!

We grabbed what we needed out of the car, wrestled the sheets onto the bed, and turned the AC on high.  It was not the most restful night of sleep, from the freeway noise, to the power surging and making the AC jolt, to the fact that we were in Los Banos.... But we made it through the night and around 7:30am the dealership opened and they started working on the FJ (adding the electronic brakes and HUGE 10Klbs hitch).

We spent 2 hours on the trailer walk-thru with Slim (the resident airstream expert!)  Slim went over everything from top to bottom, inside and out.  We picked up all the essentials at the RV store...

We signed the check, got the keys, a few last notes from Slim (NO U-Turns and NO reversing with the sway bar!), and we were off!

What does it mean?

We have been going back and forth trying to come up with a name for our blog/website. We wanted to focus our blog on our airstream adventures, but also have a place for all our goings on. We tossed around a lot of ideas. Then Rob came up with our current URL streamwith.us. I thought well that is kind of airstream focused, and I wanted something a little broader. But then I got to thinking....

When Rob and I were first talking about doing a blog he said that he would have to edit all of my entries, because I never know when to put a period or a comma and my sentences are just like a stream of conscious.... light bulb!

So our blog site will encompass are airSTREAM travels (including trials and tribulations) and Jessica's random STREAMs of conscious...

so come streamwith.us!

Testing 1, 2, 3...

Our first post!

We are not sure what started this wild hare, but we soon found ourselves out looking at an airstream dealer in the middle of nowhere California.

I was kind of haphazardly looking at cute vintage trailers online and then somehow we got onto airstreams, then we went to the dealer "just to look" on an off Saturday. I am convinced we only went out to the dealer so that Rob could check out "Hot City BBQ" (it was pretty good.) We started by looking at SOB (airstream slang for Some Other Brand) they were nice, they had tilt-outs, lots of room, microwaves, separate shower and toilet...but then we stepped into the airstreams and we were in love instantly! So we came home and thought about it (weighed all the pros and cons like we always do in the Watson household!)

We did a ton of research online, looked into all the places we could go nearby, looked into storage and insurance and what the FJ could handle. I think one of our biggest hurdles to get over was if we were done with International (or plane) travel for a while. After all our research and lists, it seemed to be falling in place! So a few weeks later we made the decision and signed the contract. We are now the proud owners of a 2012 16' International Airstream...i guess we will be traveling internationally after all ;)