Tag Archives: travel

Living Small: The Beginning

Remember how I told ya’ll living small was the answer? Well, when I meant small, I meant 31 feet of small!

This weekend George and I picked up our new-to-us home. We will live in this 1978 Airstream Sovereign for the next year to save money and get out of the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle. Is it an extreme scheme? Yes. Do I like to rhyme? Yes.

But seriously, folks, sometimes extreme schemes are necessary to make extreme changes. And you know what? I feel unusually calm about our plan– and I’m never calm about anything. I think this crazy ideas is actually going to work. By cutting out our major expense, rent, we will be able to save the majority of our paychecks. We will also cut out our water bill, (we’ll be using well water) and cut down on the electric bill.

We paid $5,000 for this beauty and we are planning on putting about $1,000 worth of renovations into her. We have already sold a bunch of unnecessary stuff to make up for the initial costs and in the next few weeks, we plan on selling a lot more at flea markets and online.

We will truly be living small and testing our ability to distinguish want from need. And of course, I’ll be posting our progress along the way.

Have you ever schemed up an extreme idea to save money? Did your plan work? I want to hear about it in the comments!

love and airstreams,
melanie

New Orleans Honeymoon

One of my favorite parts of the graveyards in New Orleans were the painted tombs. Colorful in life, colorful in death, right?! Standing beside Voodoo Priestess, Marie Laveau‘s (disputed) tomb.

For our honeymoon, George and I decided to forgo the traditional, all-inclusive beach trip for a darker, and dare I say, more exciting vacation to New Orleans. And we didn’t regret a minute of it. The food was amazing, the history was rich and the beer was flowing!

As you can tell from the pictures, we visited several graveyards and we brought along cheapo, disposable cameras. I kind of love the way the pictures turned out. They are a little creepy, over-saturated, and look much older than digital photos. We also forgot to charge the digital camera– happy mistake! I brought the disposable cameras on our ghost tour too, but none of the pictures turned out. I think a ghost ruined the rest of our film!

If you are thinking about doing something a little off the beaten path for your honeymoon, I would highly recommend it. Get out there and see something new!

Did you go anywhere “different” for your honeymoon? Are you planning to go somewhere “different?” Let me know in the comments.

love,
melanie

Love Adventure: Philadelphia!

This past weekend, George and I headed up to Philadelphia. George had drawn the poster for the Ride to Skate event and he wanted to sell a few prints. We were technically there on business, but we had plenty of time for pleasure too. Here’s a couple of snapshots from our weekend.

I had to take a picture at Love Park.

We ran… ok, walked… up the stairs at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. Rocky was seriously fit.

I broke the Liberty Bell!

George skating at Ride to Skate.

And he sold a couple of prints…

It’s been hard to come down from the travel high. I didn’t have to cook, or clean, or do boring chores for 3 days. I had some amazing food and hung out at (gasp!) an actual bar. The trip definitely made me miss living in a bigger city. But que sera, sera. I had fun, had some new experiences and saw some new things. I’ll move back to a big city soon.

Have you ever been to Philadelphia?

love,
melanie

Love Adventure

Last weekend, George and I went on a motorcycle ride to the Great Dismal Swamp. Although the swamp isn’t far from our house, it was quite the adventure. Prior to the trip, I had only rode on George’s bike at about 45 mph. I’m not afraid to admit that at 70 mph, I was holding on for dear life. George is terribly ticklish and he said I had to stop holding him in a death grip because he might die from laughter. I managed to get a few snapshots on the bike after I got my courage up.