It’s not possible to predict how to find luck, how to know luck, how to be lucky. It’s one of those things that just IS. Thank Goodness. And how do you trace it all back to where it started? A series of never-ending flashbacks.
Maybe ours started in August 2012 when TPM (Randy) broke his ankle. Yup. That incident led to our first RV expedition. As the saying goes, “Once bitten…” Wait….wrong aphorism…Adage…Maxim. One of those. We were definitely influenced by that adventure.
With a burgeoning collection of cool tools from renovating and maintaining home and guest ranch, we decided it would be cool to traverse the continent seeing and helping friends with their To-Do lists. But how? Big RV, lots of storage, and a towed vehicle for in-town trips? Big TV (tow vehicle) with lots of storage towing a “tiny home”? We landed on a tow vehicle with ample tool storage towing an RV with ample home storage. Sounds kinda like the Goldilocks story, right?
We spent a couple years in our spare time seeing all the RV possibilities. MFI could not bear the thought of being tied to ugly-but-functional. After multiple dealerships and many many RV shows, we decided to check out Airstreams. While in Texas for the winter, we took the time to see everything at the Ft. Worth Airstream (AS) dealership. By then, we knew that Airstreams were definitely not “ugly”.
The ranch was sold in June 2019, and we would not be volunteering there anymore. It became real that we needed to make some forward progress. As luck (there it was) had it, we had been living in 1/2 of a guest log cabin for 7 summers. It tipped the scales at 200 SF. So going from there to an RV wouldn’t be a giant leap. We found an AS dealer in Alcoa, TN. We toured their lot, which at the time was chock full. We easily eliminated the too-small category. Then we ruled out the too-big category fearing what it would be like to tow a large beast. We were sure that 23′ or 25′ would be just right. We returned to the guest ranch to ruminate.
We learned that Airstream’s factory was not too far. In Jackson Center, OH there was a tour of the works everyday at 2pm. We made our reservations online and headed to OH. With a group of others who were interested in RVing, a retired AS factory employee gave us a detailed tour. We learned about Wally and Stella Byam, founder of AS back in 1931; how every part of the AS was constructed; and had a look at some vintage AS vehicles destined to become part of the new museum being built in conjunction with their million SF factory expansion, referred to as the “Mother Ship.” We headed back to the ranch fairly confident that an AS would be our RV pick.
On the way back, we experienced some unsuspected trouble. We pulled off the interstate after being honked at by cars passng us. Yikes! Our low-profile tires were in the early stages of complete deterioration, so we went to the nearest Discount Tires. As luck would have it (there it was again), they worked us in immediately, and we were soon on our way with four new tires. Whew!
Before we could purchase a new RV and tow vehicle, we had to sell all of our vehicles: Betsy Beamer (BMW 328i hardtop convertible), Itty Bitty (Smart Car with trailer), and Evangeline (Merecedes Sprinter Van). Yes, we name all of our vehicles. TPM thought the chance of this happening as quickly as we needed it to happen was impossible, but he nonetheless worked diligently on preparing them for sale with deep cleaning and polishing. Once again, as luck had it, everything sold in time to make down payments on our new RV and tow vehicle. Remarkable!
On 3 September 2019, we drove to Chilhowee RV in Alcoa, TN and purchased the 2020, 27′ Airstream Globetrotter. We didn’t have a tow vehicle, so we contracted for a tow-driver to pick it up and deliver it to the ranch. Lucky thing we did too, because he gave us badly-needed advice on which Chevy Silverado would give us the best tow performance. With this knowledge, we drove to Jim Cook Chevrolet in Marion, NC and purchased a 2019 Silverado 1500 High Country with tow package and 6.2 L engine. According to our research on towing, we needed a special hitch and bought a Blue Ox Weight Distribution Hitch with Sway Control. We certainly now possessed the vehicles and equipment but remained embarrassingly green on how either vehicle operated or how to properly tow.
Luckily, the Chilhowee dealership provided new owners with a free orientation from one of their 5-Rivet technicians. We drew a giant of a man named Zeke, who stretched what we understood to be a 1-hour session into four hours. He doused us with a fire-hose of required information; identified a long list of cautions; and outlined what to do when this or that happens, emphasizing with each, “…and it will happen.” He also answered our non-stop questions, and in hindsight, we should have taken videos with our phones to retain all the valuable insight.
While still volunteering at the ranch and living in half of the Webbwood cabin, we moved into Arthur to attempt acclimation. We felt this might prove beneficial before just heading out cold turkey. It was important to figure out where our clothing went, where the dry goods should be stowed, what to stock in the medicine cabinet, and a host of other storage considerations. We were overwhelmed.
Without much thought, we named the Airstream Arthur and the Silverado Sid. It wasn’t until later that we realized together the names Sid and Arthur unintentionally sounded similar to Siddhartha. In our view, it was more than a lucky coincidence that one of the translations of Siddhartha meant “he who has found [the] meaning (of existence)” and was very fitting to what we were about to undertake in going on the road full-time.
We celebrated our hard work and lucky fortune in wrapping up our great time at the ranch and toasted our upcoming and unknown future adventures.
