Airstream,
RV Camping
& Travel Tips

If you’re interested in owning this rare Airstream trailer—the 2008 16ft limited edition “Design Within Reach” decor model—you have an advantage as a ‘Streaming reader: just scroll backward and you can see everywhere she’s been towed, turning heads along the way.

The longer I live in Bend, the more surprised I am to discover that Central Oregon is a hotbed of RV notables—including, now, the Nest Caravan. President and designer Robert Johans let me peek behind his fence and inside one of his innovative trailers, rolled out just eight months ago.

The “Airstreaming” Etsy shop is featured on BellaOnline—a website for women that covers over 400 topics, including RV travel.

The first flakes of snow are sticking, and the larch in the yard is bright yellow. Time to talk winterizing.

No self-respecting RV blog is complete without a post on winterizing (just a posh word for “drying out” the trailer), a function Ralph has executed exactly twice.

A couple of years ago we moved from the mild, wet, green side of Oregon to the dry, cold, High Desert side where it freezes at night so early and often the tomato growing season lasts eight weeks.

I accompanied BFF Patty on the shakedown cruise of her cuddly new T@B trailer at Paulina Lake, an easy 35-mile drive from our homes in SE Bend.

Not quite an Airstream (but not a white box nor hillbilly tent trailer either), the new T@Bs look to me like a next-best alternative for those, like Patty, with a Subaru Outback and a spouse on a budget who’s suspicious of used Type B motorhome engines. (If pressed, Patty will tell you that if she won the lottery, her preference would be to forego towing forever and purchase the Interstate.)

In the meantime, the T@B is an enormous step up from sleeping in a tent.

It’s the first truly warm spring week in Bend. I’m itching to be outdoors, but deadlines are oblivious to the weather report. Time to move rg coleman communications HQ to the grounds outside the Pine Cone Lodge.

There’s too much screen glare to work from the patio table on the backyard deck, but the Airstream makes a perfect indoor/outdoor office.

The first day of fall in Bend. Ahh. Most of the tourist trade has vanished (I’m told), and the hipsters have slunk back to Portland and their PBRs. Locals are relaxing, the sky is blue, and the craft beer is flowing.

When I moved to Portland twenty years ago I had not yet heard of hefeweizen and immediately contracted OBD (Oregon Butt Disease), which manifests as fifteen sudden pounds in the posterior caused by too many 200-calorie pints. I’ve since switched to red wine and martinis but now that I’m #inbend, I’m rediscovering beer.

First stop: Oktoberfest, downtown.

This month we started the bassackward process of relocating our belongings to Bend, Oregon, a three-plus hour drive from Portland.

Why Bend? It’s a fishin’ hikin’ skiin’ bikin’ town, all activities Ralph enjoys and I will, too when the right loaded firearm is pointed at my head. Compared to hipster Portland (“a city where young people go to retire,” as observed in Portlandia), Bend culture can best be described as “emerging”. But I love the pine smells, the clean high desert ambience and relative lack of traffic #inBend. The new house, set back from the street and far from the neighbors, is surrounded instead by wildlife and easterly views, and came with a pull through driveway and civilized gravel pad upon which to park the DWR.