We’ve been parked for three days in an RV park just south of our home town of Portland, Oregon. We’re trying to get the bugs worked out of the RV’s systems before we hit the great wide open. We’re not sure where we’d go anyway at this point. Watching the weather channel, it appears that everywhere we’re headed is flooded or in the midsts of inclement weather - so much for sunny California, eh?. Portland is seeing its share of heavy rain and flooding as well. We’re getting one-to-two inches everyday lately. I guess we’re making up for the couple of dry weeks we enjoyed through early December.

The rig smells like sulfur this morning. We experienced this before and thought the problem was resolved. The RV dealership replaced one of the house batteries about a week ago and everything seemed okay, but this morning the stench of battery sulfur has returned. If it’s like last time, it’ll get worse over the next couple days, to the point where the oder is almost unbearable. Last time, you could smell it 20 feet from the rig. I guess it’s a good thing we’re still here to work out those bugs.

Lesson learned; test everything while still close to home

Happy New Year to you all.

Well, it’s our last night with our friends, the Danielsons, in our home town of Portland, Oregon. We’ve enjoyed our time with them, and we appreciate that they’ve graciously shared their driveway and home with us. They’ve made our transition manageable and comfortable. Tomorrow, we move onward to our maiden voyage and set-up for the next few days at a local RV park. This is the test. Does the RV do what we expect it to? Hey, if rain continues to fall as predicted, does it float?

Storms are backed up here like planes at O’Hare International Airport. We’re learning that living in an RV can be loud as inclement weather beats upon us. Heavy rain rounds like light gravel thrown across the walls and ceiling on an RV with its thin walls and low ceiling. It takes a while to get used to. We experienced the sounds of high winds and drilling rain on our roof during the first few nights in the rig, and even an ice storm a few days ago. When you live in a more permanent home (one without wheels) you never really have the opportunity to experience the drama of rain hitting the roof within inches of your head, amplified by the fiberglass roofing.

As much fun as all that is - I would really like to get on the road. Let’s roll!

On Christmas Day we were able to cook our first ham in our propane oven. We had trouble getting the pilot light lit, but once we did (it’s amazing what the manual will reveal), we experienced the most sweet and glorious scents from the cooking of the holiday honey-baked ham. For Christmas, I received a handheld GPS unit as a gift, so don’t be surprised when this Blog includes longitude and latitude as points of reference (I’m such a geek).

We took an opportunity this Christmas eve to visit the Hesse exhibit at Portland Art Museum in Portland, Oregon. It’s an amazing exhibit with lots of beautiful paintings and artifacts - definately worth the admission price. Viewing the hand-carved carriage alone is worth the trip.

The term “Hessian” evokes the 18th century German soldiers whose training and prowess were so esteemed that they were engaged by the British to fight in the American War of Independence. Few outside of Germany, however, know of the noble family that has led the state of Hesse since the 16th century and continues to this day. Art historians are familiar with the great Madonna by Holbein which belongs to the family and is currently the subject of an exhibition at the Staedel Museum in Frankfurt. Apart from this unsurpassed masterpiece of German Renaissance art, the vast Hesse art collections are virtually unknown.

The Portland Art Museum is the exclusive venue for the first public presentation of the artistic wealth of the house of Hesse which will take place October 2005 through March 2006. In addition to the great Holbein Madonna, this ground-breaking exhibition will include outstanding examples of German baroque silver and furniture, a royal coach, a gilded throne, German Romantic paintings, Winterhalter portraits, a Russian dowry, Jugendstil from the Hesse-sponsored Darmstadt artists colony, classical antiquities, and jeweled orders and tiaras.

Well, it’s been a few days since we last checked in, but I got to tell you, we’ve been crazy-busy moving into the RV. Somehow, I grossly underestimated the amount of effort it would take to transition to a smaller living and work environment. This is an interesting paradigm shift of for us - for me especially. I like big spaces. So, I guess when you transition from 4,000 square feet of home and studio to under three hundred square feet… well, things are going to be different. We’re finding that we have to think about everything differently. Naturally, space and storage is smaller, but somehow we’ve managed to completely pack our small world into thirty-eight feet, six wheels and eight cylinders. All I know is that the dog is confused.

What was I thinking? This is a ton of work, but we’re moving forward and making progress. Boxes, boxes, boxes. It seems that there’s just no way to even come close to getting al this stuff into this rig. Did I mention boxes? This rig is getting smaller all the time.

Moving into an RV is nothing like moving into a house. You can’t simply put boxes in the garage and deal with them later. They have to be emptied as they are loaded, or soon there’s no place to even move around. It’s amazing too, just how much stuff one accumulates when they live in a house for years - at least I have anyway. We held a few garage sales, and gave away and donated a ton of stuff, and still there are boxes - lots of them. I can’t wait to get past these boxes.

Okay, we unpacked a lot of boxes, and the rig is a mess! We discovered a video that demystified the rig and all its buttons and dials, and a little about RV life in general; RV 101. It was helpful, and we actually got some valuable information from viewing it. Hey, it was no Star Wars, but worth watching all the same. I’m committed to becoming an expert of travel and RV lifestyle.

Today, we took delivery of ‘The Rig’; a 38′ Class A Itasca Suncruiser motor-home. Some would call it an RV; great for vacation trips with the family, and weekends at NASCAR. We’re calling it home, at least for the next 12 to 300 months. We’re finally boldly going forward with our dream of traveling and seeing this great country first hand. First though, we have a lot of moving to do, tons of boxes to sort through, and lots to learn about living in an RV full-time — somewhat of a transition for us. Amazingly, somehow our new home already seems a taste smaller.

Well, this is it— AirbrushTour is the fruition of a dream come true for us. Kathy and I have envisioned traveling the United States, meeting interesting people, and visiting renown landmarks for several years now. For me, it’s a return to the joy of seeing the country first-hand, like my travels of my childhood. When I was a kid, we traveled all the time as we moved from one-state-to-another as my father sought construction work. I think he had eternal wanderlust, because travel was always eminent as we moved every three or four months, and whenever we moved it was in an RV, usually a cab-over truck camper or a 16′ to 20′ travel trailer. Obviously, we moved often, but each time we thought it might be the last, so my family lived in a lot of campers (or RVs). There really wasn’t much ‘Recreational Vehicle’ about our travels then. The camper was home, regardless of where it was parked; Arizona, Wisconsin, Oregon, Colorado, Florida, wherever - it didn’t matter. We traveled a lot, but were always home because we were a family.

Kathy grew up with some camping experience too. She often journeyed with her family to campsites on vacation throughout Colorado and the four-corners area. Together, she and I have traveled throughout parts of the western United States, but not nearly as much as we’d like. 2006 marks the beginning of a new journey we’ll take together to see the united States, and check in with some of this country’s best automotive airbrush artists. We’ll visit many of them along the way, and in our travels, we’ll share their fantastic visions and insight with you. Fear not, we’ll take the camera with us so we can share their art and studios with you too.