Tess the Airstream, the Adventure Begins

When we “re-met” for the first time in June of 2019, I told Melinda that I’d always wanted a vintage Airstream, and she told me she wanted a new one, because she didn’t have the maintenance skills old vehicles required. So in the very first weeks of our relationship in 2019 we began looking at campers. We looked at new Airstreams, we looked at Lance campers, we looked a low end, high end, used beautiful and used ugly….we looked at everything. But my eye and heart always went back to vintage. But we weren’t in a big rush, and we were already making our initial plans for a big trip to the wilds of Patagonia.  Research was begun, rough plans were being made…and then 2020 happened and like everyone else, life got put on hold.

But life never really gets put on hold, and we still wanted some adventure and excitement. And we still liked the idea of getting a camper so we refocused our energy on that idea. It seems like we were early in that curve as much of the country had the same idea and prices really escalated in 2020, so we got lucky by buying early. And in May of 2020, this appeared on Craigslist. I sent it to Melinda and her response was “OMG! Let’s go get it!”

 

 

 

Wisely, I think, we did not drive the truck 2 hours to look at it. But by the time we got back home we had plans, made an offer, negotiated and sent a Venmo deposit….

The previous owner was a super nice guy and overall the trailer was in excellent condition. But we were also newbies and didn’t really know what to look for.

The interior was in nearly perfect condition and we knew we wanted to keep it as original as possible. There are far too many Airstreams for sale with the opening phrase “the hard work has been done, trailer is gutted. Life changes force sale” which usually means “I got in over my head, please bail me out for hopefully more than I paid”

 

 

The mahogany wood has such beautiful grain!

 

 

The original appliance still work great after 55 years, including the propane/ 110V Dometic fridge.

 

 

Since we tend to eat outside and not to entertain 6 people in our 22′ camper, this area would later be turned into a permanent bed space, but leaving all the handy storage in it’s place. The table, along with anything else we updated, was all put into storage for any future owners

 

 

Ah the bathroom! In 1965 campers didn’t have a gray tank. Ours only had a leaky black tank. Combined with Airstreams well know habit of leaking through the back access panel (and don’t kid yourself, ALL campers leak.) the subfloor was pretty rotten and would have to be replace. Of course we didn’t actually know that at the time, nor would we realize how hard it was to replace. Please see the restoration tab for more of the behind the scenes stuff.

 

 

Due to scheduling conflicts we had to wait two weeks before picking it up. As we were towing her down the mountain we went past one of the RV dealerships we had perused months before and decided that maybe in the future we’d buy a new camper (not likely), but most likely we’d “never regret our vintage Aistream years”, and so far we haven’t!

As you can see, Melinda wore her grooviest vintage dress just for the occasion! Let the real jolly good fun begin!