Re-Thinking Plans and Inspiration

When my wife and I decided to purchase and renovate the 1947 Tourette, my mind shifted immediately into 'trip mode.'  I started thinking about being able to travel, but sadly I sort of thought of those trips as being just 'two people' trips.  By that I mean that the teardrop really only fits 'two' people.  Of course, we 'could' always bring a tent along and the kids could sleep in there, but not having to set up and, more importantly, wait for it to dry before putting it away, was one of the big draws for us to buy the teardrop.  I started to dream and plan a trip for next summer with my daughter.  I was excited to think of having that time with her as she will only be around a few more summers before college.  I was hoping to make some substantial memories.

It was quite early into that planning that my wife voiced something that I had been knocking around in my head a lot; why is only Grace getting to have this awesome trip?  Shouldn't we 'all' get to have this incredible experience?

The answer, of course, is an emphatic yes!

With this in mind, I started to think differently.

I am a huge fan of family home movies.  I don't have any of these movies of my own youth, but I've found the Prelinger Archives to be full of family movies that kind of fill that gap for me.  It was one such exploration of the archives, a free resource of all sorts of historic and archival movies, books, and much more, that lead me to the two films you see below.  The two films tell of the Barstow Family of Connecticut.  They set out over three summers to visit every state in the United States (48 at the time).  The film must have been a huge undertaking when it was created given the technological challenges.  The original 8mm film was converted to VHS and the VHS tape was then edited and titles and a voice over by the father many years after the trip was added.

I found the films to be mesmerizing in a very interesting way.  The family 'hams' it up for the camera from the very beginning.  They are such terrific sports, from the initial scenes where they come out to the station wagon with their 'sacks' in which they brought their books, games, and puzzles, to the cheesy posed segments in front of the landmarks that help identify many of the states on their quest.  Their road trips across the country lasted nearly a month.  They

My favorite part of the film is actually seeing how they evolved as a 'camping' family.  They started out in one big and pretty elaborate tent.  The next summer, the parents slept in a much simpler (and quicker set up) pop up tent.  The kids, and this is the brilliant part to me, slept in the station wagon.  If you watch the video, you can see that the father created a platform for the back of their station wagon.  It had three compartments for each of the children's suitcases and when the seat was put down, it became a platform on which the two oldest children were able to put their inflatable mattress.  The youngest child was comfy and cozy on the front bench seat.  The father created all sorts of little customizations from the screen he used when the station wagon's windows were open to the chuck wagon box and the ingenious single wheel trailer with the rotating wheel.  This got me thinking.

Obviously my wife and are sleeping in the teardrop, but what about the kids?  I'm thinking that we might be able to do something similar to the Barstow Family.  For those camping times and locations where time is critical might allow us to simply fold the seats in our CRV down and inflate a mattress for the kids.  I could see this option being ideal if it were raining too.  We purchased a EZ Up to give us an area of shelter in which to cook, etc.  This could be put over the CRV's hatch back as well and give shelter the kids from bad rain, etc.  When there is more time and or space, we could easily set up one of our smaller tents for the kids.  And that settles it.  Now we can start planning and mapping our route.  If  you have some time, you would probably really enjoy watching this family's journeys, I know I sure did.