Artist Life called me to say a Bitter Sweet Goobye to my Airstream. My Tiny Adventure Continues!
A lot has happened as those who follow me on social media know, but I’m actually still living tiny. Just in a way I did not expect.
Exit plans are all good, but things never really go as planned. There really was a lot of thought, journaling, researching and waiting in leaps in jumps to transition out of Airstream life. I had to think what comes first? Do I sell the Airstream and then find an apartment? Do I find an apartment and then sell the Airstream? Can I sell the Airstream myself? What do I need to fix on the Airstream in order to sell it? What if I sell my truck first? How will I move my Airstream? It was a whirlwind of thoughts, ideas and possibilities. What comes first the chicken or the egg?
And as for exit plans, so much has changed even since I started writing this post I have been battling in my head exit plans on a larger scale. So I thought I better get to catching you all up on the first leap from the Airstream to city life, so that in a near future blog I can catch you up on possible country leaping as well as studio news!
What I ended up doing was selling “Beast”, my truck, first. A diesel truck actually holds its value quite well. At least my Dodge Ram 2500 4×4 did. (I like saying that. =] )I lost a little money on the fact that I chipped up the paint job during that last winter ice storm banging on my truck to get the ice off so I could get to my generators when the power went out. Oh well, such is life. I was still able to get a good price and walk away with enough cash to turn around and get Mr. Frog, my new Honda HRV. When I saw that car on the lot my thought was wow, that’s a jazzy car! Funny because it actually looks like every car out there, but I do love it. Its small, the gas mileage is worlds better than a diesel truck and I’m able to whip around town learning the city much quicker than I could before. When it came time to tow my trailer out of the park, my car salesmen brought his truck, also a Dodge Ram 2500, over and helped me tow it. However, I do know that my ultimate downsize tiny move will come the next round when I go completely without a car. Living in Portland, the city is completely walkable and I will feel better not contributing to the demise of our planet with a car. Oh one last thing about my new car… the seats fold completely flat, my matress its in the back and I can easily car camp in it, which is lovely! I took my first car camp trip to Half Moon Bay in San Fransisco and had a good time!
As for selling my trailer, that was a learning process. In the end I found it way to difficult to sell myself, and I’m good at selling stuff. The marketing was the hardest part. I was dropping $100 here and $100 there to advertise in all of the right places. The responses I was getting were only coming from facebook marketplace of all places. It was dragging on and I didn’t want to go through another winter making it less valuable. Airstream was not great on information but eventually I figured out that I had a couple of options with them, I could either outright sell it back to Airstream, where I would get a little less, or I could consign it thorugh Airstream. Of course they found thousand of dollars of work that needed to be done, which was bulloney. I knew the dollar amount for the work that had to be done, but there is no way to argue with them. And if I chose to consign it it woldn’t get sold until next spring. So I took the route that got me less money back but actually probably saved me money as I was able to wipe out all of my debt immediately, sell all of my extra gear instead of gift it for another chunk of money, wipe out interest payments since all debt was paid off, and simply be done with a bunch in savings. Outright selling her back to Airstream was the best deal.
I hadn’t been a roomate in over 30 years so moving in with a colleague from my theater side gig was a leap of faith too. Hopefully she enjoys the company as much as I do. I live in the upstairs of my friend’s house which technically is the attic. There are two finished rooms up there and a doorway that leads to the rest of the attic. The rent is kindly priced unlike anything else in Portland, allowing me to save up for that condo or loft where my studio is in my living space. And because there are two rooms I have had a studio in the second room which works out. And I’m still living tiny. I haven’t actually measured but I’d guess the space to still be around 200 feet. Although I do share a shelf in the fridge in the kitchen and the bathroom downstairs. I have a huge redwood right outside of my window and incredible backyard garden that takes me back to the rivers and creeks I have been living on. Once in awhile Dudley and I drive back to our old stomping grounds and “smell the Redwoods”.
I’ve picked up a mentee which keeps me learning. And I’m working on a series trying not to show any of it until the unveiling of the entire show. I’m working in the abstract completely on a theme that is centered around the current climate crisis which has allowed me to learn a lot about living with an even smaller footprint. I’ll share some of the things I’m learning in a future post.
As usual, thanks for the follow. I am no longer on facebook, so you’ll have to catch me here, or see when I post on bluesky (@ElisaMG.bluesky.social) or instagram (@TinyAdventuresOfElisaMG) while I’m still there.
Tiny Adventures of Elisa MG 