My Airstream Blog

We have moved, to see our new page at http://airstreamadventureswithmissrivette.blogspot.com/


Thanks
Laura

Wow, its hard to believe that 2008 and come and gone, however it went out with a bang in my family! Or should I saw came out with a cry. My family welcomed the birth of Lila Jolene Gaunt born on Dec. 2, 2008, 5lbs 3 oz and 17 inches long. My sister was only in labor for a couple hours and here comes our little Lila. As an Aunt, I have most busy days, if Im not working, or in school, Im most of the time with Lila! However, camping hasnt left the back of my mind! I have already planned a few trips. The KY Airforums rally being held at Natural Bridge, KY in April, International WBCCI rally in Madison, WI in June, and the Metro-Detroit rally in August. Many more are in the works, but havent been planned 100 percent yet. I hope everyone had a great New Years, and may it be a great year for everyone!


 
 
                                                               
                                                                            Lila and I when she was only 24 hours old!

Before the Mackinaw City Rally, I wanted to dosome repairs on the Caravel. First is I replaced the switch for the Scare Light outside. Here is the new switch located next to a wall light.



Here is the light working in the dark, this light allows me to see the lock outside when its dark out! Works like a champ now!










Something eles I wanted to do was have my running lights working off 12 volts, I used some extra female plugs, and so after some wiring, we got it!







Here are the lights on from the back!





As you see here, I finally put up my Map on the back window! I love it!





When I was at Tin Can Tourist rally, they had a table that came out of 1965 Caravel (Like mine) However this was a built in table from the CA made Caravels.




Also at the Tin Can Rally there was the CEO of Airstreams 1950 Flying Cloud, it was designed by David Winick, this thing is SWEET, and for a cool, 65k and can be yours!



 










Then Holly, Carol,  and I went Geocaching! Found some goodies!




The girls with the GPS's



Something we found in a Geocache and gave to Carol!



The stream!







Holly and her baby Lucy!




The Caravel











 

Carol and I at dinner!




 

These are some pictures from the Metro-Detroit Forums Rally! It was a great rally, and I think everyone had a great time!





Dave and Ike!



Here is my former home for 3 weeks while I went to Bozeman, Dad's 30 Ft Limited!



Me pulling in to the campground




Steve and Tom pulling in to the campground right behind me




Steph and Dave and Sam



The group is getting bigger



Rob and Zoe's SWEET Soverign of the Road


SMILE!



Ryan's 1999 Safari




I love the sight of Airstreams!





My home!




Getting set up!



Steve and Tom



Steph and Dave




Look at this, AIRSTREAMS DO HAVE SLIDES, take that SOB's!





This one is for 2air!



Nothing like a colored campfire!



Derek, Renee and I at the campfire, whats kinda scary is that we were all wearing BROWN!




Friends!



Smile everyone!


More Friends!



Brad with the CCS that I love with a dog I love, Orie!




This is Felix that is the happy camper of Derek and Renee




Carols Front Bedroom!



HEY THERE TIN SISTA!

First I want to say Im sorry it has been so long. Between working both jobs which adds up to around 50 hours a week, getting ready to go back to school full time, and going camping with my WBCCI unit! So I thought I would add some more pictures from diffrent events.


This is from Christmas, My sister Holly, Her Husband Jason, and myself with one of our new Christmas Gifts for our Airstreams!





Hannah aka AirBrat and I at the B-line



Airbrats dad, Dave, DragoNWagon at the Bline for a Save Rudy Strike Team Meeting!


From the We Can Tow IT Rally, Carol and Sharon!



The Gift I picked at the We Can Tow It Rally!



Back to our trip to International, This bike was so cool, painted with the Crazy Horse Memorial on it!



International Sunset!



They are everywhere!





Happy hour!



Yellowstone Lodge!






MORE SNOW!!



More of the Yellowstone Wildlife!








Glaicer National Park, McDonald Lake



Going out on the lake!





One of the best flights ever!









Going to the Sun Road!





Christmas in July WBCCI rally!








Hillary, my sister, and I with her Dog Mindy!



Hope this helps some, sorry its been so long!

Im sorry it has taken so long to get this thing updated! The last few days have been non-stop!  So let me start from where we left off......


We left for West Glacier near Glacier National Park on July 3rd, while we were driving, it was awesome to see all the wonderful mountians and lakes, this is the best one I saw, it was so pretty, this picture does it no justice!




Then we arrived at the KOA in west Glacier, it was a really nice KOA, however, the WiFi SUCKED!!!



West Glacier



The Park



On one of the trails, this little guy came out, a deer. Too bad the only shot I got of him was his BUTT!



This is dad on top of Apgar mountain, it was a 4.3 mile hike, I called it quits after about a mile and a half. This was taken from a webcam the park offers on their website!



This is Lake McDonald, I swear, if I died there, at the moment I was there, that would have been fine, because this place was heaven to me.





It hard to tell, but this a REALLY bad rain storm, it just so happend to be while I was on the lake in a Kayak. It fell so hard it felt like hail, I was about 3 miles off shore when it happend, great timing on my part!




That is me in the Kayak.




The next day, July 4th, dad bought me a heliocopter ride, if anyone ever goes to Glacier, TAKE THE RIDE, its worth every penny!


These are all shots from the ride, I didnt get a picture of the pilot, but he was pretty hot!







Lonely Mans Lookout (Its now closed)









This is something that is really neat that you can only see from the Helicopter, this is two lakes separated by a waterfall, it was so pretty!





The view down


These pictures were taken from the "Going To the Sun Road"






















Glacier was really neat, it was hard to take a bad picture! Yellowstone is better for the Wildlife, but Glacier has the views handsdown!





Then we went to Alberta Canada


More of the park on the way home, all these trees had been caught in a fire, and their policy is Nature will take care of it, so there are no fire teams to put it out, which means there is a lot of fire damage.





On July 5th we packed up and started our trip back home. This was the last of the new states for me, North Dakota!


We drove on US 2 all the way to the bridge, the Mighty Mac is shown in these next photos.






So we got home around 6pm on July 9th, it was perfect length for a trip like this, although we were rushed to see everything, we got to see a lot. Thank you all for watching the blog, I hope you enjoyed it, keep watching for more Airstreaming.

                                                                     Gas...$1700.00
                                          Miles....4800
                      Meeting new people and having a great time......Priceless!


Thanks again,
Laura




 

 Today is my last day in Bozeman and at International! Kinda a bittersweet moment, Im glad because we are going to Glacier but yet there are some awesome people I have had a chance to meet while being here and i dont want to leave because Im going to miss them! I havent really taken many pictures because there isnt much to take shots of, so this blog is not going to have much! We are off to Glacier in the morning, and then Im going to have some pictures! Keep watching the blog, and there will be more updates!


Laura

 Once again, Im sorry it took so long to get on here and update the blog. We went to Yellowstone and White Water rafting and thoes were both full day activties. 


But before all of that, we had a small get-to-gether at Dads trailer. Here are some pictures from it.





And Michael and Miss Rivette 2008




Then there was also the VAC parade....





I also helped Michael at his booth



The next day we were heading to Yellowston National Park.


But first Dad and I both wanted to go to Idaho. This was a new state for both of us, and it was only about 5 miles out of the way.



First we went to Yellowstone, we couldnt ask for a better day of weather. I took a ton of pictures!



From the second we got in we could see the damage still present from the 1988 fire which burned over 500,000 acers.



We saw some Elk.



It was such a pretty sight!

]



IT'S HOT!!!!




Because everyone was telling me there wasnt enough pictures of Dad, you will see that on this post there are many pictures of him!









I saw this burnt tree and thought it was so cool!



Dad in front of Old Faithful.



Me in front of Old Faithful.



It was so cool to see how high the water went, it kept teasing us, some water would come up about 5 feet, than it would stop.
 

76 Degrees and Snow on the ground, I love it!





The Continental Divide!





West Thumb lake.



Yellowstone Lake







Buffalo


I was about 10 feet from this one!



Crossing the road, it took about 30 minutes for them to deside what side they wanted to be one and then they stoped right in the road! It was so cool though!!!




The Upper Falls


A Moose!



I got about 2 feet away from these ones, they walked right next to us, it was to cool.


And yesterday we went White Water Rafting, this is the only picture I got!




Overall its been a good week, the next three days are just enjoying the rally and meeting more people. I'll try to get some more pictures of the rally, keep watching, its easier to update it now that we arnt leaving the rally for the whole day!


ENJOY!


Laura

Sorry for taking so long! I only get WiFi in the main building, so it takes longer to get this up! Ill try to keep up.



Day 3 started with us leaving Sturgis, SD, heading West towards Wyoming.  

 

We saw a couple Airstreams heading the same direction, Im guessing they were heading to the rally, didnt get many pictures, but I got one!




While we were in Wyoming we saw some snow capped mountians, even if it was 89 degrees!





Then we got into Montana!




Then I was looking at something I had bought at Mt. Rushmore. Its called a passport to your national parks. Its a neat little book that has almost, if not all of the National Parks in it, and what you do, is when you go to a park, you get a stamp to prove you have been there. While we were driving I saw that the Little Bighorn Battlefield was on there. I asked dad if we could stop so I could get it stamped, after thinking a little while about the battle, Dad said that it was the same date as the battle happened. June 25th! HOW COOL!! So we stoped and got into the park for free because it was the same date. There were a TON of people and we spent about an hour walking around and seeing where Custer had his last stand! So much history in one place! We had a great time!





Entering the National Monument.



Most of the headstones dont have names.







The Airstream from on top of the Hill!





It was sunny!!










More pretty mountains!






So now we are in Bozeman. We get to the Bull Pen here at the rally, and we happend to miss a minor detail. They stop parking at 4:00pm and we got there at 6:00pm. So we spent the night in the Bull Pen our first night at the rally. By 8:00am the next more we were being parked and and setting up. What a good feeling it was to get to our things unpacked and be able to know we are staying there for more than a couple days. 

We talked to the Dometic guys, and we got our new door that was shipped to Hank, a forums member that allowed us to get our new door sent to him! THANKS HANK!! And the Dometic guy was awesome, he got the new door up in 30 minutes!

We are glad to be here and are having a good time!

Stay tuned for more pictures later, the only problem is, I have to come to the main building to get Wifi and thats why it took me so long!

                                                                                                Day 2:

           After going back to the Harley Shop to pick up some more goodies, we were heading towards Rushmore.                
                                                       

We happen to go threw the small Western town of Deadwood, SD. This little town had a lot of kick, so we desided to stay for lunch!

                                                        


But before we could even make it to the resturant, we stoped at a few shops and I saw this Flamingo shirt that I almost had to get...but didnt!

                                                                         

                            Stockade, this amazine place was able to get our food out to his in less than 10 minutes, it was great!
                                                                        
I saw this hat and almost had to get it just to wear at the We Can Tow It Rally, it was pink, and had a crown on it, it was so Miss Rivette material!

                                                                        
This is the Main Strip of Deadwood, its a really neat Western, valley town that had so much to offer.. including slot machines which I hated!

                                                                         


                                                               The Deadwood water tower, it just happen to be on the side of a cliff!

                                                                            
             
              We were leaving when this sign happen to stop us from going anywhere.. I was thinking to myself "Oh this should be good!"

                                                                           

                        Only one person was shot, its funny, I saw him later, and there was no blood! These people in S.D. heal really fast!
                                                                          

                                                                              
                    We left Deadwood and headed to Mt Rushmore, these were the first shots I got from insde the car as we were still driving!

                                                                             
                                                         Yet, another shot from the car, I didnt think it could get much better, but it did!


                                                                              

                                                                         A close up, the weather was great too, couldnt ask for a better day!

                                                                                      
                                                              Me standing right after we entered the park, I couldnt believe all the people, it was nuts!

                                                                                         
                                            Im thinking one more face wouldnt hurt! Maybe I'll talk to the National Park Service, see what they think!

                                                                                       
This is Crazy Horse, I didnt think that I was going to like this better than Mt Rushmore, but funny enough, I did! Its not even done, and I liked it more. I learned so much about this project to build Crazy Horse Memorial. The head alone of Crazy Horse (His face is already done) is going to be bigger than Mt Rushmore and all the 4 faces on it! The horses' head is going to be 22 stores high! This project is completly funded by tourists! It has been going for 60 years, and they have no idea when its going to be done!
 

                                                                              
I thought this place was SO neat! I couldnt believe how big it was, and having some Native American Blood in me, it was great to see that the Native Americans were going to have something to be proud of like this!


                                                                     
This is what the Carving will look like when it is done! What is so cool, is that it is going to be 3-D, all around. Which mean both sides of this is going to look the same!




                                                                      

After we left Crazy Horse we were ready to get something to eat! So we desided to go to a small town near Deadwood called Lead. This is the only picture I got of Lead because....well frankly it was BORING!! We didnt even find a place to eat, so we left and went back to Deadwood to eat dinner, good choice on our part!
   


                                                                     

When I was at the Saloon in Deadwood this Outlaw walked by, and we started chatting. This guy looked just like Jeff Daniels, and I asked him about it, turns out, this guy has been in over 300 TV shows and Movies in the past few years. He just started in a movie with Clint Eastwood and it turns out, he lived in Michigan a few years back! His name it J. T. Rockwell! Super nice guy!


Well after all said and done, we put in 12 hours day! It was a lot of fun, and we got to see and meet some great people! I can see why people love it out here so much, its so diffrent, but I can tell you, I wouldnt be able to live out here, as pretty and quite as it is, I would go NUTS!

Off to Bozeman in the morning, cant wait to get to International! Keep watching for more updates. 

Well, we are in Sturgis, SD! We are at the first stop of our trip, but before I get to that, why dont I tell you it all from the start.

We left at 6:40am EST heading west! Leaving behind our other Airstream's    :(




On the road!











 We went to Indiana, then Illinois, then to my first new state, Iowa. As you can see, I took some pictures!





Iowa is more of a happenin' than I thought. First I saw the World's Largest Truckstop. It was HUGE!!! Then I saw a Casino that looked like a barn! This was so funny, sorry for the bad picture, I didnt know what it was until I was right next to it!



We also went by where all the flooding was in Iowa. On Cedar River, these are the only pictures I was able to get, but it seemed like everything was black from where the water was.





Then all this fun had to come to an end, or so the Devil thought! While we were getting gas, Dad was trying to open the fridge, and he couldnt get it, so I tried, and this is what happend. Who knew this small plastic peice that fell off was going to cost us almost 300 dollars? Well turns out, we need a whole new door now!



 

As we kept driving along, we kept seeing these HUGE windmills, they were so cool, and then, here comes MN!



 
Although MN was kinda boring, it did give us a chance to see a great Sunset!





Finally at 11:00pm Central Time we stoped for the night at a rest area! We had been in the truck driving for 16 hours, only stoping for gas. We drove 860 miles in ONE DAY!!!! We stoped 20 miles away from the SD boarder!




     YAY, we made it....almost!



                                                                I thought this thing was just too cool to not take a picture of.!
                                                                    

Wall Drug........That is all I have to say, after about 400 miles with signs like this almost every mile, it was almost sick to see them over and over again!
                                                                 


                                                                                               Finally, no more signs, I hope!!!
 
                                                                    
    
                                                          


                                                                     Our new backyard for the next couple days! Sturgis, SD

                                                                   

               This is our campground from the other side of the road, can you see the Airstream?............Dont worry, I cant either!

                                                                   
        Had to stop and get some Harley goodies, considering this is the home of one of the Largest Bike Week's in the world!!!

                                                                    

Then we stoped and had some dinner at this great place right on main street of Sturgis, where all the Bike Week Events take place.




                                                              

So what is next you ask.............................................





MT. RUSHMORE!!!!!!!!!!


stay tuned for update on tommarrows trip to Mt. Rushmore!





Laura








 

Well now that we are getting closer to Bozeman, my dad and I have gotten our plans straight. We are leaving Saturday June 21st and heading toward IL, then to MN, and off to Mt Rushmore.It should take 2-3 days to get there. We are going to stay at Mt Rushmore for a couple days and then off to Bozeman. We will more and likley take our time getting there, enjoying the wonderful senic views and the open sky. During the Rally we plan on going to Yellowstone National Park for a day or so. We are going to go White Water Rafting on the Yellowstone River as well. That should be a good time. Then after the Rally we are heading to Glacier National Park! This is something that im really excited to see, everyone tells me that this national park is truly AWESOME!! I'll be sure to keep everyone posted and hopefully get some pictures on here so everyone can follow out adventures!

Time is flying by, which means its getting closer to Bozeman! My dads trailer is being serviced, and Im starting to get things together.  But I will say Im worried about one thing, space for everything.  Im a 21 year old women, which means, umm, I like to take a lot of clothes when I travel. But I found something yesterday that is going to save me! Space Saver bags, these are bags are perfect for camping because all you have to do is roll the air out. This way, I can take more clothes and take up less space! So this is a must for me! Im getting really excited for Bozeman, I think Im going to have a great time, and be sure to keep watching as we get ready to leave, and when we start our trip to Bozeman!


Laura

 

I wanted to say sorry to anyone who reads this blog. I have been very busy over the past couple weeks. First, I went to Dayton, Ohio for the annual Hamvention. In other words, its a weekend just about Ham Radio. However the day before I left for Ohio, I started to feel a little under the weather. The next morning, I was really sick. I had a really bad cough, sore throat, tired, fever, and now, I was driving down to Ohio for 4 days, and I was going to be away from home. Now, Im not sure about you, but I like to be home when I dont feel well. I wasnt getting any better, to the point I was having cold sweats and was unable to breathe while I was sleeping, my first night, I got 2 hours of sleep. At this point, Im on E, I cant go much farther, someway, I made it back home on Sunday, and Monday morning, I called into work sick, and made myself a doctors appointment.Now for anyone who knows me, I HATE GOING TO THE DOCTOR. It had been about 8 years since I had gone to the doctor for anything other than a broken ankle, or two, or three. ( Yes I broke my ankle 3 times in 4 years) So I got to the doctor, he quickly finds out, I have no voice, I couldnt even talk. I tried to wisper what was bothering me, and after listening to my lungs and heart, here comes all the tests. I had a Breathing test, then a breathing treatment, then another breathing test, to see if I improved. Well the doctor said I did, and he told me that not only do I have an upper resportory infect at the least, but I have sever Asthma. Then be has his pad of paper, writing out wheat seemed to be 800 scripts. Really it was only 3, but it seemed like a lot more! Then he said that I had to come back in 4 days, if I wasnt any better, he might be sending me to the hospital. Well, I went back yesterday, and walked away with some better news. My chest is finally clearing up, but the Asthma is not going to go away. I now have 2 inhalers, and I will be taking breathing treatments at home from now on, which means one thing. BREATHING TREATMENTS WHILE CAMPING! Im not a happy camper about that. Great, something to take up more room! But im feeling better, after a week, Im back to work now, and starting to get ready for Bozeman. sorry it took so long, but Im still kicking!

I thought I would show everyone some snapshots I took today of my dad's Airstream.

 

Well, now that Ihave my first camping trip of the year already behind me, I guess we can Let the Fun begin! I went over to my dads a few days ago and worked on the Caravel. Worked on Stripping more of the clear coat off, got about 2 whole pannels done! Thats pretty good if I dont say so myself. The problem is, you have to do it on warm days, days that allows the Aluminum to get hot! Works much better that way. But now that I know how to post pictures, thanks to Mary, THANKS MARY, I guess I start showing you my pride and joy!

 Im still learning how to make a great blog, but I'll get it, so I thought in this posting would be about the Airstream I call Patches. Patches was made and sold in 1965. It was sold to a couple here in Michigan, and they sold it to another owner is Michigan, who never used it. My father saw it beside the road, and called my grandfather and said, "you have to see this." Well they got a great deal, and it has been in the family ever since. Back in 1997 my grandparents, and my aunt and uncle moved out to New Mexico and Patches went with them. Ever since then, it was never used, and was in a parking lot for storage. Last January my dad contacted my grandparents and asked what they were planning to do with it. They said as long as my dad drove out there to get it, it was his. In April he took a week off work and went out there to bring back Patches. One thing was that my father already had a 30ft 1997 Limited Airstream, my other sister had her own Airstream, and my other sister lives in KY, so there was no one to camp in Patches BUT ME!! So we became pals real fast. I fell in love, it was perfect, 17ft, but the only thing that I didnt have going for me, was a SUV to tow it with. So, I feel like the Long Long Trailer, but really, it was the Short Short Trailer, so, in May I bought a 2004 Jeep Liberty. Great, so I got the car, the trailer, but now, I needed somewhere to go. Thats where Airforums came in to play. I soon was going to rally's, and now me and patches go to many rally's. Patches protects me from the elements of mother nature, and gives me a place to call my home on wheels! 

Once I learn to post pictures on here, ill show everyone.

First Post EVER!! Im so excited about having an Airstream Blog. This way, people can see my Adventures and hopefully learn how to have fun Airstreaming! First I should tell you more about myself. My name is Laura, and I have been Airstreaming my whole life, but last year I got my own Airstream trailer. A 1965 17ft Caravel, that belonged to my grandparents, and wasnt being used. I have since become crazy about Airstream, and telling others about the great times and the history behind them. I may be young (Only 21 years old) but I know a lot about Airstreams, and keep on learning more. This started out as a way to spend more time with my Family, and has since turned out to be something I cant stop thinking about. I try to take the Caravel anywhere I can. It has become the silver twinkie that wont leave my mind. I just got home from the We Can Tow It Womens Rally held in St. Mary's, OH, near Jackson Center, OH! I had a blast, it was a great time, and I hope to be Airstreaming more this summer, mainly with my 19 day trip out west this summer to Bozeman, MT for the International WBCCI rally! Keep watching for more posts, Im sure this will be something I write on almost everyday, because I learn and see more things all the time. Thanks again for reading!

Miss Rivette

Laura