handmade homes take to the open road

i want this to be us so bad...rollin away in a fairytale bus made of wood and wheels, porch and books.

this is from another book in the series of rad 70s handmade house books that i've written about before and missa wrote about here (raddest houseboats ever, ever, ever)

this one is all about handmade hippie houses on the road.

we have it at the bookery in the locked case; it's a collectible and thus way out of my price range.

but i still get to look at its gloriousness.

these photos of the pages look much better than mine, found in this wonderful little delight here, check these caravans out:

standing in the mist with its little terra cotta pots and windowpanes,

killing this fairytale heart a mine.

i can picture joey and emily in this one, our neighbors.

and this one can house addie and art, and we'll drive cross the prairies together.

this covered-wagon one seems the most fun of all.

roll back the canvas and sleep under the stars.

cozy enough to have our cats curled next to that woodstove,

or peeking out this window.

those pages got me thinking about traditional gypsy caravans, or vardos.

i know i over-romanticize the romany life, and i have never been to europe or encountered actual romany people except at festivals in the bay area.

but what i really long for is my own version of life on the road, in a pretty home-on-wheels that looks colorful and quaint.

and i could ply my trades while a-wandering.

and we'd play music and put on shows and be free from the weary constraints of modern life.

i know, i know, i know. you might say i'm a dreamer...

but i'm not the only one ;)

this and others here

on our long cross-country rambles,

as i've written about before, my job is to keep the inside of Isis (our van) as tidy as possible.

it's a trick when there are four or more of you traveling together, but it is satisfying to shake out the blankets and make the bed, to tuck the suitcases into their proper niches and slide the stove into its compartment under the bed.

the unfettered compactness and parsimony of vagabondia appeals to me.

but best of all is roaming vast landscapes, camping out in new forests under new skies, full of the spirit of something wild and free.

you all know this happens to me, and i have to go back and look through my travel journals

and start dreaming up schemes for more big journeys.

these pages were all taken from my journal of our 2002 trip; we lived in Isis for 3 rumbly-tumbly months on the road.

and then in 2007 we spent a couple months on the road and joey and addie joined us and we went back to south dakota and minnesota and all those mysterious and strange places that form the landscapes of our history and hold so many ghostly wails and weepings of the past.

i know that our little home on wheels doesn't even come close to the romantically gorgeous gypsy caravan of my dreams,

but if i can actually live in a tiny woodsy cottage one day then we'll just keep good old Isis as our traveling partner.

you can also find lots of lovely similar inspirations at moon to moon.

thanks for indulging my whimsies.

and happy travels in the upcoming year.