My roommate always laughs at "Boatwright family" stories, so here's a little peak into my life for the past few days!
July 3
Today my sister Katie and I woke up a little later than expected, because we hadn’t actually set an alarm for the morning; we just thought we had. We'd been in Orlando for a couple days, at the North American National Irish dance championships. We checked out of the hotel and schlepped all our crap to the car, hoping to find a cute coffee shop before hitting the road for the eight-hour trip home. During the ensuing fruitless search for non-Starbucks breakfast places, all we could find outside of Disneyworld was a very sketchy Waffle House: window shades halfway down, maybe three people eating, and a line of about a dozen workers sitting along one wall. We decided we probably shouldn’t break into whatever cultic proceedings were going on and headed right back down the road. Twenty minutes and several closed bakeries later, we gave up and started toward Charlotte, snagging some Panera en route.
Later we passed St. Augustine and decided to stop for a cuppa (much needed because that Panera coffee was not the greatest). Fortunately, Katie found a fabulous little Aussie-style shop called Kookaburra. Unfortunately, parking was a nightmare. After U-turning in a few quaint alleys and dodging masses of entitled pedestrians and miniature tour trains for what felt like an eternity, we found a spot. The Kookaburra was worth it. Highly recommend to anyone with a parking space in St. Augustine.
Several hours more driving, and we were pulling up to our street. But what’s that monstrosity parked in front of our house? It’s a 26-foot-long zebra-striped airstream, complete with an American flag covering the rear window! As we parked behind it, Dad came out and started chocking the wheels, and Will emerged from the door, bemused at our shock. Real footage below.
What a time to be alive. Apparently, Dad drove out to Nashville last night to buy this thing from an elderly couple who had taken it to Africa and driven from Cape Town to Cairo in it. Hence the zebra stripes. And why did we buy this particular airstream? Because it’s vintage, of course! Heaven knows how Dad even found it in the first place, but it was a good price and hey, plain silver airstreams are way too trendy anyway, right?
The plan is to spend tomorrow building some custom furniture for it, and then heading out on a long road trip early the next day. Current trajectory: D.C./New York for a day, Cape Cod for a few days, Acadia National Park for a few days, back to Cape Cod, in to Boston for the day, and then back out to the Cape for awhile.
All in the zebra.
I’ll be reporting from the road, so stay tuned for more tales of adventure!
July 4
“Oh, awesome! Since it’s the fourth of July, people will be setting off fireworks, so the neighbors won’t mind if we use our power tools late at night!”
(Yes, that is an actual quote from Marc Boatwright.)
In the spirit of Independence Day, we have (very independently) designed and built several benches, a table with extendable legs, and a contraption to turn the airstream’s two-seater couch into a two-person bed. It was at least 100 degrees out, but luckily we have an old window AC unit in front of the workbench in the garage. Of course, we still need to add some finishing touches and pack the camper and clean the house before we leave tomorrow. The goal is to leave by 10 AM, but I have a feeling it’ll be more like 10 PM.
July 5
Sure enough, we had a lot more to do today than we had budgeted time for.
Although we did leave before 10 PM, we left at rush hour, so our progress was a little impeded by blocks of commuters. It almost made up for the time to watch people’s expressions as they glance over, do a double-take, and then look through the windows of our rust-red Nissan Armada to try to see what kind of whack jobs drive this combination of vehicles.
Driving up through North Carolina on I-77 at sunset, I can see why James Taylor wrote songs about it. There are so many shades of green everywhere I look in these rolling hills. The little roadside towns are as quaint and quirky as their names. We pass creeks down in vales full of ferns, fields of cows and horses, and dense forests full of wildlife (and poison ivy and gnats, as we’ve learned on previous adventures). As we get up toward Appalachia, the view of the distant blue mountains amid the purple clouds tinged with orange is beautifully calm. Looking down the valley, the lights from the farmhouses gleam gold in the warm fog.
Come back next week for more Zebra Tales! ;)
