a pinch of crazy + a lb. of unemployment

After all of our intense Excel-sheeting and timeshare-looking, the honeymoon is starting to take a slightly different shape from our initial interest in fleeing the country. Bubbling on the backburner has been an idea to do some extensive traveling right around our homeland, you know, the one with the red white and blue?

Since most likely, Brian and I will both be without jobs come next May, it's been hard to resist the urge to max out on our vacationing while vacation time comes without penalty! Thus, we're starting to wrap our minds around maybe more like a 2-month adventure around the U.S....likely, with the assistance of a teardrop trailer. If you've never seen one, they were really popular back in the 30s-50s and look like this: 

Essentially there's just enough room inside to crawl into bed, and then the kitchenette on the back houses a little stove, icebox, etc. Here's a diagram where you can see the inside and how everything manages to fit in such a small space. 

There's definitely not any room to spare, but it's the most cost-effective alternative that we've found that's a step above straight-up camping in a tent (which, let's be honest...do you think I could happily sleep in a tent for 8 weeks? Let's not talk crazy now). An RV would be great but they are gas guzzlers and cost a fortune, even to rent. The teardrop trailer is a nice little in-between that can be pulled by a sedan, can be re-sold after we're done with it, and would give us more protection than a tent but still save us from spending money on 60 nights in hotels. Because of its portability, you can essentially sleep anywhere you feel safe enough to do so - campgrounds, the side of the road, or even Wal-Mart parking lots (WM is super trailer friendly...another little factoid I've learned). There are obviously no showers, so you have to rely on campground showers, merciful friends, and a can of Psssst. 

Maybe a little crazy, but interesting, right?

A whole teardrop trailer sub-culture exists, which has been fascinating to see on websites and travel logs. And there are all sorts of accessories you can get too, like tents and dressing rooms, since you can't stand up in the trailer. 

Brian's uncle restores vintage cars and does all sorts of other mechanic/handywork that my feminine brain can't process, so we've enlisted him to start researching how much it would cost to have him build us our very own. Possibly painted to match the gold Honda. I'm just saying.

We'll see how the financial aspect of it pans out, but I've done a mock budget and I think we could get away with it for about the same price as 2 weeks in Costa Rica or somewhere equally awesome. So we'll see - there may or may not be a Google map already dedicated to potential routes. If we're going to be jobless and homeless and kidless - no better time to do something like this, right??