My car has flowery blue curtains for months out of the year. Wanna make something of it?!
The campground of the Sterling Festival where most of the out of town employees and contractors
stay does not allow dogs. Its always been important to Bob to have a place for, at first the sainted 100lb chocolate
labrador Cocoa and now the highly intelligent, but somewhat…ok, really… unusual 60lb Holly the boxer/hound/
we're-not-sure-what-- to live. The family pays rent to a local landowner to camp at one of the many abandoned
farms in the area. Its not fancy, but it has the advantage of peace, quiet, space, privacy, and gorgeous Arcadian
charm…while being darn cheap!
The place we stay up here is an old dairy farm. There's a lot of abandoned agricultural
property in this area. People just couldn't make a living or just went bankrupt trying to heat their homes during the
winter and left. Our landlord owns quite a few acres of these old farms and the rent we pay him probably clears the
property taxes for him. There was a house, but it was condemned and the local fire department burned it down a few years
ago for practice. But the concrete barn and silo still remain. There's a mowed area that we use and acres of chest high
fallow fields behind that the dogs all love to nose about in.
We don't actually "live" in the barn. Les and Bob and our other campers have trailers.
But the barn is an excellent place hang out and to store things. There are 2 rooms in addition to the main barn area.
One room was built by the potter who used to rent this place before Bob came here. He made a room complete a screen door
and a lockable door and LOTS of shelving. There lives our ancient refrigerator and my not-quite-so-ancient computer.
The other room, my room, used to be the old milk storage area. I use it to store all my booth stuff and clothes, lamps a
puzzle table and its quite homey.
So, all I really need is a place to sleep. I use my Ford wagon. I don't like tents.
I know Rennies who live for months at time in tents, but I just don't like them. In my car, I know I've got a roof
that won't leak and I'm up off the ground in a structure that won't blow a way. I put the back seats down, make a bed
of a lounge chair mattress and some sleeping bags and put mosquito netting in the windows. I have a 12 volt fan that
fits in the cigarette lighter for warm nights. It's really quite comfy.
So, yeah, people can live in cars…
