BluebirdMama, her husband and their three small children all live in a 40-foot converted Bluebird school bus. The parents lived in the bus before the children were born, but decided to move into a “normal” house when their first child came along. However, after four years, the mobile life called … Read more
Over the course of two summers in 1945, Lorna Benedict lived in a shepherd’s wagon on a large ranch in Wyoming. During her stint as a shepherd she watched over a herd of sheep, chopped her own firewood, shot and skinned local wildlife and fished the rivers for her food.
My post for today is still preparing for the traffic he might receive so I am postponing it for the time being. Cheyenne sent me some great Vardo inspiration from several sites so I thought I would give you some Vardo eye candy in todays post. I have covered George’s min vardo before here. He has a great blog with some cool photos I’d like to invite you to spend some time on it if you have interest in vardos and other hand made things. http://paleotool.com/
Guest Post by Michelle Wilson
We’ve recently finished our latest caravan here at Hornby Island Caravans – it’s our first year round dwelling which is hugely exciting for us! This is a 10 ft. by 26 ft. caravan- the usual width for road regulations is 8″5″ but you can get a pretty inexpensive over width permit, I think it was something like $15 a day here in British Columbia and you don’t have to do the big pilot car and lights production. In my previous caravans I’ve built the side walls so they slant outward toward the top and we did consider starting with a standard width trailer frame of about 8′ and slanting the walls out to 10′, but in the end our client Tony decided that he’d rather have straight walls and have the maximum amount of floor space possible, so we had to have a wider custom trailer built. Having the extra width seems to have made quite a big difference in the feel of the place-almost everyone that has come by has remarked on how spacious it feels inside.
Photo Credits: Hornby Island Caravans
We’ve also pushed the road height limits which are 13′.6″ from the ground to the top of the roof, so the top of the ceiling is a bit over 9′. I wouldn’t make a caravan this tall if it were meant to be towed around regularly, in fact there are many things I would have done differently if that were the case, but since this is not likely to move for many years, being aerodynamic and light wasn’t as important. Tony’s reasons for choosing a caravan rather than a house were more about flexibility and having a less permanent footprint rather than moving often.
This beautiful gypsy wagon, which was used as a prop in the 1988 movie “Big Top Pee-Wee” has been available for sale since the middle of last year. The wagon, restored by Gary Votapka, was originally purchased for his land in Montana, but it is still sitting in a California neighborhood waiting for its next owner. (Sold)
The vardo was in terrible shape when Gary purchased it for $10,000 and towed it from Barstow to his home in Fallbrook, Calif. The wagon had been sitting in the sun for over 20 years and gallons of desert dust and sand had settled onto the floor. Since the wagon had also been used as a prop in a movie with Pee-Wee Herman and Valeria Golino, none of the drawers opened and the cabinets were facades. Over the course of four years, Gary, his wife and son restored the gypsy wagon (by using a DVD of the movie) to its original colorful state and added a few workable cabinets and a comfortable bed.
Joseph Crowell has been building buses and vans for many years, but was recently inspired to build his first gypsy wagon by Sunny Baba, an activist and spiritualist who has built dozens of gypsy wagons.