I've lived in plenty of small places.

I've lived in a room the size of a postage stamp; I've lived in the loft of a barn. I've lived in a small mountain cabin with no bathroom. I've lived on a beach. I've lived in a tent and a tee pee.

And then I lived out of the Rastamobile.

During much of my 20's I traveled a lot. I had different cars during those years but one of my favorites was the Rastamobile. It was a '76 Oldsmobile Delta 88. I was almost broke when I acquired it. My Suburban that I bought earlier in the year went kaput. I was desperate. I had $200 to my name and a length of high quality climbing rope that a friend had found at an abandoned mining camp. And that is what I traded my Rastamobile for.

It didn't look pretty, but it ran just fine. It was rusty and the vinyl top was shredded. The rear lights didn't work.

The guy I bought it from helped me put external rear lights on it because the rear end had been smashed a bit. Then he helped me paint it. He didn't care for my color choices, but I liked them just fine. Half way through the job we ran out of paint so I had to run up to Canada (a mere 10 miles away) for more and oh boy did they have a hey day interrogating me at the border and going through all my belongings that were stuffed in the trunk. Everything back there was caked with dirt from the trip to Canada I had recently made (see photo before paint job) due to my trunk not being airtight from the accident.

The border guards didn't like getting their hands dirty when they had to go through every article I owned. By the time they were through, I didn't have time to get to the paint store before the border closed, so I turned around and went back to Washington. The next day I went up early in the day only to get the same treatment. They went through my belongings again with a fine tooth comb. All they got was dirt on their gloves. Canadians hate to get dirty. At least I got some satisfaction from that.

All the things I owned fit into that beast of a car. I had my tent in there and my bike on the back, until that got stolen in Santa Cruz, CA. I traveled from Washington State to California to Missouri and to New York in it. And then back to Washington again.

When I met my husband, he didn't like my car so much. I moved into his cabin with him. I sold the car.

I miss the simple times when I lived with less. Maybe someday I'll just sell everything and hit the road again. Just for old times sake.

the first photo is the Rastamobile shortly after I bought her when I took a road trip up to British Columbia.
The photo with the killer pinecone is near Sacramento. Those pine cones are huge!
The last pic is of my tee pee poles on top of my friends VW bus.

The photos are scanned so might not turn out so good.

Thanks for reading!