on Kevin’s laptop,” said partner Domela. Morris agrees that it’s best to keep the critical data elsewhere: “I could drop my laptop in water.” Former backpackers, the couple once published from their campsites with laptops tethThe author's tiny tech, right-sized for a 16' trailer. ered to their Palm Treos. During a visit to San Francisco in 2004, they were wowed by the Bambi on display at the Museum of Modern Art. “Whoa, this is cool,” thought Domela. “We could really connect from there!” Morris adds, “I never knew we’d be RV shopping in an art gallery.” Lovers of boondocking, they created their own solar-generated power supply for electronics while they otherwise “rough it” at rustic and undeveloped camping spots. “Cover every space that you can fit a solar panel,” Morris told the company that installed the system. Their Airstream supports five units on the roof (three 100 watt, and two 50 watt), six golf cart batteries under the bed, a solar charge controller, and an inverter/converter. Camped in direct sunlight, the system powers their entire rolling home office, “including the microwave and expresso maker,” laughed Domela. Wanting to reduce the amount of electricity they consume, the couple replaced all 31 ten-watt halogen bulbs with LEDs, cutting electricity usage by 88%. They also swapped the factory-issue television with two 12-volt flat screen TVs that double as computer monitors hooked to a Mac Mini, “a powerful computer we rigged to run on only 12 watts,” explained Morris. “A regular computer can use as much as 200 watts, and a laptop 40 to 60.” Their wireless keyboard operates the unit which serves as a complete media center; music and movies are pulled online from iTunes and audio is delivered through a rockin’ custom sound system. They chose the popular iPad for “a few important reasons,” said Morris: It uses almost no electricity, it turns on instantly—no more impatient foot-tapping during the booting process when they have an idea or bit of work to quickly address—and it has a built in Internet connection. Two data cards—one from ATT and a second from Sprint— provide backup when one network is weaker. The couple once used a satellite dish, which was “just a nightmare,” Morris said. “It was ten times harder to position than a TV satellite receiver” and he would spend up to two hours at the campsite trying to align the signal. “Catching TV in a dish is like trying to catch rain in a dishpan. If you get the top pointed in the general direction of ‘up,’ you’ll probably catch some rain. Getting satellite Internet working is more like trying to hit a high-flying bird with a rock. At night. In a thunderstorm.” “We caught the RV’ing bug somewhat early in life,” report Texans Deke and Tiffani Waters, passionate owners of “The Weasel,” their 2003 22’ International CCD. “Our dream life is a little different than most folks’ our age. The material things we’ve been working for up to now are all things we just don’t need or even want. In fact, they’ve become burdensome.” As a result, the Waters’ have decided to dip their toes in the daunting ocean of technomadia. “A few years after getting married, we went on our first real
WINTER 2010
vacation together and on that remote island we realized that we didn’t need much to be truly happy,” said Tiffani. “We didn’t need the condo downtown or two cars or the right wine glasses—just food, water and shelter and hopefully a way to enjoy those things while seeing the country.” The Waters’, who both enjoy careers that aren’t yet portable, are enacting a plan in stages for their soon to be location-free life. Step one: Live full time in their Airstream, docked. Tiffani now works from the built in desk inside the CCD while Deke continues to report to his desk job…for now. After a year spent researching and outfitting the trailer, they’ll be ready to retract the stabilizers and hit the road this winter. Tiffani uses the same business tools in the Airstream that she did while working onsite. “I’m constantly dealing with people around the country, so email, LinkedIn, and video conferencing are all things I’ve been doing for years anyway. Now I just do it in my pajamas.” Like Morris and Domela, the Waters’ maintain a cloud-based work environment and are striving to be personally paper-free. “I’m on a mission to reduce, and hopefully remove, as much real mail as I can from our life,” said Deke. For critical physical correspondence they use one of the many mail forwarding services. “Almost all of our external communication, work and personal, happens through the internet, so the transition to a mobile life won’t be too much of an adjustment for us. As long as we can maintain periods of Internet connectivity.” “So much of our communication with friends and family currently happens over email, text messaging, IM, Skype and Gchat that we rarely use our iPhones for talking,” Deke confessed. “In fact, we’ve minimized our cell phone minutes to the smallest allowed by AT&T and still have massive amounts of rollover minutes each month.” They both own MacBooks for storing music and pictures, but are looking for ways to “push these up into the cloud soon as well,” mentioning Flickr as a viable source for sharing and storing digital photos. Deke is excited by the challenge of making the de rigueur tech modifications to the CCD. “Since I can remember, I’ve spent my free time using and learning new technology,” he said. “One of the most exciting things for me when we bought our Airstream was learning all of the systems and technology inside it.” A battery overhaul is on the drawing board, including an upgraded converter “to keep the batteries properly charged and conditioned without overcharging. “We would like to outfit the Weasel with two golf cart batteries, but that is still a distant goal for us,” Deke continued. “Also, as nice as solar would be, we’ve moved away from the idea of a purely solar battery recharging solution and moved toward a generator power source, mainly because we don’t have much roof space and small cells don’t do so well in anything other than direct sunlight. I’m still playing with the idea of fabricating a way to mount solar panels on top of the car for more space and mobility, but that’s pretty far off. We’ll likely start with one or two Honda EU2000i generators with propane kits to allow us to use our existing propane bottles. We’ll likely upgrade from 20-lb to 30-lb propane tanks,” mused Deke. “I really like the look of the mirror polished ones.” Whatever the future holds for the Waters’, the process of planning for the technomadic life has strengthened the couple. “I’m proud of how we’ve handled the concerns that have come up in our march to full-timing,” said Deke. “Tiffani and I have made some important decisions and had some very frank discussions about exactly what we want out of life. Our method has been to openly
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