BANina: DAY 22! Soooo in need of an update here!

Nope, not going to caption this. It's too special for definition

First, The workshop/roadtrip

When BA last blogged we were settling into a routine and planning for the tiny house roadtrip to San Diego. We would be taking BA's house down for the February 14 & 15th Four Lights Workshop where BA would speak about her tiny house transition journey (and her build) and she would open up her house for tours. I was invited to speak as well (on de-cluttering your life of material possessions).

The logistics behind a tiny house move are daunting but BA gave me the rundown and I'm getting more efficient as we go from place to place. There are several levels of condition: Full-on living in it (everything is ready for living/functionality), Full-on packed up for travel (all breakables packed up & bungees holding stuff in place), Full-on Staged for exhibition (including banners & information sheets posted inside and outside the tiny house components), and the Half-baked Staged for roadtrip stops/tours (my huge bedroll/chair is probably in there, no info cards).

Poppyfied the BANinaMobile

BA got a topper for her truck about 2 days before we left so it's great to be able to have a secured space for tools and the generator (and the ice chest...).

Because we weren't busy enough, BA scheduled a meetup here in Thousand Oaks before we took off (!) but it was fun and we met a few more great folks.

We got on the road Thursday, late morning. Whenever BA has an idea of where we're going to be and when, she puts out the info on social media and people raise their hand to meet us on the route. We stopped and met Corinne and her group in Oceanside.

She contacted the San Diego Tiny House Meetup group (have you looked locally for yours? We "Tiny Folks" Are Everywhere). Their Meetup Admin made BA an admin and she set up a meetup and about 40 of them greeted us as we rolled into San Diego on Thursday night. Friday morning we gave more tours to random folks and then left to set up at the venue; the swanky Marina Village Conference Center. The weather was perfect and the office staff were giddy to have us there and were very accommodating. (Shout out to Lester! Off-the-charts nice and super helpful - BANina Approved). We unpacked and set up the house and then a friend came and got us to take us to dinner and shower. We stayed up late putting up the information sheets, banners out, and I put the poppy stickers on the topper...that was near midnight. :)
Saturday was Day 1 of the workshop and it was a doozy! Let's just say that it was a good thing that we had packed our BANinaBegins superhero capes because we had some plot twists and turns that we had to finesse the whole weekend.

The generosity and fun of new friends we made was priceless. Participants asked us over to theirAMAZING & fun airbnb rental on Saturday night, Lester made sure the security guards at the Marina kept an eye on us for extra safety, and the evening powwows over cold beverages were a nice time to chat, review the day and appreciate life in the moment.
Sunday night we had our own little tiny community in the Marina parking lot! Amy had her TAB teardrop camper with her, Nate & Casey were in their customized-for-road-living Element, Jay was snuggled up in his Prius and we were in BAs Gifford. It was nice to wake up on Monday morning to that community feeling.

On the drive home we stopped and had a business lunch (well, BA did, I just ate) and then stopped a few hours later to meet a family in Anaheim. We were going to overnight there but then recommendations were to push on home, so we did.

We got home in the dark and didn't want to disturb the neighbors so we just parked on the street in the neighborhood, broke out the cold beverages, chips and hummus and sat in the cab of the truck. We probably sat there and decompressed for 2 hours before going into the house to sleep.

Jay talks tiny design

Daniel Bell taught on Sunday

BA presents in her ball gown

As for what's coming up...
Circumstances have changed as far as the site for my build.

(WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?!?)
The plan is to leave Thousand Oaks and the build will be in Texas...aaaand we're leaving soon.
Yes, you read that right! I'm going back to Texas!! I am excited to go back. For the record, I love Chico and it's not off my list of places to live but I DO know one thing for sure: I can visit Southern California but I am not an L.A. girl...the traffic is just too much for me.

BA was already planning to be in Texas for the spring...she's just going to be there earlier now. Her friends are over the moon to have her coming back.
I have to empty my Chico "tiny stuff" storage (flooring, granite, sink, shower pan, etc) and get it to Texas. We'll be heading up this weekend to load a U-haul and bring it back down to SoCal where I'll load up my french doors and then hitch up my new/custom built trailer and then get in line behind BA with her truck and tiny house and form a BANinaBegins caravan. My car (still in Chico) will be driven to Texas by Rachel, a former student staff of mine (from CSUC) during the mid-March spring break (she has family in Austin). BA is networking to put together the build in Dallas, we're hoping to make it a tiny house meetup/community workshop/build where people can learn along the way. BA's friend Sara has offered her swanky condo & car for me to use until I have my own. We have it mapped out for us to be able to be in Dallas by March 1st or 2nd.

...HOWEVER...

We know that the drives may take longer, the negotiations for who builds what & where may turn, and this morning we found out that BA's clutch needs replacing (!) ...and I have to have my parked-since-November car checked out to make sure I put Rachel in a safe, roadworthy vehicle for the 1800 mile trip. We have a lot of work to do and moving parts to line up in a short period of time. Oh! and we have to be IN Denver to exhibit by March 18th. Hmm...I wonder how long that drive will take us?

"It's Only 5 Days"

As you can imagine, all of these things are making our eyes cross a bit.. neither of us have jobs and we're busier than we've ever been. We often can't remember what time zone we're in, are ready to collapse by 8:23pm* and we inexplicably lost some hummus last night. Today is the first day we've been able to sit in front of a keyboard to type. We've been orchestrating our lives from our wee phones which means mostly relying on them for GPS, quick texts, tweets and Instagrams. I'm not touching base with my regular emaily friends and I miss that contact but I'm hoping they understand the constant in-your-face activity and must-do's that we have going on right now. Actually, it's even hard for me to understand this constant activity and I'm in it. We are having a lot of fun but we're so busy!

I can (sort of) keep my calm knowing that all of this "busy" feeds into my end-goal which is to NOT be "big city busy" in the future. At one point I was getting buggy about all of the "things to do/places to be" in regards to the roadtrip and in order to placate me BA called out from the loft "It's only 5 days". Ummmm...no. All together it's 7 months of the same type of roadtrip madness that she has plotted out on the calendar. 5 days? HA! Nice try.

Thankfully, we still are able to fill the days with laughter (LOTS of it) which is a saving grace. WE think we're hilarious. Day 22 and our friendship is still intact although we already know waaay too much about each other.

*we were driving home from errands one evening. we were beat and just wanted to get home. Her phone had been quiet for a bit (rare) and then the familiar "chime" of an incoming email came from her phone. She burst out "People! It's the middle of the night!" We looked at the clock...it was 8:23pm.