Portable
Creativity travels well
(Our first travel trailer, a 13-foot 1962 Scotty Serro, purchased in 2024)
If Facebook has one redeeming quality, it’s the way it serves up memories—little snapshots from one, two, even four years ago.
This week, I was reminded that two years ago on April 6, 2024, Todd and I bought our first travel trailer.
Keep in mind, at that point, we had only been seeing each other for two months, having reconnected on February 7 in the hardware aisle of a local department store.
In retrospect, I can laugh at how, as senior citizens, we seem to have fast-tracked our adventures together.
Buying Scotty was a leap of faith—a nod toward a future of domestic travel. How we loved that little silver-and-aqua tin can. Almost immediately, Todd began talking about a cross-country trip, and as much as I adored seeing Scotty in the yard and towing her to nearby campgrounds, I knew there was no way that 1962 camper was making it across the country.
So I began floating ideas. What about an Airstream?
Within weeks, an advertisement appeared, and we found ourselves driving to western Massachusetts to look at a 16-foot Bambi. How could we not fall in love with that silver bullet?
(Bambi, our first Airstream travel trailer—16 feet of shiny aluminum)
Bambi became our home away from home for a full month in the fall of 2024 as we traveled across the United States and back. By the time Charlestown, Rhode Island came into view again, we were hooked on streaming.
Todd, to his credit, would have been perfectly content to keep Bambi. But I had a bigger vision.
A few days into the new year, we drove to Airstream of Maine and spent hours walking through trailers, sitting in them, studying every upgrade. By the end of the visit, we had signed a contract for a 20-foot Caravel with all the bells and whistles
(Nelly, our 20-foot Caravel, parked at Liberty RV and Marina in New Jersey)
Nelly carried us well—most memorably for a month in St. Augustine between Thanksgiving and Christmas last year.
And then, on an unseasonably cool day, we drove up to the Airstream dealer in Jacksonville and found ourselves standing inside what would become our “forever camper”—a 27-foot Flying Cloud with a rear hatch.
Negotiations followed. Decisions were made.
(Rosie—named after my mom—our 27-foot Flying Cloud and final upgrade)
The rest, as they say, is history.
This weekend, we took Rosie out for her first overnight shakedown trip in Connecticut. Without a doubt, we both know she will be our home away from home this year—and, with any grace, well into the future.
It was hard to pull myself away from my studio this weekend; it’s only been 2 months since signing a one-year lease on studio 206, and it’s my happy place. But on Friday morning I packed a small artist kit: a few cards from my color cube set, a watercolor sampler, brushes, pens, and three sheets of paper already taped to boards.
That small act turned out to be everything.
Sitting at the dining table in Rosie, looking out through the open rear hatch at the landscape beyond, I found myself doing what I’ve come to love most—playing with color, making marks, letting the work unfold in unexpected ways.
It struck me then:
Creativity doesn’t live in a place.
Not in a studio.
Not within four walls.
It travels.
It waits patiently in whatever space we enter—
a dining table, a campsite, the quiet edge of a new view—
ready to meet us when we show up.
More to come.
(If my words spoke to you today and you’d like to support my work in a small way, you can leave a token of appreciation below. No obligation, just gratitude.)