In all captial letters on Craigslist, read the ad: 1983 FORD BEAVER. It was the first RV I ever looked at. I could barely wait one day to buy it.
The first month ( June '14 ) was all about fixing the Beaver up and finding out where is the best place to park it. It went to the Gorge a couple of times, it's been towed from Hwy 35 once ( fuel pressure issue, got it
kind of fixed ) and got one Portland parking violation. I was a little paranoid of it getting towed and wasn't ready to overcome the obstacles parking directly in my driveway would entail. ( There's a telephone wire hanging too low from the houses, it's a little wide for the spot, I didn't know if my neighbors would mind an RV directly behind their bedroom windows ) So I drove it to my friends Jake's and Amanda's, on 181 St. to park it and sometimes I would just move it around my neighborhood, a night there, a night here.
I spent a couple hours a day in it, painting the cupboards white, cleaning, driving it around, buying just-the-right pillows, and in general spent a lot of time fantasizing about Beaver camping, photo shoots (so many ideas), listing it on airbnb (how fun would it be to host people, putting coconut water in the fridge, and have the Beaver make money!) and I started to play with the idea of living in it for awhile (how cool would it be to sleep in a different neighborhood every night! To have coffee at a new shop everyday!) Swollen with romantic ideas.
Within the second month ( July '14 ) of Beaver ownership it was ready to
be posted on
Airbnb. I did manage to park into my driveway. ( Ended up just slicing right through that old telephone cord while pulling in one day, and managed to lobby with the neighbors successfully) I had no idea how Airbnb would turn out. All I knew
was I got all my cupboards painted white, and it felt ready. Surely,
there has to be people out there who get the charm of staying in an RV called The Beaver. You can see
the Airbnb listing here.
The first
Airbnb guests was a lovely family of four from Peru. I think the daughter talked her family into staying in it. Thank god they liked it and had a good time, first review on Airbnb and it's a super positive one. The second set of guests were a couple girls from Quebec, again, sweet and they left a lovely thank you note. Third set of guests were the first couple that did not appreciate the Beaver. They were not happy with anything about the RV. They got a full refund. The fourth set of guests were two girls, one from North Carolina and the other from Eugene. They loved the Beaver. They were the guests that later texted 'We forgot our vibrator in the bed!' So cute.
I like who the Beaver seems to attract. The Beaver seems to attract women. And not just women, but women who like women.
The ladies who have stayed here are clean, friendly and smell particularly good.
Their shit actually doesn't stink. I would know, because I dump it.
I want to do lots of photo shoots using the Beaver. The first one I had the concept of
Urban Camping.
I wanted to show what it would look like if totally independent, edgy,
hot Portland girls ( are there any other kind? ) camped around the
city in the Beaver. I asked my friends Vivian and Christa to be the
models for it. We went down to SE Industrial area and started to take
photos. Although, only a couple of them ended up being appropriate for the Beav's Airbnb
profile.
The second photos shoot was produced and shot by my talented photographer friend
Jennifer Rogers. She wanted to do a vintage, fresh, summery cool-kid's-going-surfing-shoot. She thought the Beaver would be a perfect prop. We went out to Sauvie's Island. I took some quick iPhone behind-the-scene photos. The real set of photos are coming soon.
After that shoot, because of the same damn fuel pressure issue- it had to get towed off the FREMONT FUCKING BRIDGE.
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| The Beaver getting towed off the Fremont Bridge |
