TL;DR – Our site went down, the world shut down, started a backyard chicken egg marketplace app.
Site Go Bye-Bye
Well, 2020 has been an interesting year so far! We’ll get to the COVID-19 stuff in a bit, but the year started off rocky for silversojouner.com. Due to being busy with working out of town and handling simultaneous jobs, our family site went down and we didn’t know about it! There was some confusion in our hosting and the site was deleted! Oy!
Thankfully, we caught it in time and our hosting provider was able to secure a backup of the entire site before it was archived into la-la land forever (fully deleted). So, it took some time to recover that and spin in back up with new hosting. There’s been a few quirks here and there, but hopefully most of it is running smoothly.
COVID-19
So, yeah, COVID-19 is happening. It’s confusing times for sure with all the different data points and interpretations of the data, as well as the response to the virus. We keep an extra close eye on the data;
Hi Miette!
while Miette is fully healthy (7 years post treatment!) we do keep in mind that chemotherapy can permanently change things. We do consider her compromised, even though we believe her to be fully healed and recovered. None-the-less, we know there are compromised folks out there and they have our concern.
Unfortunately, our family was economically impacted by the shut down and our jobs were lost. I (Kelly) was working at REI and they had to shut down all their stores. Who knew that shutting down every store would make revenue disappear? Uh, everyone. We saw it coming and it wasn’t a surprise, but still sad. Worked with a really great team at REI and hope to meet up and work with them again!
Yolk Folks Eggs!
While all this was happening, I did build a web app to help folks buy and sell home-grown, backyard chicken eggs! Of course, if you’ve browsed through our site, you’ll notice that we are believers in healthy, whole food, organic (as much as possible), clean eating. Cancer sucks and we believe diet plays a big part of overcoming it – whether its eating to kill the cancer or eating to overcome the toxic conventional treatment of it (chemo).
We also believe in locally sourced foods in order to avoid conventional (and stale) mass produced food sources. We also have chickens and eat a lot of eggs! While selling and buying eggs locally from your neighbors isn’t a new thing, we wanted a better and easier experience for both the seller and the buyer. So check it out! The site is in need of sellers right now, so if you know any, please send them on over! The hardest part is signing up with Stripe (even though it’s not ‘hard’) because buyers don’t actually pay Yolk Folks for the eggs. Yolk Folks just provides the platform (the app) for sellers to sell directly to the buyers! We appreciate your support in using the app and helping backyard chicken folks earn some extra cash and local small poultry farms have another outlet for selling their eggs.
So, there’s an update with us! Hoping everyone is well and that the rest of the year brings good health and good fortune!
UPDATE (2/28/2020): The coffee Airstream has been SOLD.
Wow… didn’t realize how long its been since doing a post here! Time goes by so fast!
Anyway, just wanted to say that the Airstream that I converted to a coffee shop, and later had to sell, is back up for sale by the new owner. They never were able to finish their plan of a coffee shop in the Ventura area. It’s been sitting down there, unused for a couple years.
As a quick summary…
It has all the equipment needed to just open. The main attraction, besides it being a beautiful 1964 Airstream Sovereign Land Yacht, is the Slayer espresso machine. The design was inspired by the front of an Airstream, with rivets and all! Check it out and pass the link along to those whom you think could be interested. I’d love to see this open again and being enjoyed somewhere. It’s currently in Southern California, in the Los Angeles area.
Due to financial difficulties the past couple years, we ended up having to sell the truck. It was a sad day for sure. I love Duramax diesels and plan to get another one some day… but there’s always something special about your first truck that took the family across the country. C’est la vie. At the end of the day, the truck, as great as it was having, was just a thing.
Back in July we headed to Florence for a 50th family reunion and to get Miette and Brier to Florence, since its been so stinking long since Miette has been there and Brier never has. We stayed at the Thousand Trails in Florence. The campground is couple minutes south of the Siuslaw River bridge. Its on the same road that goes to the Dunes recreation area.
Overall, the campground was good. Tall pine and fir trees, lots of shady sites (actually, most of the sites looked shady). The downside to our stay and our bad electrical connection. The Airstream was giving a slight shock to us. After a couple hours of troubleshooting and by process of elimination, it turned out to be faulty campground electrical. We didn’t have an electrical tester, but the folks who tested it just after we pulled out and the end of our stay tested it and kept on moving. We kept the Airstream unplugged instead of moving because we were next to family and it was a such a large and shady spot.
The campground was at a good location. There was no ocean views and wasn’t accessible to the ocean by foot, unless you wanted to walk for an hour or two. But it was only a couple minutes out of town. One thing I’m not digging about the Thousand Trails is the dusty gravel roads they have. These campground are old (obviously, the electrical is old). If you have a clean rig and RV going in, you will not going out; at least in the summer time. It’d be nice if they could spray the roads to keep the dust down. The loops are kinda tight for a long setup, especially if the neighbors aren’t being real careful about parking their rigs; some weren’t leaving a ton of room.
The amenities weren’t great. The pool was a pool. Nothing special. The lodge wasn’t anything to write home about. But there’s enough to do around the area that made this a non-issue. These aren’t really “resorts”. If you have that mindset going in, you won’t heading out. Its just a good, private place to park your RV for a few days. The bathroom facilities were decent but not as nice as Little Diamond (Newport, Washington). The staff wanted me to wait for them to clean before I took a shower. I politely said I’ll only be 5 minutes and they could start in the meantime. So there’s a lack of customer service issue that seems to be a theme with Thousand Trails, at least the two I’ve been to recently. There was also some sort of confrontation between two staff members. Sounded like someone was getting fired and the one being fired wasn’t having it. “Give me your key and radio” was repeated to a guy replying with “are you firing me? Are you firing me?” and so on. A little awkward for the guests to encounter when trying to just check in.
We took the Silver Eagle up in a northeasterly direction to meet up with Shilowe and Dave at the Thousand Trails Little Diamond campground last weekend. It was the first time getting the Airstream out in the woods since last year at Cascade Peaks near Randle/Packwood; that too used to be a Thousand Trails.
This trip was hot. Over 100° leaving Tri-Cities. Over 100° on our way there. Over 100° on Saturday and Sunday. Monday brought some light rain in the morning which was such an awesome relief. However, once the clouds burned off it left a heavy humid hot day once again. Oh well. The kids had fun. There was swimming, there was fishing (even though there were no big fish) and there were s’mores and campfires. Overall, the place wasn’t spectacular but it was nice getting out of the 110° weather in Tri-Cities that weekend. It’s also good to be in the pine trees. Everyone is happier in pine trees 🙂 We should all live around the fresh scent of evergreens.
Here’s a quick summary of the trip, wrapped up in a 5 minute video and some photos after that.
Well, as you can see, I haven’t been keeping up with the documentation of the remodel of the 1964 Airstream Sovereign that we converted to a coffee shop. Starting a business was hectic. Remodeling an Airstream and starting a business was even more hectic; so the documenting of the remodel fell to the wayside. I do have photos and hope to put something together up here showing the process after the fact. But until then, you can check out the finished work at stromcoffee.com.
Ström Coffee’s 1964 Airstream Sovereign.
We are really pleased with how well the Airstream turned out. It’s an eye catcher for sure. We also had an espresso machine designed after the Airstream. You can see that here. The crafts people at Slayer Espresso did a great job with the aluminum.
So… hopefully more to come at a later date. Running a coffee shop is time consuming 😉
So the story left off with us hightailing it out of Seattle Children’s hospital in Seattle. Miette was glad to be out of the hospital, even though we think it was all an adventure to her. Little did she realize at that time how much she would come to despise hospitals. We went back to the hotel and a little after that, Miette and Kelly went swimming. She was looking forward to it all day.
Not showing the extreme worry on your face, to your cancer stricken child, so they can continue to have fun was going to be a huge challenge from now on. We had yet to tell Miette what she had and what it meant. She still only knew that she had a bump on her leg that needed to go away. She didn’t know the severity or the impact that it has on people. As her parents, we were in crisis mode – and reminded of it every time we looked at that bump on her leg. As Miette, it was just another (but different) day and some swimming fun.
Hitting the Cancer Treatment Books (or Clinical Trial Studies)
Once we got back home, the most important project I have ever undertaken started. Cancer research. Cancer treatment research. It sounds simple. It is anything but simple. In order to understand the treatments, one must understand the cancer. In order to understand the cancer one must understand the human body. What is the cancer doing? Where did it come from? Why can’t it be stopped? Why doesn’t the immune system just fight it? What really is “chemo”? When did they start using chemo to fight cancer? Why does chemo kill cancer cells? Why is it called Ewings Sarcoma? What makes it different than other cancers?
Tons of questions. Too many to list. Biology and science; the two topics I wish I had paid more attention to in school. I believe, in schools today, teaching kids about the human body to the detail they teach math and English for the sole purpose of getting them ready to fight cancer should be high priority. The name of the class should have “cancer” in it. They will fight it, someday. Either for themselves, for their kids or their parents. At some point in everyone’s life, cancer research will happen. It should required in one’s senior year of high school so it will be as fresh as possible. Understanding the research, understanding the writings of study papers and clinical trials is so much easier with an educated background in biology. That education will be more valuable, by far, than say Trig, or the solar system or a foreign language. I took German in high school. I never used it after that, but I had to a take a foreign language class; it was a requirement for graduation. If I was required to take a class that helped me get a head start of understanding what cancer is and does, I would be much better off and equipped to handle “life”.
Initial Alternative Cancer Treatment
But back to our story. Hours of research turned into days… and then weeks. We didn’t like the unknown of what was proposed to be put in our daughter’s blood stream. Maybe we dived in backwards, but we started researching chemo agents first. I will get more into that research later. At the same time, we began searching for a naturopath that would assist us with helping Miette and begin to build our team of doctors. We were referred to a doctor in Spokane, Dr. Latitia Dick (Windrose Naturopathic Clinic). We spoke on the phone and decided to take Miette up there and do an initial evaluation. We took the first open time slot available. The person who referred us to “Dr. Tish” was a recent Bastyr University graduate so we felt it was a good lead. She is a second generation naturopath and had the education and background to support her practice. At Miette’s evaluation, Dr. Tish first went into diet/food intolerance and the changes we could make. We already were pretty organically and whole food minded so there wasn’t a lot of changes. We made a point to cut out as much fruit and sugar as we could. We also started Miette on what is called Constitutional Hydrotherapy to kick start her body’s defense mechanisms. Our primary goal, before deciding on any conventional treatment (chemo) was to build up Miette’s immune system as best we can via a regimen of herbal and vitamin supplements and the hydrotherapy. If natural treatments also made a dent in the tumor, then even better. Miette’s tumor was a slow growing tumor. We were hoping to slow it even further. The ongoing treatment plan that formulated after a couple visits to Windrose was hydrotherapy twice a week (this means two trips to Spokane each week) and the following list:
Triton MRL
Natrum Sulphuricum
Natrum Murr
Iodoral
Thymus PMG
Drenatrophin PMG
Eleuthero Root
Vitamin D 4000
Fish Oil
Symphytum 30c
Comfrey poultice
Each one of these has its own benefit. Not all are attributed to directly fighting cancer. But they ALL attribute to the immune system, strengthening Miette’s body and getting her ready for the fight of her life. As you can imagine, this list, which needed to be replenished about every 30 days wasn’t free. Conventional cancer treatment is virtually “free”, as long as its a child. I say virtually because there’s still insurance deductibles, the cost of trips back and forth, lodging while staying in another town for treatment, healthy meals (organic and whole foods), etc. Natural treatments such as this list is ALL out of pocket. Alternative cancer treatment such as this is frowned upon by conventional minds. The FDA, NHI, ACS, Hospitals, etc and all insurance companies are conventionally minded to say the least. I won’t go into a rant about the money aspect of this conspiracy right now (I will do that later) but I will say giving Miette the BEST chance of overcoming this was at a huge financial cost, one of which we are still struggling to overcome; as every family who has ever battled cancer could testify. Going with conventional only would have been cheaper. But we knew that wasn’t an option whatsoever. We were going to go into debt to whatever degree it took.
Miette During a Hydrotherapy treatment
Thankfully we had friends in north Spokane who let us stay with them during these twice per week treatments. It takes a village to raise a child and it takes a village to battle cancer. Thanks to them and to all those others who helped us along the way. We hope we never have to repay anyone in the same way.
We went with this treatment, starting towards the end of February and went with it until chemo treatment started at the beginning of May.
So, while this immune system build up treatment was going on, the chemotherapy research was happening at the same time. Let me tell you how disturbing that process was… well, I’ll tell you in the next post.
Like most people who just acquired a vintage Airstream, I spent time envisioning what it would like when it was done. Shiny, mirror like polishing, new tires, wheels and hub caps, new lights, new windows, designer interior, gold plated steps, diamond studded this, ruby studded that. It was going to be grand.
But first, a cup of coffee to get started.
Having some thinking juice while looking things over
Stripping Off The 50 Year Old Look
Where to begin. I knew I was needing to find a shop to park this in so I could remove and keep material protected from the elements. It was October and the weather was going to be turning any day and renovating outside wasn’t an option. So until I found a suitable shop everything I was going to do at the house would be exterior stuff. I started with stripping things off the exterior and getting ready to strip the clear coat off. Before polishing, the 50 year old clear coat needs to be stripped off to get to bare aluminum. But before using stripping agents, the entire Airstream needed a good bath with a good scrubbing. I used a pressure washer to remove a thin layer of green haze that old trailers on the west side of the mountains tend to develop. After the bath I began to strip it. I tried three different stripping products: Citris Strip from Home Depot, Eldorado PR-5044 (from Vintage Trailer Supply – VTS) that we had left over from Miette’s Airstream work and finally the nasty stuff; Aircraft Paint Remover that I got from AirstreamSupply.com (they used to be in Auburn, Washington but moved to Utah).
This is the Citris Strip.
Citris Strip is the most non-toxic of the three but the least effective. It stripped, don’t get me wrong, but some spots it didn’t touch and it needed to be left on for 2-4 hours (I washed areas off before 2 hours and it wasn’t stripping it). The Eldorado stuff was next best in effectiveness but it missed some spots too but didn’t need to be left on as long; maybe 30 minutes? The Aircraft Paint stripper was the fastest (visibly dissolved the clear coat in 15 minutes) and most effective but also the most toxic. We don’t like toxic. Thankfully, 90% of the clear coat I was able to remove between the two others and only had to use a small amount of the toxic stuff to get the stubborn areas. I could have saved a whole bunch of time by using the Aircraft stripper, but having a cancer surviving daughter, toxic stuff just isn’t in the cards anymore. I spent a couple days between using each stripper product and washing the Airstream. It took longer than I wanted.
Most people say to remove the plastics before stripping but I didn’t. I was replacing all the exterior lights anyway so I left them on. The windows were made of Plexiglas which I was going to change out to tempered glass so I didn’t bother to mask those off.
Polishing – Which Method?
Most people save the polishing for last since there will be exterior skin work that needs to be done during a restoration project. However, for the weather reasons stated above, I started on the exterior first. There seems to be two ways of polishing a vintage Airstream: the “Perfect Polish” or the “Black Bar” method. I won’t go into a ton of detail on how to do each one (there are a lot of other websites and posts on Airforums.com describing the details of each method) but I will say I used a hybrid approach after trying the Perfect Polish only method. I started with using Nuvite F7 and the wool bonnet. That was not taking off some of the stubborn spots. It was bugging me, seeing some splotchy areas in addition to it taking a long time just to try and get those splotchy areas less… splotchy. So I ordered some F9 and tried that. Not much a difference and it still took a long time. Then I went to Harbor Freight, grabbed an 8″ spiral buffing wheel and a bar of brown polish compound. I used the buffing wheel on the polisher with the brown stick and wow… what a difference. It covers less area at a time compared to the wool bonnet but it cuts through the metal much faster. I did two passes with the buffing wheel method compared to over and over and over and over with the F7/9 and wool bonnet. I’m sure there are better products to use than what I got at HF, but using the buffing wheel method as the first step is superior in my mind.
This is after two passes with the buffing wheel. It would’ve taken me twice as long with the wool bonnet and F9
Once the first initial cut is done and you can get to the clean, raw aluminum (the first pass creates a reflection – granted, with an ugly pattern in the sunlight) then the Nuvite F7 does much, much better and goes faster. Then, after the F7 I went to the C and then on to the S. So the process I used: Black (or brown) Bar –> F7 –> C –> S. Don’t worry that there’s 4 steps in there compared to the 3 steps for the Perfect Polish method… it was still faster. I’m not gonna say my polishing job was really great; I couldn’t spend a great deal of time on it since I need to get this Airstream completely renovated and converted in a matter of 3 or 4 months. But I’m satisfied. Better products than HF should give better results as well. I’ve read that Fastenal has good cotton buffing wheels. I will know what to do for Miette’s Airstream polishing job now.
This is before the final S polishing
Of course, I found all the polishing stuff out through the 3 months of polishing on and off (this blog won’t be an exact chronological description of the process. I’ll jump around a bit). I will say polishing in the cold isn’t doable. The metal is cold and is harder to cut. The warmer the metal is the easier it is to cut. So I polished outside, in October and November except on the really cold days. If it got below 50° I bailed on the polishing.
So there’s my version of the polishing method. I”m sure others have figured out something similar using the two methods. I can say this after finishing the polishing… renovating an Airstream is WORK.
One of the first orders of business, when one decides to open up a coffee shop in an Airstream, is to acquire an Airstream. That we did. We had been searching for a while and waiting for a decent one to come up for sale which was in our price range. We found a 30′ 1964 Airstream Sovereign in Port Townsend, Washington on Craigslist for $2,300. That would be a 5 hour drive. So my dad and I rose early in the mornin’ and took off for Port Townsend. Yep, just like that. I pressed that button. 5 hour trip to buy a $2,300 fifty year old trailer sight unseen and drive it back? No problem. Just to compare, I’ve spent days… DAYS researching what dishwasher to buy and becoming completely indecisive about it. DAYS, I said. Well, not this time. I have a plan.
The Condition
We got there about 1pm. The body was in pretty good shape except for some dents in the back above the bathroom window. It was already gutted, which saved some time. The floor material was in decent shape but it was old and the strength was fading. No floor rot or mold anywhere for the most part, which was surprising for it being a western Washington Airstream. The tongue was rough, but it could be cleaned up. No lights worked: running lights, brake lights, marker lights… nothing. I bought a cheap set of magnet towing lights at Harbor Freight with knowledge that the lights didn’t work. There were no holding tanks, no drain pipes, no water pipes. The vents were all goners. The glass in the windows had been replaced with Plexiglas (Apparently the original windows were not tempered glass and broke easy). The jalousie window next to the door was froze up and wouldn’t open or close. The interior skin was rough.
The interior
This was a 50 year old trailer and it showed. But this was expected. I planned on replacing almost everything I could, except for the exterior skin and the frame. There was one other Airstream that we thought about that wasn’t gutted and needed just as much work. That was going for $2,000 in Tri-Cities. That one wouldn’t roll without replacing wheels and tires. The only other vintage Airstreams that were close to our budget were in Montana, southern Idaho or western Oregon. None of them were under $3,000 so this was really a good deal.
So here we were, in Port Townsend, looking at a 50 year old trailer that we needed to drive 5 hours. The tires looked very, very, very, very old. It had split rims. That means they are very old as well. The tires had cracks (a lot) in them. That wasn’t a good sign. I debated stopping by a tire shop in Bremerton before making the long trek back. However, delays prevented that possibility so we ended up going for the 5 hour trip, hoping the axles, wheels and tires could survive it.
Oh boy. The rims look original. The tires can’t be but, man, do they look old.
Delays, Delays, Delays
The first delay was my fault. I knew the 60’s Airstreams required a 2″ ball instead of the 2 3/8″ ball. But I never moved the 2″ ball to the receiver before we left. I was bright enough to throw the 2″ ball in the truck though. I brought tools, but not a pipe wrench. Thankfully the seller’s neighbor had a couple so we got that taken care of.
Hitched up and (almost) ready to go, once the lights start working.
The next delay was much longer. About 2 hours. The magnet lights weren’t working quite right. The signaling was all messed up, even though we had it hooked up correctly. We tried swapping out connectors, wires, lights testers, etc. Ended up taking it to a Uhaul down the road and they helped us fiddle with it as well but still couldn’t get it to work. Afters 2 hours I decided to try a thicker gauge wire and it worked. The problem was, those magnet lights were only long enough for a 20 foot trailer so I bought an extra length set to use them on the 30 foot Airstream. So they used a gauge of wire just thick enough for 20 feet and that’s it. Found that out the hard way. Don’t extend the wiring of magnet lights while using their original gauge. 20 feet means 20 feet. Ok, got it. Finally, around 6pm, we were on the road back home.
Fueling up on the other side of the Hood Canal bridge. And no, I don’t love the cat door.
Good Job, 50 Year Old Airstream
The trip home was pretty boring, which was good. I only went 60 mph the whole way back though. Wow, that was a long trip compared to 75 mph. It was a long, stressful day but we made it home. No blowouts, no axles breaking. Its a 50 year old trailer. Name another 50 year old trailer that can make a 350 mile trip with mostly original everything. Probably can’t. All was good.
We love coffee. Mostly, we have latte’s. Mostly, in those latte’s, we put a little coffee sweetener to it in the form of syrup (10ml to be exact). The syrup we usually use is Monin syrups. They have the least amount of “crap” in the ingredients. We don’t get too exotic with syrups, usually keeping Vanilla and one other flavor. We were spending $5.39 per bottle at the local Cash and Carry. When we are out of syrup and still want something added to the latte, we use sugar. The problem is, the sugar collects at the bottom of the cup. This is a problem.
A great alternative is simple syrup. Not only is it easier on the wallet than store bought syrup, it is extremely fast to make (5 minutes). We use organic sugar and filtered water so… its organic syrup 🙂 It also doesn’t collect at the bottom of the cup. Liquefying the sugar allows it to be suspended in the coffee, thus making a more uniform flavor. But most of all, this is another way to cut out unnecessary ingredients from the diet and is inline with consuming natural ingredients.
So here’s the complicated process of making some very simple syrup. Pay attention. Study it and take your time.
Simple Syrup
Get a sauce pan
Add 1 cup of organic sugar
Add 1 cup of filtered water (even though you’re boiling it)
We also believe in locally sourced foods in order to avoid conventional (and stale) mass produced food sources. We also have chickens and eat a lot of eggs! While selling and buying eggs locally from your neighbors isn’t a new thing, we wanted a better and easier experience for both the seller and the buyer. So check it out! The site is in need of sellers right now, so if you know any, please send them on over! The hardest part is signing up with Stripe (even though it’s not ‘hard’) because buyers don’t actually pay Yolk Folks for the eggs. Yolk Folks just provides the platform (the app) for sellers to sell directly to the buyers! We appreciate your support in using the app and helping backyard chicken folks earn some extra cash and local small poultry farms have another outlet for selling their eggs.
