Homemade

What if you long to hit the road, but your wallet has already been hit too hard to support travel expenses?

Well, then, make your own camper!

Get various pieces of material hard enough to make walls.

Hammer them together on your vehicle, adding what you need as you go, from a ladder to a milk crate to an air conditioner to a custom-width door.

Then hit the road, your style! 

I found this one-of-a-kind, do-it-yourself vehicle in a thrift store parking lot.

The thriftyness runs deep.

What about you? Are you thrifty enough to be okay with used items? Or do you like your things nice and new?

Banana Writing

When I was a kid on long road trips, we would play riveting games such as "The License Plate Game," where we would strive to spy a license plate from every state in the union, or "The Alphabet Game" where we had strict rules for not using license plates to find the alphabet letters in order (license plates were reserved for the former game.) Another staunchly enforced alphabet rule was that another person could not use the same letter that someone else had already claimed on a passing sign, even if it was the coveted "Q" from a few-and-far-between Quaker Oil sign. We also sang "100 More Miles" (or however many miles it was to our destination.) The full lyrics (besides substituting the number "100" for however many miles you are traveling) go like this: "100 more miles, 100 more miles, 100 more miles to go-o, just pick up your feet and swing your arms, 100 more miles to goooo." First of all, it was a miracle that I never recall my parents telling us to stop singing That Song. Secondly, it was a great disappointment when I realized that finishing a verse before subtracting a mile from the total and singing it again did not result in one full mile passing beneath our rolling station wagon wheels. (There were 8 children. We needed a station wagon.) I felt that whoever had written the song was never a dedicated traveler and had no business putting a song like that out there with insufficient lyrics to cover a full mile.
Now we have a new generation of travelers, ones who watch TVs in the car and play electronic games while all those license plates and billboards pass them by. We also have those who write on bananas.
Write on bananas?
Oh, yes. Banana writing was invented when a traveler wished to practice writing Roman Numerals only to discover that while someone had the foresight to bring food, there was no readily available paper. Hence, writing numerals on the nearby banana.
Can you read the Roman Numeral banana?
(I'm actually quite fond of deciphering Roman Numerals. It's like a secret code.)   

Hagrid's Baby Brother

by Shirley Bahlmann
The young women flitting about my book booth had charming accents, Bosnian, they told me. There were three of them, bright eyed, eager, chattering over the books on display in lilting languages. "I speak more than one language," a dark-haired beauty told me. "Once you know two, you can easily learn more."
I would have to take her word for it.
Standing among the bright and fluttery girls was a tall pillar of a man, his face made small between a head of long hair and full dark beard that reached the middle of his chest. I kid you not, he looked like Hagrid's (the giant from "Harry Potter") little brother, "little" being a relative term. My visitor was several inches over six feet tall.
When the Bosnian girls bounced away to another booth, Hagrid Junior remained behind. Since he hadn't spoken a word, I didn't know if he was Bosnian, too. So I said, "Hello."
"Hello," he replied, his deep American voice shaking the floor.
I never asked his connection with the girls, and I don't remember how we got on the subject of idols, but even after I expressed my opinion that famous people are just regular folks with recognized faces, he admitted to idolizing John Lennon, Jimi Hendrix, and Joseph Smith. (That comment gave me pause. Was Joseph Smith musically inclined?)
I was fascinated when Mini-Hagrid told me he traveled all over the world. "What do you do?" I asked, my ears open and eager for the secrets of world travel.
"Music."
"What kind?"
"Guitar. I just open my case and play."
"And you make enough money to travel?"
Shrimpy-Hagrid's eyes crinkled for the first time during our entire conversation. He tipped his head toward me as if sharing a confidence. "Oh, yeah," he said with a reassuring nod.
After Hagrid-Half-Pint left, I found myself daydreaming of International travel. Hey, I've got an old saxophone in my basement, complete with case. All I have to do is put heavy duty magnets in the bottom, and visit countries with magnetic money...