The B12 (XII) Forum, home of the 'Front Porch, y'all' at College Football Fan Site, CFB51!!!

What beach is that Marcus? 

First picture is Padre Island National Seashore, the second one is at the Matagorda Bay RV Nature Park.

Yeah, the Vantare Prevost would be my "I won the lottery and am buying this!" purchase. I'd make it gaudy, for shore!

Well, at least I've already got the Class B license. So, there's that...

Amen, brutha.  I love me some Prevost.

There are some companies that do some beautiful Bluebird restorations/conversions, too.  I could see going that route.

I didn't know that you no longer had your Airstream, Utee.

Good that your new trailer is more functional, though.

The new "traditional" Airstreams have fewer pieces of aluminum making up the skin.

It was bittersweet to get rid of it.  Not only was it much cooler than a "white box" RV, but I also put a TON of work into it.  Easily over a thousand man-hours involved in my restoration.

But it was also almost 50 years old when I got it and I spent as much time repairing it, as I did camping in it, whilst out on campouts.  Ultimately it had to go and everything on the new one just "works" without tinkering and fretting.  The new one also has a large slideout which provides a TON more living space, and the kids have their own bedroom all the way at the back, while we have our own parents' bedroom at the front.  Way more storage on the new one, too.

Also, you're 100% right about new Airstreams using fewer panels.  Over the past 50 years, they've figured out better ways to form the compound curves on the panels, and so they don't have to piece together as many little bits, to get the same curved shape.

Here's what the endcaps looked like on models even older than mine, it has 13 panels, versus the 7 on mine, and the 5 or so on the newest ones:

My grandparents had theirs parked in the back area (hard to call it a "yard") of their house at the retirement community in Mesa, AZ.
Birds would kill themselves slamming into it since the aluminum made it indistinguishable from the desert sky.

Yeah those Bowlus trailers were really sharp.  Worth a pretty penny these days as well.

And they were definitely built using the same materials and technology as aircraft.  I pulled and replaced a few panels and I bought my own rivet gun to do it.  Rosie's got nothing on me!

Right now, my speed is bike-packing. My MTB is loaded with pannier-packs, and I'll bring along my backpack as well.
Typically, I'll take my hammock kit along to sleep in. I can ride pretty far to some backwoods primitive camping in a few parks.

Only drawbacks are (1) cooler weather usually coincides with college football season and (2) it's tough finding other riders. The wife and fam aren't really into it.

I liked camping when I was younger, for a day or two.  We'd backpack into the Smokies a few times and camp.  These folks who do the Appalachian Trail are impressive, to me.