‘Tis said that “the journey is the destination.” But what does that mean? For our Long Long Honeymoon, it illustrates a key upside to RV travel vis-a-vis the old fly-and-rent route.
When you fly somewhere, the airport is invariably a hectic and stressful experience that’s as enjoyable as the average root canal. You must arrive at the airport early, sometimes two hours in advance of your flight. You must check your bags, probably ponying up an extra pint of blood for each extra bag. You must go through security screening, removing your shoes and unpacking your electronics before turning your head and coughing. Finally you’re squeezed onto a flying petri dish, where you’re exposed to an airborne bacterial soup courtesy of fellow passengers. Flying is just not terribly glamorous any more.
But when we travel with our Airstream, we take our time. We have general goals with regard to location and dates, but nothing is set in stone. Flexibility is paramount. Tired? We pull over and rest. Hungry? We stop and eat. The point being that we actually enjoy the process of traveling from point A to point B. Sure, we’ve hit the occasional traffic jam (Miami, Los Angeles, and Washington D.C. come to mind) but overall the experience has been grand. As of this writing, we’ve traveled almost 40,000 miles in this fashion.
“Don’t you get tired of driving?” I’m often asked. Not at all, because I really don’t spend that much time driving. Because we travel at a glacial pace, each day’s driving is a small (and very enjoyable) percentage of time. I generally relish time behind the wheel as we take in the sights of whatever community we happen to be visiting.
We’re fortunate in that we can work from our RV via its mobile Internet connection. It doesn’t matter where we’re parked, so long as we have a cellular signal, we’ve got Internet. So our Long Long Honeymoon road trips usually last weeks, sometimes months. When we go on the road, we do so with the luxury of time. If the journey is the destination, in this case it’s a pleasant one!
Awesome awesome awesome! It was great to see 495 and the Air and Space museum! The mall is impressive. I know driving thru the streets of DC sux! I hiope you got to see Dupont circle it’s a little different . The street lights are a little hard to get use to since there on the side. of the posts. Another great episode of “the moon”. I just love all the techno gadgets on the dash! Drive safe.
Matt
I appreciate the nice editing job.
Thanks guys… This one has more of a documentary feel to it. I think I will pursue this approach more often. At times I’ve thought this blog could become a documentary film that we roll out five minutes at a time. 😀
Very nice indeed! I actually felt the cheeks tightening as you got closer and closer to the gas station! The last comment was perfect.
Sean, I hope you can help. You are so good with computers. This last week for some reason I haven’t been able to watch any videos on rv.net and I really miss your videos. I can get utube and tv videos but just NOT this web site. I updated flash player. I know this isn’t what you give advise on, but I didn’t know what else to do. Any advise???
You might try right clicking on the video on this website and selecting the ‘Watch this on Vimeo” and see if that works Jausmus. If you are using Internet Explorer I can’t help. There are so many issues with that browser at the moment. Perhaps upgrading it ti IE 8 would help. failing that download “Firefox”
or “Google Chrome” and see if that helps. Hopefully Sean can help.
Restless, thanks for chiming in.
Jausmus, what company is your Internet service provider? Someone recently reported a problem with AT&T uverse.
In the past we used YouTube to deliver videos. If we keep having problems with Vimeo we’ll go back to YouTube. Vimeo’s HD quality is great, as are some of its interface features. But apparently it’s still having problems with reliability.
Oh, and one other browser you might try is Google Chrome. I’ve had pretty good luck with Chrome.
Did you happen to look at Vidder Sean? I have heard good things.
http://www.viddler.com/
Thanks for the link.. Viddler does look promising. (The thought of uploading our content to yet another new service, however, is intimidating! :D)
Now your getting their… grin… That was a good start. You had hooks both in the video and sound… great.. but instead of just focus on you… it could get even more dramatic with heightend sound and mixing in the alarms… Kristie could have also played into the drama. Close encounters …. etc. Good use of slow motion lighting to show movement.
Remember each presentation is a three part structure or paragon
Almost every great movie is set up in what’s called “three act structure” – basically, these are parameters representing the natural progress of a story
The typical screenplay has a first act where the character and his universe are established, second act where the character fights his obstacles trying to reach that goal, and a minute final act where the final conflict is faced and the character achieves (or in some cases doesn’t achieve) his goal which you had with seemores’ fuel issue. the point is, you don’t want to spend half your screen time “setting up” then five minutes fighting obstacles then twice as long wrapping things up.
action rises in a story until it hits it’s boiling point (or denouement, if you want to get fancy) then the action falls and the story resolves. That’s the track you want to travel in your screenplay. No one wants to see the same guy run into the same tree the same way over and over again. We want action that rises and moves towards some big moment. You will want to structure your screenplay with dramatic arc in mind: every conflict should be more significant than the one before it.
That being said…. we see in this trailer that you are traveling to points of interest.. kiss and all… grin… but then the focus shifts to the vehicle and low fuel… and the resolution of it. (use relistic distances for the tech minded nay sayers… and sneak in dogging the bullet) Good …but again read about how much time should be used to set up the story. What was the story…(we use storyboards… or 3/5 cards to keep on track) was their more than one or several directions which could be confusing? Are we flashing or cutting to a different story or contenuing along with the same one with derivations?.
Again in all the last part of the trailer was… the action..paragon….(as you read… some folks we’re their in feelings, relating to your delima, … good good…. (wana hook’ em … next time you get to find out how it turned out…kinda thing)
the begining is more of a travel log with its own… with no hooks… easy going carefree. (Kristie: in the begining.. hon.. how we doing on fuel??)
Ya getting good Sean… keep up the work…Your probably finding out that it doesn’t come easy as one who watches thinks… lots of dynamics going on behind the camera… and the learning curve is not as easy .. huh… Like the kid in the math class… if you give him the answer he thinks the problem is simple to do… till he has to do it on his own….
GMAs
Wow… saw this morining that maybe AS is starting to come around. the X printed out the web site for me to review this morning on the way to work… nice.. See your now shown on their web site… great… its about time… as you make ’em proud… they should really invite you to the factory… (paid of course… grin) MM is having his 34 built at it right now… he is also on the road around you.. so the locator says… As should sponsor you all on some of the national exhibits as a promo guest appearance… ya it might promot you also but you do such a good job for AS showing how much fun and practical useage their product can be. You would start attracting crowds and demand for appearances… Ya Baby… now we’re talking.. huh… catch the wave…
Just remember the ones who got you their…. such as the other nets.
GMAs, I agree with your comments about the video. In the future we may do like other documentary producers and insert a few extra scenes where necessary. It would’ve been nice to have Kristy’s reaction shots during the “running out of gas” fiasco, but it was all unfolding in real time…and it’s tough to simultaneously drive a truck and serve as D.P., ha!
Plus, I try to edit these videos on the road as we go. There’s a pretty short lag time between the time this stuff happens, and the time we post it. It’s all quite a creative challenge. On that point, I suspect most people have no idea how tough it is to make a good video, much less to do it solo. I enjoy the process, but have learned a lot over the years, and am still learning today.
With regard to MM, where is he on the road? Where is the locator you mention? We would love to hook up with him and say hello (and a little blog video wouldn’t hurt either! :)).
lol…from someone who has been there..driving while holding your breath to see if the truck will make it on fumes to the pump…this was SO funny! I totally can relate.
It’s funny, but over the past several years, the places where we ALMOST ran out of fuel are seared into my brain. It happened once in Wyoming … once in New Mexico … once in Orlando … and this time in D.C.
Diesel makes it a little tougher. Diesel stations are everywhere until you really NEED one… 😉