LIFE is an adventure — get out there and live it. For a few unforgettable years, the road was home. We chased mountains and oceans and everything in between, and we did it out of two aluminum shells that were older than we were.

We had two homes: a winter home and a summer home. Our winter home was a 1984 Airstream 310 motorhome named XiO the Enderman; our summer home, a 1978 Airstream Sovereign named Prana. Together with Daryll — our 2014 RAM 2500 — they carried us to mountain biking, hiking, kayaking, paddle boarding, dirt biking, camping, and more than we could have imagined when we first turned the key.

This is where those years live now — the stories, the rigs, and the photographs from the road.

We named her Prana. Prana — life force — is the cosmic energy that permeates the universe on every level, described in the ancient Vedas and Upanishads as the energy that connects all things, present even in inanimate objects. We thought it was the perfect name for the space our family was going to spend the next couple of years of our lives living in.

The process was anything but easy. Everything took longer and cost more than I anticipated. Some of that I can blame on inexperience — but I've built complete houses from scratch and taken on plenty of major renovations. The real culprit is the basic structure of an older Airstream: nothing is square, level, or straight.

As an example: we built a new wall between the mid-bathroom and the rear bedroom. The trailer wasn't level, so I couldn't plumb the wall with a level. When I squared it from the bedroom side and then moved to the bathroom side, I got conflicting information — and the same thing happened squaring off the ceiling and the outside walls. VERY FRUSTRATING!!!

In the end it all looks great and is completely functional. But if you're going to take on a project like this, be prepared — and don't expect everything to be perfectly square or level from one end of your Airstream to the other.