So it’s been a dream of mine for the past few years to start a mobile salon. My husband Dan and I had looked at countless trailers and nothing ever felt right. I love the idea of being able to practice my craft any time or place. Hairstyling for me represents creativity and personal freedom. I think adding the mobile aspect to the salon really brings it all full circle for me. One day while my father in-law Neil was getting his haircut, he told me he had a dream that I was cutting hair in an RV not a trailer. He went into full detail of what that looked like and the benefits of creating this space in an RV. Mainly being it having a restroom, which is one of the Cosmetology State Board requirements for running a mobile business. That was obviously a big problem with my trailer idea. So taking Neils vision and running with it I started looking up RV’s on Craigslist and came across a 1968 UltraVan (#383) right here in Long Beach! Now I had never heard of an UltraVan but it was too adorable not to call and inquire.
When I spoke with Bill on the phone he was very pleasant but I could tell a bit let down by the fact that I wasn’t aware of the UltraVan history. Bill and Amanda were nice enough to take a chance and meet up with us anyway. In the meantime I sent a link of the ad to Dan and he recognized it immediately… our friend Sparky actually owned one! Which is in fact pretty rare as there were only 376 ever produced and only about 100 of these still on the road. Sparky was so excited for the prospect of us owning one as well that he offered to check it out with us. As we pulled into the parking lot of the RV storage facility, next to the Long Beach Airport, I see Bill and Amanda. Now one thing you should know is at the time I have bright pink hair and wouldn’t you know, Amanda had a head of neon green hair! I knew we would hit it off right away.
After spending a few hours checking out the RV and getting to know each other I knew this was it… we had found THE ONE! Amanda added us to the UltraVan owners group on Facebook and we were immediately introduced to a community of wonderful helpful folks. Not only were we getting an amazing RV to realize a long awaited dream, we were gaining a family and we couldn’t be more excited. So the journey begins…
