?I wanted a home for me?not a someday family.? Decorative trinkets are not a recommended ingredient in the recipe for minimalist living. But Danielle Spillman loves her little bowl of pine cones, surrounded by a decorative antler and a couple of candles next to her sink. The white lights dangling above this assortment of sweet, woodsy items make the inside of her 1967 Airstream sparkle with warmth. She only has one strand, but they bounce and dance across her aluminum walls like hundreds of pet fireflies.

Spillman is a 27-year-old single woman who lives in a vintage Airstream at the base of a mountain in Oregon. We met on the highway when I came to visit from Portland and she warned me, with a skeptical glance at my Hyundai?s balding tires, that her driveway was covered in a foot of powdery snow. ?You can get in, but it?s kind of like rally driving,? she said, miming a bouncing race car driver?s grip on a steering wheel.
?I can handle it,? I told her.
?Just drive fast!? she added as we each hopped in our cars.
Spillman and I have some things in common. We?re used to doing things on our own. We?re close in age and we both own our own homes. We?re also both single. And there?s an unspoken respect between single women like Danielle and I?we can handle it.
I made it down Spillman?s driveway in a bouncing, sliding skid.
Her Airstream is parked on a friend?s property, beneath a wooden shelter. There?s a little platform doorstep where we knocked the snow off our boots ...