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Labor Day Weekend

We arrived at Lou & Larry’s with no specific plans, other than to recuperate and enjoy the weekend with some friends. So when Loren, their daughter, invited us to visit Cleveland’s historic West Side Market, we hopped in the car and headed out.

The West Side Market has been open in Cleveland since 1840, and in its present building since 1912. This is the sort of place that Eleanor absolutely loves, with dozens of sellers of meats, ethnic foods, bread, vegetables, fruits, desserts, spices, flowers — all fresh and fantastic.

Cleveland West Side Market.jpg

I could have bought one of everything, since it all looked amazing, but instead I bought nothing and just took pictures as Eleanor led Emma, Loren and Randy along through the aisles. The place is great for photographic opportunities. If you go and don’t want to come out with armloads of food, don’t arrive hungry.

Saturday evening Lou and Larry hosted a party for a bunch of Ohio Airstreamers. Ultimately about fifteen people arrived, and two families arrived with their Airstreams, so we had a mini-rally of three Airstreams.

Lagrange bellypan.jpg

One of the nice things about rallies is that you can usually bring up a mechanical problem and get plenty of helping hands. Five rivets on the rear end of our belly pan had come loose, allowing some of the aluminum to droop down. Eleanor had noticed this a week ago and we’d been waiting for a chance to fix it. So I broke out the rivet tool, the cordless drill, and a box of rivets, and invited the Airstreamers to learn how to replace rivets.

Unfortunately, everyone already knew how, since they all have their own projects, and so they declined my Tom Sawyer-style invitation. But they did all slide under for the photo above, including Emma. Later, Dave lent me some washers (to make the rivets hold the aluminum better) and Larry helped hold the aluminum in place while I put in the new rivets.

The potluck dinner resulted in absolutely massive quantities of food. We had enough leftovers to feed all the overnighters again, probably for several days. That didn’t stop Larry from making a fire in the morning and between him and Dave we had another big meal that held me for most of the day.

Today I have been finalizing articles for the Winter magazine, so it has not been a complete vacation for me, but this necessary to allow all the business I need to do this coming week. We’ll be at Airstream for service and meetings all week, and expect to be quite busy. I’ve also got to sit down with the atlas and figure some stops along the route from Dayton to Denver for the week after. Any suggestions are welcome.

3 Responses to “Labor Day Weekend”

  1. Gene Siesky Says:

    Come to Dayton and visit the Air Force Museum. It’s free and can handle RVs easily. It’s not to be missed if you want to see all the Air force has to offer, including space capsules, titan missles, steal aircraft and many more from it’s 60 year history. There is also a quaint town east of Dayton called Yellow Springs.(Think 1960) Outside of town in John Bryan State Park that has some electric sites in the campground. Near Yellow Springs is Young’s Dairy Farm where you can feed the goats, visit the baby animals in the barn, play miniture golf, eat at the resturant and of course have ice cream. Also near Yellow Springs is the Raptor Sanctuary (free)where you can see various raptures up close, including a bald eagle that was injured in an accident with a high wire. There is also a very nice walk through “Glen Helen Nature Reserve”. You can also visit the very old town of Clifton and its historic mill and store.

  2. Andy Says:

    Both photos are delightful — for very different reasons!

  3. Randy Says:

    Rich,

    Do you carry an assortment of rivets for repairs? If so, what sizes?

    Thanks,

    Randy

    [Rich replies: I carry 5-6 “Olympic” (shavehead) 5/32″ rivets for external rivet replacement, a few 1/8″ aluminum pop rivets for interior skin repair, and some 3/16″ ‘buttonhead’ rivets for belly pan repairs. Of these, I’ve only needed the buttonheads.)