Archive for Uncategorized
June 29, 2006 at 6:58 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
OK, a quickie update this evening because I have to go pick up Brett at the airport in Portland soon. I have heard people at Airstreamforums are wondering who is here and what’s up, so here’s a run-down of the forums people who I know:
wheel interested (Carol B)
Maxwell (Shari)
chyde (Colin Hyde)
gadgetat (Rich C)
65GT (but I haven’t seen him yet)
2air
communicator
myboyburt
and several others whose handles I don’t know …
As to why there isn’t much news coming back from those folks: we’re having too darned much fun. Internet access at this rally is the best we’ve ever had, which is not saying much, but still an improvement. There’s wi-fi in one of the buildings, and cellular coverage is rock-solid here. I’ve seen Sprint, Verizon, and Cingular setups rolling along very well. But who wants to sit in front of the computer when the sun is shining and there’s a party at every fifth trailer?
Vintage happy hour was tremendous today, probably the biggest turnout yet. I think nearly a hundred people were there, spilling out from the edges of the tent. There’s a lot of talk about the name change, the state of the vintage club (there’s some political issues there), the Vintage Advantage newsletter (which will have a new editorial team soon), and all the cool trailers here.
We’re all looking forward to the vintage open house tomorrow from 11 to 4. The delegates meeting is scheduled for 8 to 12, which is causing some grief for vintage owners who have a strong interest in attending the meeting. I’ll be in touch with some people who will be attending, via cell phone, to get updates.
June 29, 2006 at 8:56 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Everyone is starting to hit the wall now… and yesterday was only the first official rally day! The problem with these rallies is that if you try to see everyone and do everything you want, you’ll wear yourself out. I’ve alluded to this problem before. I usually come out of one of these things needing a vacation.
The schedule is brutal, albeit self-imposed. We’re all like a bunch of 5-year-olds who don’t want to go to bed because we might miss something. So we get up early and immediately start socializing, run around all day attending seminars, meeting friends, attending happy hours, catching up on gossip, eating out, buying stuff, and then of course eating ice cream. By the end of the day, we’re all beat.
I had warned Rich C about this before he came, and last night we were commiserating on it. He ended up doing a bunch of free consulting to people with computer problems, and at one point his voice started to go. I had impromptu meetings with at least half a dozen people, and ended up missing a couple of events entirely because my schedule was completely whacked. Then I had to get back to the computer to respond to email and put up the blog. At 9:30 pm I was hiding in Rich’s trailer trying to unwind with one of his recorded episodes of “Futurama” but there was no escape: people kept dropping by to chat.
Eleanor and Emma were similarly tired. I hardly saw them all day, since they kids’ program kept them busy until nearly 3 pm, and then we split up again later in the afternoon. Just when I was dragging myself, Eleanor, and Emma back to our trailer at 10 pm for bed, I spotted a beautiful crescent moon rising over the Airstreams. So I grabbed Rich C’s tripod again and took a few pictures. The moon didn’t come out well, but I did get some halfway decent night shots. We finally got to bed around 11 … and this morning it begins again.
Today will be busier! Rich C and his neighbor were asking if I was going to enter the photo contest, but I feel I should exclude myself. Being a semi-pro (since I shoot for the magazine all the time), I think I have a bit of an unfair advantage. I have shot probably over 10,000 photos of our Airstream and our adventures in the past nine months and kept over 4,000. As a result, I’ve got a few good ones and they sometimes appear in the magazine (such as the redwoods photos in the upcoming Summer 2006 issue, which you’ll see in July). I wouldn’t feel right entering photos that I shoot partially for professional purposes in this type of contest. But Rich C is off entering his photos right now, and I wish him luck!
Colin Hyde is on his way over right now. He and Steve Hingtgen of Vintage Trailer Supply flew in last night and are coming down from Portland. I’ll meet up with them later this morning.
June 28, 2006 at 9:03 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Between one thing and another this day disappeared and I didn’t get to have nearly as much fun as everyone else. The best part was the happy hour we hosted at the trailer, except that Eleanor and Emma were still off at the kid program and missed the party
I was delighted to see Ray and Terri Hodges drop by. They are camphosts near the coast of Oregon who have their own blog. They came over today to check out the rally and (apparently) kiss Carol’s puppy.
Ray holds the puppy while Terri gives a kiss
I was less enchanted with the visit from a local person who crashed our event and started grabbing magazines and CDs to take with her. I relieved her of the magazine and had to keep an eye on her thereafter. She seemed to be someone with mental disabilities, who just wandered through looking for stuff. She was harmless enough other than her apparent bent toward kleptomania, so I let her stay and play with Carol’s puppy.
This was my first encounter with the local population, but the rally in general has had several security problems. Last week five motorhomes were broken into. This week there have been reports of items stolen, and everyone has been on guard and locking up, which is something we don’t normally have to do at a big rally. This town has quite a population of street people, especially downtown, and I’ve been hearing a lot of comments about panhandling, groups of shady-looking teenagers cruising the rally, etc. There were no such problems at Springfield MO last year, or Lansing MI the year before.
Dicky and Larry giving out door prizes
Dicky Riegel and Larry Huttle spoke this afternoon about the new products, the decision to kill the Class A motorhomes, and other subjects. The Westfalia has been discontinued. The new 27 Front Bedroom floorplan is available in Safari, International, and Classic lines, and looks like a winner. (Carol bought one today!)
Joe was cruising the rally today with his Jamaican hat with fake dredlocks. Everytime he spotted someone notable (or not), he got them to pose in the hat. Thus, he has a collection including Dicky and Larry, Hunter Hampton, Bryan Leipper, me, Rich C, Emma, Dave Schumann, and many others. Rich C and I have promised to mutually withhold the photos of each other … but I bet he’ll cheat.
Finally, this evening Rich C and I decided to use his blue boy to dump our gray tank. The dump station at this rally is well hidden, and we needed about fifteen minutes to find it, with help from other folks. Rich has decided that he doesn’t use the blue tank often enough to justify carting it around in his truck, so he’s going to try to sell it at the Flea Market. Hmmm… can you find a willing buyer for a used blue tank?
Mark asked about our numbers. They are the standard-issue numbers on a sheet of clear Lexan, just lying above our rock guard. I have suction cups to mount them higher but haven’t gotten around to it yet. This way, we can remove the numbers when we don’t need them and transfer them from trailer to trailer. Since we own 2-3 at all times, this is more convenient for us.
Renee Ettline reports that the new Heart of Texas Camping Unit (HOTC) was formally raised from provisional to regular status at the IBT meeting on Monday. Congratulations to David Tidmore and his crew!
June 28, 2006 at 9:42 am · Filed under Uncategorized
OK, no more complaints about heat. About 9 last night the temperature plummeted and I ran for my trailer to grab a fleece. The wind picked up enough to force me to bring in the awning, too. This morning has dawned with a thin overcast and it is only expected to reach 80, which is practically freezing now that we’re acclimated to the heat.
View from our trailer of some of the Blue section
Today the schedule is packed with vendor seminars and such. Eleanor and Emma are heading to an amusement park with other kids, and I’ll be holding the 2 pm open house at our trailer (Blue sec 1, Row 8, trailer #9990) without them, unless they get back early. So between one thing and another it will be a very busy day.
Already the Airstream guys have shown up to finish adjusting the door. They had it done in five minutes, with a combination of adjusting (using a sledgehammer on the door striker!) and lubrication. Now the door opens and closes easily. That’s good because Emma couldn’t open it herself before and I felt that was a safety issue. She can open it now!
Rich C is off to Best Buy to get a wi-fi repeater like mine, and he’s also been sent on the hunt for ice pops for the Open House. All the stores in town got cleaned out of frozen stuff during the heat wave.
We have figured out the always-mysterious dump schedule. This year they put a little sticker on each trailer that shows the date of arrival. Our says “26”, for example. Five days after that, we will get pumped out by the truck that roams around every day. So we’ll get pumped out on Saturday, at least in theory.
We can easily make our black tank last for five days. But because of the need to make our 30-gallon gray tank last five days, we are being very careful with water in the sinks and shower. We are strictly rationing showers, and we are using minimal dishes and occasionally paper plates.
A member of the club was ejected last week for dumping gray water on the site — he was made into a public example of What Happens When You Break The Rule About Graywater. So if the tank gets full before your pump-out date, you’ve got to hitch up and haul over to dump station across the street, or use a “blue boy” tank to haul your gray away. Since I want a shower today, I may be one of those people towing a blue boy behind the truck tomorrow. Not a high price to pay.
There are also public showers hidden in some of the Fairground buildings. I spoke to a couple of people yesterday who discovered them. Apparently they are available but you need to be discreet about it. I’m not sure what the official policy is, but everyone is whispering about them as if they were secrets of the pharaohs. Given the choice of shlepping across the street with my shower gear, or possibly hauling a blue tank of gray water tomorrow, I guess I’ll use our shower and take a chance.
June 27, 2006 at 8:16 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
It’s still hot but tolerable. 90 or so is a lot better than 102 …
Dave wrote: did the airstream folks repair your door latch as scheduled this morning?
Nope, we never heard from them. I knew this was a possibility, since I know they are working on emergencies first. Originally I was not expecting them until later this week, so I was surprised to see them yesterday. They have my cell phone # and I’m sure eventually we’ll connect.
Dave also asked: any idea when we will hear about the biggest descision to hit the club since it’s inception?
He’s referring to the name change vote. That will be decided by the delegates on Friday. I was originally led to believe that it was up to the IBT (International Board of Trustees) but in fact it is up to the delegates. I’ll try to be there when the vote occurs.
The new trailer area and the Airstream store were hopping today. It’s very nice to be able to browse the new units indoors. They have several new 25FB’s out, in addition to the new 27FB, and several Classics. I bought a few latches in the Airstream store to replace ones that broke, but otherwise restrained myself.
Rich got parked this morning and registered this afternoon, so he’s legal now. While waiting in line to get Emma signed up for the kids’ program, we met up with our friends Terry and Mike Scherkenbach. Mike (in the blue shirt) posed in front of the board that shows how many registrations there are. As of 4 pm Monday there were 833 units registered.
After registration time, Rich, Mike, and a friend named Sam parked themselves in our trailer for a couple of hours, talking. Carol came by today with her new puppy, which Emma and her friend promptly wore out. He crawled under the Nissan and fell asleep.
And at 5 pm we headed over to Vintage happy hour and met up with a lot of friends. I was too busy catching up with people and (later) selling back issues of the magazine to take pictures, but I did catch one shot of Rich Charpentier talking to Joe in front of Dr Norman Holman, Jr’s 1935 Airstream Torpedo. By the way, in about ten minutes among the vintage owners, I sold all of my last six sets of back issues. Those were the last full sets we had. From now on, the Summer 04 and Summer 05 issues are collector’s items.
Tonight they are having some opening event but I’m skipping it to catch up on work. Tomorrow the official program really kicks off, with a lot of seminars and events. Eleanor and Emma may take the morning to attend a kid event. We’ll be having an open house at 2pm and Bob Wheeler and Larry Huttle will be speaking at 3 pm. Other than that, I plan to wing it.
June 27, 2006 at 8:24 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Given that things happen quickly here at the rally, I’m probably going to post more than once a day during the next week if I have a chance. I’ll try to post photos at least once a day.
Last night it was still sunny and over very warm at 9 p.m. We are in the western portion of the Pacific Time Zone, and somewhat north, near the longest day of the year, so sunset is quite late for us. We dared to leave the air conditioning of the trailer for a walk-about, and found that many other people had the same idea. I ran into Jim and Paula Maddox, who I had last seen at the Region 3 Rally in Myrtle Beach. Eleanor and Emma found a 9-year-old girl doing cartwheels on the grass, so Emma quickly made a new friend and stayed out till after 10 p.m. with her, when it was finally dark.
This morning it is much nicer, only in the low 70s. We have all three Fantastic Vents running to bring the cool air from the north side of the trailer in, and it is comfortable without the air conditioning. Today is only supposed to peak in the upper 80s. With all three Fantastic Vents running on low, we’ve got an solid indoor breeze and it feels great.
Since we are parked on a grassy field that was cut apparently a few weeks ago (in the Blue section), we are surrounded by dry hay everywhere. It tracks into the trailer all the time. Many people have raked their areas to try to control it, so there are hay piles around. With all this dry hay around, and a nice breeze, we can’t risk a barbecue, unfortunately.
Rich C just called. He’s in the bullpen awaiting a second chance at getting parked in the 30-amp section. Already he’s getting a bit of a run-around, even though he has a paid receipt for parking in 30-amp. I think we can expect another ranting blog entry from him …
Today should be fairly quiet. There’s nothing of significance on the program, since the rally officially starts on Wednesday. But the vendor areas are open and George M Sutton RV has a huge indoor (air conditioned) display of the new rigs, and I expect to find a lot of people over there. I’ll take pics of the area for posting later tonight.
June 26, 2006 at 6:10 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
We’re parked at the big rally. As usual there was a good share of SNAFUs and confusion, but not for us this time. Rich C got here and was told he couldn’t get 30-amp power (on a 100-degree day), so he turned around and went back to the commercial campground. That information was bogus, and we told him so. He returned later to register and he’ll park tomorrow, hopefully. You can read his account here.
We got parked pretty quickly, and about 15 minutes after we arrived we had 30-amp power, too. So we got the A/C cranking right away and our trailer is comfortable. We are parked in a grassy field across the street from the fairground’s main buildings: Blue section, Row 8. I’ll have my flags up later this week, when my new flagpole holder arrives in the mail.
I zipped over to the vendor area and got Fantastic Vent and Airstream to schedule us for service. At 2 pm, the Fantastic Vent guys arrived to install our third and final vent in the trailer. We are putting in a Fantastic Vent 6600.
Dave Pierce and Jim Wood work as a team to install these vents, and they really know what they are doing. They had the vent in place in 32 minutes, including a few minutes to chat and wait for us to write a check. It was quick partly because the vent opening was pre-cut and pre-wired by the factory, but still I was impressed. Service fee: $70.
Airstream’s service techs showed up about the same time to check out our hard-to-open door. After a bit of consultation, they took off to get some materials. We failed to link up again because we had to go to registration, but they called and we agreed to meet tomorrow morning.
We’ve been busy saying hi to people and meeting new ones. We’ve already met up with numerous Airstream friends, including Renee and Fred Ettline, Herb and Sidra Spies, Linda Amme (of South Jersey RV), Bill and Beth Kerfoot, Dave Pierce, and several magazine and blog readers who are parked near us.
The Board of Trustees did their business today, but the club name change vote will be done by the delegates on Friday … I’ll report on that.
I noticed a SNAFU when walking around in the 100+ degree furnace this afternoon. A large section of the vintage 30-amp section is without power. Apparently one of the big diesel generators overheated and so everyone in that area, about 40 trailers, is melting in the heat. Nobody knows for sure when they will get power, which has led to more a few grumpy comments over there.
Everywhere this rally goes, the temperature inevitably reaches record-breaking temperatures. Salem set a record at 102 today. As one person noted, the International Rally “curse” continues…
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