Archive for Uncategorized
March 18, 2006 at 10:26 am · Filed under Uncategorized
Our minor flooding problem has been dealt with. Even though the floor seemed dry by Thursday night, we left the fans running all night just to be sure. Friday morning we got to replacing the floor while Emma was still sleeping. I worked on the tiles in the front storage compartment while Eleanor did the tricky curved sections in the bedroom closet.
It was blazing hot outside with the sun on me, and not too comfortable for either of us, since we had to squinch ourselves into some spaces not normally occupied by people. At one point someone who walked by to talk, but all she could see of me was my lower half hanging out of the storage compartment, draped partially over the hitch and propane bottle shelf. It got even less comfortable when I had to disconnect the power and the batteries.
Ah, but it was worth it. The new floor looks great. Because the carpet was taller than the new floor, it left a gap in places, but we sealed the gaps with flexible vinyl bathtub caulking bead.
Dry, clean, and ready for storage!
Note the new Optimas in the photo above also. The other two are in the regular battery compartment. One thing I need to do is get some sort of cover to protect the terminals. Right now I have to take some care to ensure that nothing metallic in the storage compartment is near the batteries, or it might short the batteries.
Almost done. Still needs edging.
We were lucky to be at Mystic Springs when this happened. Many campgrounds would have prohibited us from working on our trailer in the park. We also were lucky that people were willing to keep Emma occupied, and lend us fans. And it was a nice break that the forecasted rain never came, so we could dry things out and get the new floor in place.
By 11:30, we managed to complete the job, take quick showers, get Emma dressed, and be ready to join the rally group for a catfish lunch in town. That was a nice reward after sweating in the sun for hours. Mmmmm”¦. Southern fried catfish. Love it. We went through a couple of pitchers of iced tea, too.
Hugh Riddenour and Vince Saltaformaggio joined us for lunch at our table. Hugh’s daughter follows our blog, I’m told (Hi!). Vince is the guy with the 1959 Airstream Tradewind that he restored last year. It’s a beauty. Vince is a fun guy to visit with, because he is what I regard as the quintessential New Orleanian: jovial, chatty, loves to eat, funny, and full of little vices.
After lunch it really got warm, probably mid-80s, so we ran the two Fantastic Vents to see how the trailer did. It wasn’t bad except in the front bedroom where we still have an unpowered vent. That confirms it ““ I’m going to install a third Fantastic Vent in the bedroom when we get down to Tampa. We don’t like to shut up the trailer to run the A/C unless it’s scorchingly hot, so we rely on the Fantastic Vents to keep things comfortable most of the time.
Eleanor and Emma took the opportunity to make some homemade lemonade “¦
“¦ and later Emma got to work with her sidewalk chalk by our neighbor’s trailer. (I’ll have to take a picture of her artwork today.)
After dinner in the clubhouse, I was invited to do a presentation on our trip, so I did the same slideshow that I’d done in NTAC. Everyone was still awake after 160 slides, so I guess I did OK. They even laughed in the right places.
By then it was 9 pm and we were all a bit worn down. Rally days are like that. We are always so busy talking, taking pictures, showing the trailer (people are always interested since they’ve usually never seen a two-bedroom Airstream before, and certainly not one with three people living full-time in it), and meeting new people, that each day flies by.
March 16, 2006 at 3:14 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
We woke up this morning thinking that today was going to be a quiet day. I had some work to do, but otherwise we had no plans. But when I was putting away my scanner this morning, I noticed the bottom of the carton was water-stained.
If there’s one thing you don’t want to ignore in a travel trailer, it’s unexplained water. Leaks are the enemy, and they are the one thing that surely will kill an Airstream. So I began removing things from the underbed storage area and my bedroom closet, and sure enough, the carpet was wet. Thoroughly soaked, in fact.
There’s no plumbing up there, and we haven’t had any condensation at night, so that eliminated two possibilities. The wetness was confined to the carpet (not the wall), so suggested the leak didn’t come from above. There was only one possible cause: the front storage compartment.
This actually explained a mystery we noticed a week or two ago. Once in a rare while, we’ll step into the trailer and notice a smell of exhaust fumes in the trailer. The theory has been that the front storage compartment gasket sometimes lets in a little exhaust while towing, and then the fumes work their way into the main living area.
The water confirmed our theory. We towed in heavy rain in Kentucky on Monday, the first time we’ve ever towed this trailer in the rain. Wind-driven water must have gotten past the storage compartment seal and then wicked through the carpet into the bedroom.
Everything came out, and the fan went in
We removed everything from the front storage compartment and confirmed the diagnosis. Better yet, the pattern of the water told us what part of the gasket was leaking (the curbside section), so we have somewhere to start when we go to fix it.
With soaked carpet and pad, we had no choice but to pull up the carpet immediately and get some fans in there. Fortunately the Mystic Springs Airstream park folks pitched in to help. Bill Call eliminated an errand I had to do today, to by taking my propane tank out to be refilled. Herb Spies found us a big window fan to dry things out. And 7-year-old Hope, granddaughter of one of the visitors, befriended Emma and has kept her busy all day. Various grandmothers are watching them.
We ended up cutting out all the carpet in the storage compartment, plus a strip between the master bed and my closet, and all the carpet in my closet. This eliminated all the soaked carpet and pad, making drying out the wood subfloor much easier. We are going to replace those sections of carpet with vinyl tile, which makes more sense in closets and storage compartments anyway. If it leaks again, at least we won’t have to deal with wet carpet.
Drying out after the carpeting was removed from the closet
So we’ve got a list of things we need (new carpet knife, carpet transition strip, tiles, etc) and we’re heading off to Lowes. As for the ultimate solution, we’ll have to think about why that gasket leaked. There’s no apparent reason I can see. But we’ll bring it to a dealer and have them fix it. It’s still under warranty. In the meantime we’ll just avoid towing in heavy rain.
And we were wondering what we’d do today “¦
March 15, 2006 at 8:33 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
It’s family night at the Panera Bread … or so we have decreed. Emma is at my side munching on a roast beef sandwich and pickles, Eleanor is downloading system updates and sending emails, I’m working on our new Airstream Life store (to be launched soon) with a nice chai latte.
It’s a nuisance to have to drive 30 miles into Pensacola to get online, but once we have the bulk of the necessary work under control we’ll stop doing this and start seeing some local stuff. There’s a great aviation museum here, and it’s free. We’ve been there, but it was years before Emma was born, so we may take her. I’ve also heard they are aircraft carriers here that can be toured sometimes, so we’ll ask around about that.
There’s also a rally starting tomorrow at Mystic Springs, so we’ll be in the thick of that. I doubt there will be any kids for Emma but there certainly should be a LOT of grandparents. I’m looking forward to meeting Vince Saltimaggio, who I interviewed weeks ago for an upcoming article in Airstream Life. He’s one of the people who fled Hurricane Katrina in his Airstream. He’ll be here in his ’59 Tradewind, I hope.
Meanwhile, I’ll keep catching up on everything here at Panera Bread. It’s my favorite place to get online, other than the Airstream. They don’t mind us being here for hours, and the food is great. (Tom from Internet in Motion says, “I really love the ‘cobblestone’ pastry.”) This place is flooded in the evening with students from some nearby college, and they are a riot to watch: cell phone in one hand, laptop in front of them, and multi-tasking like maniacs. There are so many of them that the high-speed Internet connection goes down every evening under the load. But it’s fun to hang out and people-watch.
March 13, 2006 at 9:03 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
So nice and quiet last night at the Mammoth Cave campground. It’s been so long since we heard bird singing in the morning that it woke Eleanor up early. Morning birdsong has become unfamiliar to us, since we’ve been parked by highways and in the desert for the last two months.
The Frozen Niagara tour was great. A bit claustrophobic at the beginning, but really terrific. We can highly recommend it if you visit Mammoth Cave.
We didn’t stick around the park after the tour, because late last night I reserved a spot for myself to tour the Corvette Assembly Plant in Bowling Green. I had decided I really couldn’t leave Kentucky without seeing it. Eleanor graciously volunteered to stay in the trailer with Emma for the entire two hours it would take me to do the tour, so we parked it in a far corner of the factory lot and they hung back to do some homeschooling work.
It worked out well, because as soon as we arrived the thunderstorms came crashing down. It wasn’t weather I wanted to tow in. But Eleanor and Emma were snug in the trailer and I was having a BLAST checking out the very cool factory tour.
They also make the Cadillac XLR in that factory, but on a separate line. I wish I could show you photos from the tour but they are strict about no cameras, no cell phones, no PDAs, no anything, inside the plant. Trust me, it’s worth the $5 for the tour. I left the building wanting a Caddy XLR for my very own, but at $77k apiece I don’t see it in my immediate future. But I did get a freebie postcard.
I was tempted to just stay in the parking lot overnight because the thunderstorms were still raging at 3pm when I was back from the tour. But I didn’t think they’d appreciate that, especially since we were in the “GM CARS ONLY” lot with our Nissan. (The “non-GM” lot was full.) They seem to take that sort of thing seriously at car factories…
Thunderstorms and traffic and accidents left us far short of our goal tonight. That’s the way it goes. We’re spending the night at a Cracker Barrel tonight, and we hope to reach Gulf Shores, AL tomorrow. Then we’ll slow down for a while. All this driving has us a bit loopy.
March 12, 2006 at 7:34 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Last night we had some pretty exciting thunderstorms while we were parked at Airstream of Indiana. But with the stabilizers down, it wasn’t bad. We lowered the TV antenna just to avoid being an attractant to lightning. With a dozen other Airstreams and lampposts around, I figured our chances were pretty good of surviving the night.
We said goodbye to the nice folks at the dealership, promised to stay in touch, and packed up our traveling roadshow this morning. While we were packing inside the trailer, a police cruiser took some interest in us. I suppose being parked in the dealership lot on a Sunday (obviously camping, since we were plugged into a lamppost outlet), we looked somewhat unusual. He passed by three times, and appeared to run our license plate on one stop. I was wondering if we were violating some city ordinance and would get a ticket. Finally, on the fourth pass, I was outside talking on the cell phone and he spotted me. I gave him a big friendly wave and he gave me a wave back. I guess he just likes Airstreams …
I didn’t think we’d be able to post today because we are in Mammoth Cave National Park. Last summer we stopped here for two nights and couldn’t get online at all, and cell phones were iffy. But it’s different now: no leaves on the trees means cell signals can go farther, and with a slightly higher campsite, I can get online easily. Sweeeet!
Tonight will be balmy with lows only in the 60s so we can sleep with the windows open — yahoo! That’s the first time we’ve been able to do that since Arizona. But tomorrow a major cold front is coming through with thunderstorms and the overnight low tomorrow will be only 34! Time to get outta town. We’re going to do the Frozen Niagara tour in the morning and then head south before everything else gets frozen too.
We would visit the Corvette assembly plant in nearby Bowling Green but I checked their website and they say no kids under 7 allowed. Hmm, maybe some elevator shoes and lipstick for Emma?
March 11, 2006 at 3:37 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
At last! The sun has arrived and the temperatures have risen in central Indiana. Despite a dismal forecast last night, it has turned out to be a beautiful day.
We’ve spent the day chatting up Airstreamers (and future Airstreamers), giving tours of our trailer, and checking out the new models to get ideas for ways we might modify our own. Blog reader Lee Benson dropped by, and gave me some tips on using satellite Internet that I’ll be able to integrate into my presentation next month.
Misc notes:
(1) In response to a request from another blog reader, I’ve posted an album to Flickr with pictures of two of the new Airstream models, the Base Camp and the Safari 23. Look for the new album called “Airstream of Indiana”.
(2) We disconnected the AC power last night so we could exercise the batteries. I was interested to see how much power we used overnight for the furnace (22 amps). The Tri-Metric tells us exactly what we have used, and what we have left, which is very useful. I am not sure at this point but I think we may want to add a couple more batteries just so we don’t drain the batteries too much when we are boondocking. The batteries will last much longer if we drain them no more than 25%.
(3) Emma has had a minor relapse with a slight fever. We’ve tried to keep her low-profile today but she feels good enough to run around and get into everything and meet everyone. Fortunately, she doesn’t seem to be contagious.
(4) Finally, the folks at the dealership expressed some regret that there were no leftovers of Eleanor’s dessert. Apparently everyone has been checking the blog since we got here!
March 10, 2006 at 8:53 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
It’s one of those occasions when Eleanor is inspired by something she saw in the grocery store. So she came home with some pizzelles (sort of like thin waffles) and some ricotta cheese. She added those ingredients to some mixed berry preserve, with hot fudge sauce and whipped cream in layers, and cocoa powder sprinkled on top.
The result was a short-lived dessert. That, and a DVD of six Spongebob Squarepants episodes, and you’ve got a formula for a heck of a family-friendly evening.
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