Archive for June, 2007
June 12, 2007 at 10:16 pm · Filed under Places to go
Well, you just go offline for a day and look how things pile up. It’s not the easiest thing to juggle work and travel, especially when you’ve got to cover 2000 miles in a week. In fact, I’m realizing it’s pretty much impossible.
We’ve been starting as early as possible to get from place to place, but these western states are huge and it takes all day to cover just one of them. At stops I’ve been jumping into the trailer to check email and take care of the most urgent issues, and then catching up in the evening on the rest. But Monday, being Monday, struck with a vengeance and so after a nice visit to Scottsbluff National Monument, I blew the rest of the day in the Airstream (in the parking lot) dealing with business issues, while the temperature soared to about 100 degrees.
Scottsbluff, by the way, is an underappreciated national monument in a quiet part of Nebraska. It’s a major intersection of several historic trails, including the Oregon Trail, California Trail, Mormon Pioneer Trail, and the Pony Express route. A shuttle bus can take you to the top of the bluff and there’s an easy hike down with superb views.
By the time we were ready to move again, it was so late in the afternoon that we could drive only a relatively short distance, to Custer State Park in the heart of the Black Hills of South Dakota. The Black Hills are another great destination that deserve much more time than we gave them. Heck, just Custer State Park is worth a week. The park is huge, with numerous campgrounds, a lodge, and many other features. But our whirlwind travel schedule this week allowed us only to take a sip before heading out.
One particular feature of Custer State Park is the wildlife. Like its western cousin Yellowstone, Custer has a population of elk and buffalo, which appear everywhere.
This morning we took a marvelous route from Custer to nearby Mt Rushmore. Route 16A connects the two sites, and it’s a circuitous, narrow, shoulderless road with three single-lane tunnels. This road will test your trailer towing skills, let me tell you. If you are not extremely confident in your abilities, take Route 79 instead.
My favorite spot was the third tunnel. Following procedure, we honked our horn several times before entering, since it is a single lane (12 feet 4 inches tall, and 10 feet 6 inches wide, enough for a wide-body Airstream with a safety margin of one foot on each side). As we came out, we found ourselves windshield-to-windshield with a tour bus. The bus was in the left lane so that it could swing wide enough to make a 70-degree turn into the tunnel. We ended up taking the left lane at about 2 MPH to squeeze between the tour bus and a rock wall.
Mt Rushmore … yes, it looks just like the photos. The park is free but there’s a mandatory $8 parking fee, which is not covered by national parks passes. Looking at a big granite mountain with faces on it is, for me, something of limited interest. But the park service has done a nice job leveraging the sculpture into a history lesson about the presidents.
The less said about driving I-90 in South Dakota, the better. I rarely confess to boredom, but must admit that this road rivals I-80 in Nebraska and I-55 in Mississippi for sheer tedium. No wonder so many people stop at Wall Drug. We stopped at Wall, SD, but we didn’t go to the famous tourist trap. Instead we parked on the street beside the Buffalo Gap National Grasslands Visitor Center and checked it out for a future trip. Ah! to be able to pause and explore the grasslands slowly. I’d like to spot the prairie chicken.
But not this trip. That seems to be our mantra now. We have to skip all the good stuff in the name of mileage. We are way behind on the schedule, but I managed to re-arrange some things that were scheduled for next week to give us a little more time. Still, we need to move on and thus with great reluctance we drove right past the Badlands National Park and the 40-mile scenic drive it offers.
It is raining now, a hard thunderstorm rain with frequent flashes of lightning. This is the first heavy rain we have seen in months, having been in the desert most of the winter. I find I don’t miss the rain. On our aluminum roof it is loud, but we are comfortable and safe inside with all our conveniences, including a movie for tonight (“Keeping Mum”). The torrential rain compelled us to stop sooner than we planned, so we are in the parking lot at Cabela’s in Mitchell, SD with a few other RVs. Perhaps before we leave we’ll get a chance to visit Cabela’s and the famous Corn Palace.
June 10, 2007 at 9:15 pm · Filed under Roadtrips
We are cruising right along, unfortunately at the speed of the average American vacation: 65 MPH. If I ever claim to have “seen it all” in America, please remind me that we passed about fifty sights, towns, overlooks, forests, parks, and festivals today — all of which I would have liked to have stopped and explored.
We tried to start off slowly, with a cruise through Provo Canyon near Salt Lake City. This little detour takes you through a spectacular canyon drive, and past Bridal Veil Falls. We stopped in for breakfast in the Airstream and a short hike to the falls.
At the base of the falls is an abandoned aerial tramway. This must have been a spectacular ride when it was running, because the tram line runs steeply up the cliffs to a little observation station about 1000 feet above. We did an article in the Spring 2007 issue of Airstream Life on aerial trams all over the country, and I would have liked to have included this one, but it’s only an abandoned wreck now.
We did a little math and realized that unless we stepped up the pace, we would have no chance of getting to Vermont by Saturday. In fact, we’ll probably be a couple of days late. So we hightailed it through Wyoming all day, stopping only for gas and a slice of highway trivia called Little America.
Little America is almost the Wyoming equivalent of South of the Border, or Wall Drug, or The Thing? or any other number of famous highway stops. It’s a hotel, truck stop, restaurant, and gift shop spread out over several acres alongside the highway. Their billboards are relentless along I-80, extolling “31 inch TVs in every room!”, “24 hour restaurant”, “24 hour mechanic”, etc. We ignored most of them, but they got us with the last billboard: “50-cent cones!” How can you say no to a 50-cent vanilla/chocolate swirl soft-serve ice cream in a cone?
I don’t care what anyone says, Wyoming is an absolutely beautiful state, and even the drive along I-80 is fascinating and constantly changing — even without ice cream. I’ve driven it twice and enjoyed it both times. This state is loaded with diversity, from Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons, to the fossil beds, to the oil fields, and then to the green piney mountains between Laramie and Cheyenne. We’d like to spend more time in Wyoming on a future trip.
We were tempted to spend the night in Cheyenne. Not only will there be an article in the Fall 2007 Airstream Life about a famous Airstream owner who happens to live in Cheyenne (and whom I’d like to meet in person), but there’s also a Sierra Trading Post outlet there. We’re going to buy a family tent for use this fall and winter and Sierra Trading Post might have been a good spot to shop for one. Too bad the outlet was closed early today (Sunday). They even have RV parking, so I can recommend it as a convenient stop right off I-80 in Wyoming.
Tonight we are in a municipal park not far from the state line, in Kimball, Nebraska. According to “Don Wright’s Guide to Free Campgrounds (Western Edition)” this park allows free overnight RV parking. The cops have cruised by once already and didn’t show any interest in us, so I think we’re all set for tonight. This park is notable for one thing: it contains a decommissioned Titan Missile standing up on end in one corner of the park. Free parking and a genuine Cold War artifact — beats the heck out of the usual campground.
Our Google Earth location.
June 9, 2007 at 11:24 pm · Filed under Travel / lifestyle musings
Las Vegas is behind us now, along with the craziness of the Strip and all the hubbub of the business we had to do there. Finally, Eleanor and I are off on our own for a week, cruising America as we head east for the summer.
This is the first time we’ve been on the road without our daughter for over two years. It’s a strange feeling. I keep wanting to look in the mirror and see her in her car seat, but for once the seat is empty and there’s just the two of us on the highway. No longer Mom & Dad, we are once again Rich and Eleanor.
So our avowed purpose along the way is to enjoy all those little pleasures that are often denied to parents on the road: fast starts in the morning, long quiet stretches in the car, movies with ratings above PG in the evening, uninterrupted adult conversation, and naps.
Yes, naps. I used to have a perfected technique for power-napping just a few minutes at a time, but with an active child around I rarely get to exercise it. When the car stops, she wants to get out and run around, and there’s no chance for Dad to take a quick snooze even though we have a rolling bedroom in tow.
Ah, but now the opportunity arises. The past week in Las Vegas has been hectic and frankly we haven’t gotten as much sleep as we would like. So today we celebrated the end of the week with brunch (with Brett and our friend Kelly) at Caesar’s, then hitched up the Airstream and towed it about 200 miles north into Utah … and then we took a nap.
It turns out that having an Airstream trailer behind you is the perfect arrangement for naps. Late in the afternoon when the conversation dried up, my eyes got weary, and Eleanor’s head was dipping toward her chest, we pulled over into a truck stop somewhere in southern Utah and climbed into our extremely inviting foam bed.
You wouldn’t think a truck stop was the perfect place for a nap, but it can be. This particular spot was surrounded by magnificent mountain ranges, and the sun was just beginning to cast a golden glow all around. There were only a few trucks in the lot, and we were able to find a quiet corner. Being up around 5,000 feet, the air had cooled from the mid-90s of Las Vegas to a comfortable upper 70s. We turned on the vent fan for a soothing backround hum and gentle breeze, cracked a few windows to let in the fresh air from the surround meadows, and settled in for 90 minutes.
This may not seem like much, but this was a perfect, sublime, experience for us. No one there to wake us, no schedule to keep, just a spur-of-the-moment choice to lie down and enjoy the familiar peace of home … somewhere in Utah.
After the nap, refreshed but still sleepy, we cracked open a Starbucks frappucino, poured it over ice from the freezer, and picked up the trail again along I-15. Having crossed a time zone, we find ourselves reporting to you from somewhere near Provo UT well past 11 p.m. local time. For a day in the car, it has been very nice and I’m looking forward to another schedule-less day on Sunday.
June 8, 2007 at 5:19 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
We got to spend some time with the new 2008 Airstream models today. Part of my job is to review the new models as they come out. Well, actually that’s not true, but I make it part of my job anyway, because it’s a lot of fun.
The word in the RV industry is that customers want smaller and lighter RVs. Higher fuel prices, a decline in the popularity of big SUVs, and a broadening interest among people who never owned an RV before all are pointing to trailers that are easier to tow and can be pulled without buying a massive truck.
So Airstream has come out with an aggressive new line of short, sweet, little rigs that are destined to be hits. Two years ago when we walked through the new model introduction, half the trailers on the floor were 30 feet and longer. Heavy, option-laden models were already on the way out, but they remained a significant part of sales. This year, only two examples out of about two dozen units on the floor were over 30 feet long. The rest were shorter and lighter.
A very interesting new product that will be in dealer showrooms this summer is the Safari Sport. Coming out in two lengths, 17 and 22 feet, these little cuties are redesigned completely for much lighter weight and lower cost. How light? Well, the empty weight of the 17 foot model is about 2,800 lbs, which is the lightest trailer in that length that Airstream has sold since 1981! It’s so light that even fully loaded it can be pulled by a minivan.
We’ll have a full review of the Safari Sport, with plenty of pictures, in the upcoming Fall 2007 issue of Airstream Life magazine. If you subscribe you’ll get that issue in August, and it will also be in Books-a-Million stores and other book stores, starting in late August.
Another trailer model that is getting a lot of attention is the “DWR Airstream”, which is basically an International CCD 16-footer with a makeover by Design Within Reach. DWR is the largest seller of modern design furnishings in the US. They’re actually selling this little toy (at $49k) through their catalog, and the word is that quite a few have been pre-sold already. Most of these jewels will probably end up as guest houses and pool houses rather than traveling.
All of these new models are being driven by a startling statistic. 27% of Airstream buyers last year were first-time buyers. That means they never owned an RV of any type before. Yet they went straight to one of the most premium brands available. That’s absolutely unprecedented. It means a lot of excited new owners who want a different type of product (more exciting, higher quality, more design-focused), and it means owners who will change the face of RV’ing as it has been traditionally pictured. I call them the “new quarter”.
So, because we publish a magazine that speaks to those people, we got some very nice praise for Airstream Life during the meeting. The Airstream people love the magazine, and so do the dealers. They know Airstream Life is a real anomaly in the RV and publishing worlds. No other RV manufacturer has an independent magazine about their product. There’s no other magazine like it.
I know I’m tooting my own horn, but we really do combine travel, history, people, and destinations in a totally unique way. I think that unusual mix both mystifies people who can’t pigeonhole it in to a single category, and delights our readers. People who read the magazine tend to be eclectic and interested in a lot of things, and so it’s fun for me to meet them and become friends with many of them.
I’m hoping that when we show up in more bookstores (such as Borders, Barnes & Noble, and others) this fall, we’ll be able to introduce the magazine to the “new quarter” — that much broader audience of people who never thought they’d own a travel trailer and then found themselves buying an Airstream. If you’re one of those people, welcome! I hope we see you on the road soon.
June 7, 2007 at 4:11 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
We met up with our Airstreamer/poker playing friend Brian this afternoon for lunch at Caesar’s Palace and a tour of the World Series of Poker, going on this week at the Rio.
The World Series of Poker (WSOP) is a lot more than just a tournament. It’s about sixty tournaments, all going on under one roof. The big games are televised and can cost $10,000 to buy into, and on the other hand there are a lot of games that cost as little as $1,000 to enter. Pretty much any variation of poker you care to play can be found.
Tim “The Poker Shrink” and Brian at WSOP
Of course like any sport, poker has its share of superstars. There are plenty of pros, a few dozen sponsored players (from online gaming sites), and a handful of “legends”. The nice thing is that the tournaments are fairly open and it’s easy to meet the superstars up close and even talk with them. That makes it great for the fans.
The challenges of a tournament like this are many. To win, you’ve got to be a consistent player with endurance. They play for up to 12 hours each day, for several days. The pros have to put up with a lot of amateurs, until the amateurs get knocked out. And nobody is guaranteed to be successful, no matter how good a player they may be.
Brian is also the driving force behind ThePokerAtlas.com, a site where you can submit and read reviews of poker rooms all over the country. Poker has experienced a huge resurgence since 2002, and Brian’s site has become increasingly popular.
Brett and I also took a walk through all the new (2008) Airstream models that are being introduced at the dealer meeting this week. I’ll have photos of those tomorrow.
June 6, 2007 at 9:52 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
The unseasonably hot weather has broken. This morning we were able to stand outside the Airstream in the full sun and feel the soft breeze without melting into a puddle of human flesh. Overnight the Lake Mead RV Village has transformed from an oven to a garden spot. Suddenly I’m noticing the red flowers on the bushes, the ravens in the palm trees, and the blue-green water of Lake Mead seems much more tranquil.
Rich and Emma floating in Lake Mead, near Hoover Dam
But it’s time to move on. We towed the Airstream into Las Vegas today to a staging area for a few days of business. This week Airstream introduces its new 2008 models to its dealers, and Brett & I will be there to represent the magazine. I love the fact that we come to the annual dealer meeting in an Airstream, living the life as much as possible every day.
The blog is about to undergo a temporary change. For about 10 days, we will be childless. Tomorrow Emma and my mother will fly off. Brett and I will have a brutal schedule of meetings in the next two days, and then on Saturday Eleanor and I will begin a cruise across the country to catch up with Emma in the east.
This sort of mode shifting often strikes people as “stressful” or confusing. We don’t feel that way, perhaps because we are used to it. We have to adjust from family mode to business mode, from fast travel to slow, and from city to country, rather frequently. Life and diversity go hand-in-hand, so we expect this, and even embrace it.
Perhaps that’s why we were both feeling the loss of the road lifestyle while we were parked in Tucson. Stability is one thing, but a static existence feels very artificial to us now. We are addicted to change and challenge. Travel junkies.
Eleanor was a bit sad for a moment in Grand Canyon because being there was so great, and it reminded her that our full-time travel is coming to an end soon. We are still trying to come to grips with what that will mean, and we are trying to find ways to keep the best aspects of the full-time lifestyle. If we figure it out, you’ll be the first to know.
June 5, 2007 at 10:49 pm · Filed under Places to go
It seemed we were doomed again in our attempt to boat on Lake Mead. Last night the wind began to pick up, and by morning it was whipping a blast of hot air at us. This meant white-capped waves across the broad section of the lake, and a bumpy ride — just like last year.
But Lake Mead has an abundance of sheltered little coves, formed by the crannies and canyons of what was once wind-sculpted desert. We made for those as quickly as possible, and found tranquil blue-green water surrounded by dark brown canyon walls, perfect for diving and swimming.
Who thought of putting a lake in a desert? It’s a marvelous invention. There’s nothing like jumping into cool blue water with a 110 degree dry breeze above. (But remember to apply the sunscreen early and often. We used SPF50 water-resistant sunscreen and still got a little red in spots.)
As we jumped from cove to cove, we spotted some wildlife. The best surprise was a small herd of about 18 pronghorns who had come down to the lake edge to drink. We were looking at them, thinking how strange it was to encounter these mountain animals alongside a lake, and likewise they were wondering what a boat was doing in their canyon. At another cove, we spotted herons nesting, and a duck that we could not identify, with unusual plumage.
The most startling sight was this crashed boat. Only a couple of hours earlier we had seen a family pulling a tube behind this boat. When we arrived, they had apparently been rescued but the boat and all of their possessions were left behind. Although the boat was completed destroyed, it looked like the accident was survivable. A reminder of the need for boating safety …
The last stop of the day was back at Hoover Dam. There’s a small cove just before the buoys that warn you not to get closer. In this cove there is an unofficial anchorage. I named it “Moocher’s Cove” because of the ducks and large friendly fish that swam up to us looking for handouts. It was the idea spot to hang out and swim and snack for the last hour of the afternoon: calm, quiet, sunny, with delicious cool water.
This evening we have another guest in the Airstream. My mother has flown in from Vermont. That makes five people in here for the next two nights. This is the largest crowd we have ever had sleep over, and yet it feels very natural.
Tonight Emma and my mother are settling in on the converted dinette bed, Brett is in the back bedroom, and Eleanor and I are in our front queen bedroom. Emma is reading a bedtime story to my mother from the book she is writing, I’m up front blogging, Brett is in the shower, and Eleanor is preparing for bed. Being here together on the shores of Lake Mead with a balmy wind gently rocking the trailer seems to have made us all very comfortable. I think this will be a day we look back on for years and say, “That was a great day.”
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