Archive for August, 2008
August 7, 2008 at 10:29 pm · Filed under Places to go
We still can’t seem to escape the rain. Last night torrential thunderstorms arrived. We all heard them in our sleep, but we didn’t think much of it … until Emma called across the trailer in the dark to report that her roof vent was not closed. Poor kid was lying in soaking wet blankets. Rain had been coming in for quite a while before she woke up. Eleanor quickly stripped the bedding and hung it out to dry, while Emma crawled into our bed and fell asleep again.
This morning the sun was out but the ground was pretty squishy, and a hike we had planned was literally washed out, so instead we met up with Alex and Charon and headed into the neighboring town of Clarion. It’s a small college town with the typical old downtown main street, park square, and courthouse. The downtown feels a bit like a time warp, with a few old-time clothing stores and restaurants that would have disappeared two decades ago in most places.
I was pleased to find an ideal barber shop for a haircut: a narrow shop with four chairs crammed between two other downtown businesses, complete with rotating barber pole outside and old-fashioned chairs inside. For $10 plus tip I got a haircut that should last a long time. We also found a terrific coffee-and-gelato cafe that was worth stopping in.
Trailers have been showing up at Penn Wood today, for a rally scheduled over the weekend. The field we are parked in has started to fill up, which is fun to watch even though we won’t be here for the rally. There’s a certain excitement in seeing the Airstreams show up.
Thunderstorms arrived again and again during the day, bringing some explosive thunder. This is the first time since May that we’ve had 30-amp electric service, so we took full advantage and ran the air conditioning to dry things out inside the trailer while the outside humidity soared. Emma’s blankets and sheets dried enough to be used on her bed again. I spent the afternoon working on the computer without any temptation to quit and go outside.
This evening Charon instigated a small dinner with some of their friends in the park. With thunderstorms passing through, it seemed wisest to take advantage of the park’s “pavilion” and commercial kitchen rather than eating under the awning. It felt like we were having a little rally of our own. Eleanor contributed tiramisu, a favorite dessert.
Our visit has been short but I think I’ve started to get the vibe of this place. Limestone PA is not exactly a “destination” you’d go out of your way to visit, but for everyone here it seems to be a getaway that they look forward to. It’s very relaxing. The area is green and quiet, and the sites in the park are generally private and shady. The fact that cell phones don’t work in most of the park encourages you to disconnect. You can go hiking, antiquing, browsing, exploring, bicycling, etc. Like a lot of places, it is what you make of it. I can understand the attraction, especially if you’re from some urban area where there’s too much going on.
August 6, 2008 at 8:00 pm · Filed under Places to go, Roadtrips
Just as a result of our desire to meet up with friends along the way, and spend two nights, we needed to cover almost 400 miles today. That’s a lot more than our usual driving day. As always, we had to pass up a lot of really good places along the way, which is exactly why I hate to cover such distances. If we’d had more time I would have picked out a stop in Ithaca, Corning, or Watkins Glen. We would have stopped at the barbecue place Randy recommended, and the Soaring Museum in Corning, or one of the many waterfalls in the central NY region, and paused to take pictures of the odd signs I saw along the roadside.
That’s the downside of a roadtrip where the primary goal is to get somewhere. Sometimes it’s nicer not to have a goal in mind, and just let the bright spots of the road find you.
At the end of the winding roads through the Allegheny State Forest, we found Penn Wood Airstream Park. Our friends Alex and Charon are staying here this year, so we came here specifically to seek them out. Since we are transient visitors, we’re parked in a clearing toward the front of the park (with full hookups and a concrete pad, so we’re not suffering). The rest of the park is basically all occupied by lessees. There are a lot of Airstreams tucked away in shady forest spots all around the clearing we’re occupying.
We’ll stay a couple of nights to recuperate from the drive, get some work done, and catch up with our friends. One thing on my agenda tomorrow is to go through the advance copy of our Fall 2008 issue that arrived here FedEx today. Here’s a peek at the cover, and the beautiful photo by Neil Holman. The issue will be mailed later this week to all subscribers.
August 5, 2008 at 10:29 pm · Filed under Travel / lifestyle musings
Although this is a photogenic place, I have been slacking off with my camera because Randy is himself a professional photographer (as is his brother Brad, both of them following in their father’s footsteps). He has been documenting our visit for me and emailing me the results, which makes blogging much easier for me.
In particular he has been taking a series of photographs about my mobile office lifestyle. Over the years I have perfected the way I work “on the road,” as well as the equipment I use and the mental approach I take to getting it done. Randy thinks this is interesting, and so occasionally I’ve been called upon to pose with one thing or another (my computer, a FedEx envelope, my phone). I have no idea what will become of these photos.
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It feels like we are the top of all New York here. Randy and I went out for a short bike ride around the block, and from here every direction you can ride is down, which means that the return involved some steep pedaling back up. But it has been spectacular weather with endless vistas, and a tiny bit less humidity, so the rewards of the ride were equal to the challenges.
Most of the day was tragically given over to work for me and homeschooling for Eleanor and Emma. Still, almost any task seems pleasant when done inside the Airstream on a gorgeous sunny day with all the windows and doors wide open to the gentle breeze. As you can see, things are very green and we are situated with a million dollar view.
We’re also situated right on the path for low-flying aircraft. It seems that Randy has called every pilot he knows and they have been doing fly-bys regularly. This morning we had a rather exciting visit by a Lancair, which is a very slick and fast aircraft. In the photo above you can see that the aircraft is somewhat below the perspective of the photographer, and I can assure you that it was demonstrating something close to its full cruise speed of 276 MPH as it whizzed by. Later in the day a vintage biplane came by too, did a few turns, and buzzed away like a giant bumblebee. It’s like being at an airshow here, which is great as far as I’m concerned.
Unfortunately our day was marred by another migraine. Eleanor was laid low in the late afternoon and evening. At this writing she is somewhat improved but if things don’t get better by morning we may delay our departure. Our trip plan calls for a fairly long drive tomorrow and I’d rather not even start if there’s a chance Eleanor will be miserable as we go. We’ve let Eleanor relax alone in the trailer this evening, while outside the kids did their kid things, another remote-control airplane was crashed into the field, and pizza was served for dinner.
I got to spend some time on the porch talking with Randy and Brad about Airstream things, and heard a few tidbits about their father Ardean Miller III. I was particularly interested to hear that he liked to nap in the Airstream every day. Randy confesses to the same habit now. I’ve been a not-so-secret Airstream napper for a long time, and it’s good to hear that other people share the joy of an afternoon snooze in their little aluminum cocoons.
August 4, 2008 at 11:11 pm · Filed under Roadtrips
In downtown Saratoga Springs is a bakery called Mrs London’s, where we met our courtesy parking hosts Bruce and Virginie this morning. We hadn’t seen much of our hosts last night, due to prior obligations of theirs. So we had pastry and coffee (chai for me) in the morning, by the busy main street under the shop’s awning and talked about everything. It seemed an ideal day for that sort of thing, bright with sunshine and light on responsibility, even though it was Monday.
This set a nice tone for the day, and since our drive was only three hours total, we were in no hurry. Eleanor wanted to stop at the Saratoga spring in the state park to refill two gallon jugs, and she also requested a stop at Roma’s Italian market on Washington Street for some pistachio nougat. We did all this with our hosts’ spare car, leaving the Nissan and Airstream hitched up and ready to go.
Once we got on the road, our next stop was about 60 miles west, in the small town of Herkimer NY, where “diamonds” (actually quartz crystals) can be found amongst the gray rock in open pits. You pay a fee and they give you a hammer, and then you sit in the sun and hack away at rocks in the hope of discovering a little piece of quartz. It’s kind of like being a convict on a chain gang, except you pay for the privilege and you get to keep the little rocks.
Apparently the Travel Channel did a bit on the mines, and that spurred their popularity. Quite a few people were in the mine banging away at rocks when we visited, including a lot of families. I personally could not get the rock fever, and after an hour or so of sweating (in a humid 78 degrees, with passing rain showers and occasional sun), I chose to hang out in the Airstream while E & E searched for fabulous little crystals. They came back a couple of hours later with a plastic baggie holding a lot of tiny samples, some of which will become part of Emma’s magic wand.
Our final stop for the day was one I’ve been anticipating for a long time. Randy Miller, son of the legendary Airstream photographer Ardean Miller (see Airstream Life, Winter 2007), invited us to his home in Cazenovia NY. It was an invitation I could not pass up, even before I saw the pictures of the place. We are parked on a farm high atop a hill in central New York, where all around are spectacular views of the surrounding countryside.
Getting to the back yard, where we are parked, was a challenge. At one point we were basically off-roading down a steep embankment, and the last two feet of our 30-foot Airstream did not like it. The bumper I damaged last January on the way to Quartzsite was particularly insulted by the terrain. Now it is bent in the middle. I had to do a “field repair” literally in the middle of a field, which involved removing the bumper, bending some metal, and whacking it back into place. It will hold, but there is no question that further service will be needed at Jackson Center.
Now that we are parked, I’m not inclined to go anywhere. We’ve got a spot of honor next to the fire pit and tremendous hospitality. Randy has all the toys any overgrown kid might want, and his daughter, son-in-law, and grandkids are here visiting (as well as their friends and more children), so the late afternoon was spent playing with a remote-controlled airplane (which I crashed spectacularly into a tree), dogs, children, and a potato-shooting gun.
Randy also arranged that we would be overflown by a Piper J-3 Cub in the early evening. The neighbor/pilot buzzed us with great finesse and even demonstrated a little aerobatic maneuvering. Then it was time for dinner, which was grilled outside for everyone. The kids made S’mores over the fire and told ghost stories in the dark, and I didn’t get a single mosquito bite. All in all, it has been one of the better Mondays I can recall. We’ll stay a couple of nights for sure …
August 3, 2008 at 9:10 pm · Filed under Maintenance
We can’t seem to escape the rain, even when the sun is shining. A big thunderstorm showed up around dinnertime, and it never really stopped. I had hoped for a letup overnight so that we could roll up a dry awning, but we awoke to a steady drizzle. Packing up and hitching up in the rain is one of the things I don’t miss when we are out west. Everything takes longer, and there’s lots of muck to deal with: mud on the electric cord, gravel sticking to my shoes, tree leaves stuck to the awning, and cold wet hands until the job is done.
With the awning rolled up wet, I have to deploy it here in our courtesy parking spot in Saratoga Springs NY. It will probably get even wetter as a result of morning dew, but I am hoping for sunshine in the morning to dry it off. Rolling up the awning when wet is no problem if you unroll it later and allow it to dry. If you leave it rolled up, trapped moisture and organic debris (leaves, pollen, bird droppings, bugs, etc) can allow mildew growth. I tried to clean off all the gunk as I rolled it up this afternoon, but there’s always something.
We’re taking an easy stop tonight, at the home of Bruce and Virginie, just a few miles from the site of the Vintage Trailer Jam. Bruce reports that here it has hardly rained, which is incredible. Some sort of magic barrier has divided the frequent rain showers to go around Saratoga Springs the past few weeks. But it’s not dry: we got a sun-shower when we arrived here, and at sunset the forest filled with fog.
We haven’t run the water heater in weeks. This evening it refused to ignite, which is a problem we have had in the past when camping in the east in damp conditions. Something about it doesn’t like moisture. Around Christmas 2006 in St George Island FL we discovered that half an hour of sunshine or a hair dryer would bring the water heater back to life. So we borrowed a hair dryer from Virginie and in just a couple of minutes the water heater was fine. I will get a hot shower in the morning.
It was hard to say goodbye to our family today, but we’re going to have souvenirs of our driveway visit in Vermont for weeks. The spiders around there were innumerable. Everywhere I looked I found a spider or three, and often they had laid egg sacs too. They were on everything, and in every crevice. I cleared them out of the water heater, the wheel well, even the foam “pool noodle” we put on the awning arm. Such fun. We’re living in an insectarium.
The photo above is a flashback to the Vintage Trailer Jam. People are still sending me photos from the event, which is fun. This photo just came from my mother via email this evening. Since we are parked in the same town, it felt appropriate to run in today’s blog.
This Saratoga Springs stop is just an overnight. We’re going to start roaming central New York tomorrow. For the next week we are going to meander slowly toward Jackson Center OH, home of Airstream. We’ve got a service appointment for the 11th. Until then our primary job is to visit as many friends as we can along the way. It spreads out the driving and the fuel cost, and our indirect route means we’ll see a lot of the countryside. That’s a good deal all the way around.
August 2, 2008 at 9:04 pm · Filed under Caravel project, Home base
The Caravel project is done, at least for this summer. This morning we “struck the set,” as they say in show business. That means the shed we were working in has been completely cleared out. All of the tools are packed away in a box for next year, and the wood scraps have been hauled off for future bonfires by the beach. The only clue that we were working in the shed is some sawdust on the floor.
I drove all the old and new parts back over to Plattsburgh NY this morning and, with Colin Hyde’s help, loaded them carefully into the Caravel for future installation. This was the first opportunity I’d had to see how the stained wood complemented the Marmoleum floor. The effect, as I expected, is perfect — a testament to Susanne Brown’s ability to manage colors. We’ll be asking her for recommendations on fabrics and countertops as well.
It’s exciting to see all the parts in the Caravel, because it means that after almost four years of being on hold, the project is finally nearing completion. We had stopped work on the Caravel back in late 2004 when we began working on the 1977 Argosy project (“Vintage Thunder”), and then we went out to travel full-timing for “six months” in 2005. You know how that worked out. So until this summer, we’d never managed to get back to the poor old Caravel. There’s a very good chance we’ll have it ready to camp by the latter half of Summer 2009, which will be great fun.
We’re also striking the set on our Vermont visit. It has been fun, but two months is a good long visit and it is time to get moving again. I have to admit that I’m not going to miss the nearly-constant rain (another thunderstorm this evening washed out our celebratory “farewell” dinner). If it had rained less we would have spent more time on the boat, skiing, wakeboarding, fishing, and cruising. As it was, we spent much of the past two months watching weather radar on the computer and trying to figure out activities around the frequent downpours.
After a long stop like this, the preparations to leave are numerous. I’ve got to do a bunch of minor safety checks and maintenance items on the trailer, like lubing the hitch and topping off the tires, but that’s nothing that you wouldn’t do for any weekend trip. We also always take the opportunity to thoroughly re-pack and clean the trailer. We can clean on the road (and we do) but it’s more convenient to do it in someone’s driveway where we can borrow a powerful vacuum and other cleaning tools.
Eleanor began repacking food yesterday. I have no idea what she has loaded but I know we’ll be well stocked when we go. She’s also laundered everything that can be laundered. Today and tomorrow her major job will be to find all the items belonging to us that are scattered around the house, garage, beach, and yard, and put them where they belong — or decided that they need to be scuttled. I’ll be doing that as well, since this is a great opportunity to do one of my favorite things: cull down what we are carrying around.
We have left the 1983 Honda at Colin’s shop in Plattsburgh, right in front of our 1963 Serro Scotty and just a trailer away from the 1968 Caravel. The Honda has been put to bed for the season, with a full tank of fuel plus fuel stabilizer, and the battery stored inside the shop. I think it has been a success. Despite a couple of repairs, it has been a good set of wheels and carted us around about 2,000 miles this summer.
While we were in Plattsburgh, Colin took the opportunity to show us some of his recent projects. The photo above is of his “Airstream” canoe. Look carefully and you’ll see the vintage Airstream nameplate he bolted on it. The canoe was a green-colored $50 yard sale special with holes in it. A few weeks later Colin had it looking like new and ready for some trips in the Adirondacks. Seeing what he does with old “junk” is really inspiring to me.
This evening I realized that I could check my tire pressure while sitting at the dinette typing this blog. I just grabbed the Doran 360RV unit from the truck and plugged it into the 12v socket in the trailer. In a couple of minutes it will report the pressure of all four tires, so I’ll know if I need to plan some time to reinflate any of the tires (or deal with a possible slow leak) in the morning.
Oh look, it’s already reporting. One tire shows 59 psi, the other three are showing 60 psi. I like this method — this is the civilized way to check the tire pressure, especially when it’s raining! Those pressures are good news. It shows that none of our tires have a slow leak or any other problems that sometimes crop up when parked for a while. They’ve all lost a few pounds since I last aired them up in North Carolina (in May), but about one pound per month is considered normal. At 60 psi I don’t really need to add air. Our gross weight is light enough that 60 is just fine. But if the sun is shining in the morning I may top them up to 65 psi anyway.
We have decided not to rush off in the morning tomorrow. Instead, we’ll take our time getting out, probably departing in the early afternoon. Our first day will be a short one of about three hours drive time. After such a long time of being parked, it’s nice to have a soft start to get back into the travel mood.
August 1, 2008 at 6:23 pm · Filed under Caravel project
I bet you’ve never before seen anyone rebuild the furniture in an Airstream in five days.
To be fair, I haven’t completed everything. So far I’ve managed (with Eleanor’s help) to rebuild, stain, and partially finish the gaucho, galley, half the dinette, and a lot of miscellany. That includes nine doors and drawer fronts. Still to be done are two overhead storage lockers, the other half of the dinette seat, the table, a cover for the water tank, shelving, and one bulkhead. Work-wise, I would say about 70% of the job is done at this point, because the pieces of furniture I built are the really fussy ones.
Even though I’m not going to deliver a complete interior to Colin tomorrow, I am reasonably satisfied with what we accomplished. The guys in Plattsburgh will apply two more coats of polyurethane, since I barely had time to apply one coat. More importantly, enough of the critical components are done for the guys in Plattsburgh to complete the plumbing and install the appliances. Whatever is left can be dealt with by me next summer.
The stain mix came out very well. The wood still looks like ash, but it has a mellower tone and the grain has evened out. Looking at multiple pieces stacked together you can see that they cooperate visually, which is important in a small trailer. One of the things that annoyed me about the old furniture was that prior owners had substituted oak in some places, with a matching stain color. The result was a weird sort of clash, where the color pretended to be the same but the grain gave away the secret.
After putting away the leftover wood and storing the tools, I tallied up the expense of this project. The total is $999.54, of which the vast majority of expense was the wood ($770). I could have cut the costs further by selecting a less expensive wood, such as birch, and using luan for the shelves and interior partitions. But the final effect of the ash with the stain mixture and polyurethane is just great, and I am sure we will not regret the cost later.
In fact, I am already happy to think of the money I saved by doing it myself. Between Eleanor and myself we have about 60 hours in this project. Even allowing that a professional might have done it in 50% of the time, we easily saved $2,000 in labor charges. And of course, there’s that self-satisfaction that comes from enjoying your own handiwork.
I’m sure years from now when we are camping somewhere in our Caravel, I’ll have forgotten the tribulations of this project. I won’t remember the little tiny black bugs that kept landing on my freshly-stained pieces today, or the brutal humidity that put me into a dripping sweat at 72 degrees. I hope I don’t remember the moment I tipped over a bucket of stain on my feet. With luck, the interior of the Caravel will be what it is supposed to be: a peaceful retreat in which to enjoy camping and family, and make better memories than those.
Eleanor was not available to help me much today, but she did work on another construction project of sorts. She made a quilted bag designed specifically to house my new inkjet printer while it is stored in the closet. The bag gives the printer enough cushion so it won’t get scuffed in transit. It even has a Velcro flap across the top, so I can quickly deploy the printer and then slip it back into its case. It’s perfect.
We’re packing up to leave now. Our departure will be Sunday, and we expect to be on the road for at least two months, possibly three. Of course, with this week completely consumed by furniture work, I have a backlog of office work to do, so I expect a hectic week to come between driving and trying to catch up on work. Tomorrow will be the craziest day, since I need to somehow simultaneously get all this wood to Plattsburgh and get the Airstream ready for departure and deal with the business. Well, we got this far … I have to have faith that the rest will get done too.
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