Terrific rally day today! This morning Herb Spies did his famous Airstream polishing demonstration, on a pretty Colorado morning in front of an audience of about thirty people.

Herb gave us the theory and technique of polishing, complete with demonstrations of polishing using a low-cost Harbor Freight grinder and an expensive Cyclo polisher. Herb prefers Nuvite polishes, by the way, but he acknowledged that you can polish with a wide variety of products.

Later in the morning we had the Swap Meet, which was fun. I sold most of my remaining Airstream Life shirts, and bought a very cool 1960s polished aluminum Thermos drink cooler for our 1968 Caravel back at home. The seller was kind enough to arrange shipping back to Vermont for me, so I won’t have to find room in the Airstream for it.

In the afternoon Emma and Eleanor headed off to collect rocks in the mining area north of downtown Creede. Mike Bertz, who we last saw in Tucson, is here at the rally and he lent Eleanor a rockhammer and chisel. They came back with plastic bag full of colorful stones. I think a few of them will polish up nicely. While they were gone, Molly Butterworth and I reviewed the layout for her article on “Streamlining”, which will appear in the Fall 2006 issue of Airstream Life.

This evening the dinner was western themed so we all showed up in whatever we had. Great catering, including a HUGE selection of homemade pies. I swiped a spare piece of cherry for later … there was plenty.

After dinner, Fred Coldwell put on another of his fine presentations on vintage Airstreams. This one was 1964-1968 Airstreams, a subject that interests me in particular because our vintage unit is a 1968 Caravel. At 9 pm he finished up and the campfire was lit outside, but we decided to call it an evening. Tomorrow will be a busy day — it’s Open House day. I’ve got to photograph about a dozen trailers and their owners, while we try to hold Open House at our trailer at the same time.