August 19, 2006 at 8:49 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Lou and Larry made us feel so at home in Lagrange that we didn’t feel particularly motivated to leave today! We ended up staying hours longer than we should have, departing finally at 3 pm. Of course, the prospect of spending time on I-90 wasn’t very enticing either — it’s not a highly interesting road through Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York.
We have passed a small milestone today: 30,000 miles on the Armada. We’ve crossed the country from Atlantic to Pacific and back four times towing our Airstream with it since last October. Our tires are nearing replacement time. We’ve roamed everywhere we could find to go from 200 feet below sea level in Death Valley, up to 11,000 feet in the Colorado Rockies. Except for a small transmission line leak, it has been reliable and completely up to the task. I think it’s safe to say that the Armada has proven its worth as an Airstream tow vehicle.
Since I’m dispensing praise, I should also mention the fine folks at Garmin. We sent our beloved “Garminita” in for repair back in Colorado. Email communications with Garmin were very professional and easy. Once I received an RMA #, I was told to expect the GPS back after 4-5 working days. Instead, Garmin diagnosed it the day they received it, and since they couldn’t fix it economically, shipped back a free warranty replacement the next day! Nice job, Garmin.
Today’s drive brought us through rain and thunderstorms for five hours to Rochester NY, where we are … guess … parked at a Cracker Barrel. It’s deja vu all over again — each one of these places is absolutely identical. Even McDonald’s has more variation. If the parking lot wasn’t different, I’d wonder if we had gone anywhere at all. But I still love ’em for their very cordial overnight parking policy.
Northeast humidity has struck since we arrived in Ohio. We’d almost forgotten how thick the air can be. A week ago we were in the dry clear thin air of Colorado, at 8800 feet. I loved it. Now we are down toward sea level in air so heavy you can drink it. I’ve never been a fan of humidity but I guess we’d better re-acclimate because we are going to be in the northeast for a while.
August 18, 2006 at 10:02 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
We are done at Airstream. Today was highly productive, and it’s a fitting end to a long week. The guys in the shop took our trailer in and did the best they could at hiding the damage where the wheel came off.
Here’s a shot as the trim was being removed. The aluminum side sheet was stretched as it was bent by the wheel coming off. This meant that bending the aluminum back would have only fair results. But the alternative was removing the side sheet — a complex job that involves removing several access doors and part of the entry door. I think Airstream estimates this job at about 40 hours of labor.
I decided I didn’t want to put our trailer through that trauma. Also, we’d have to stay for several days to get it completed, and file an insurance claim with our $1000 deductible. It wasn’t worth it for a simple cosmetic problem. So I asked the guys to do the best they could without removing the metal, and they did.
Here’s the result:
You can still see the wrinkle in the aluminum, but the new trim and a bit of caulk help minimize it. Also, we have the new aluminum wheel in place (which means we also have a spare again!) I think I’m going to have to do some cleaning on the trailer to get all my wheels to look this good.
We also got a few other items fixed, like a couple of broken latches and a faulty plumbing vent under the bathroom sink. Overall, there wasn’t much to be done. I told the guys in Service and some representatives of the manufacturing facility how impressed I was with the way our Airstream has held up through 30,000 miles of towing in the last 10 months. They told me, “People really appreciate their Airstream when they use it!”
I didn’t get to go through the factory on this visit, for lack of time. Photos and videos are no longer allowed on the factory tour anyway. But I have posted a bunch of photos of the factory from my visit in May 2004, on the Flickr photo album.
Now we are in northeastern Ohio visiting our friends Larry and Lou. We’ve courtesy parked in their driveway twice before (with Vintage Thunder, our 1977 Argosy), and they always make us feel at home. Emma is learning how to work with the dogs, Zora and Diega, to do tricks, and Eleanor is talking with Lou about homeschooling, since Lou is a former schoolteacher.
Tomorrow, we will begin the last big push across OH, PA, and NY states toward home …
August 17, 2006 at 10:00 pm · Filed under Places to go
We pulled in around 2 pm today, having taken an easy morning. We only had about 80 miles to drive today, which is much more pleasant than the miles we’ve been putting on lately.
It happens that the Museum of the National Road is in Richmond, IN, just a mile or so from where we parked last night. I have been working with a freelance writer on an article about the National Road, so it was fortuitous indeed that we were there. We dropped by and took some photos, and got a chance to meet the staff. You’ll probably see that article — and today’s photos — in the Fall or Winter issue of Airstream Life.
Now we are in the Airstream Terra Port, which is the courtesy parking that Airstream provides on its grounds for customers. If you are a service customer, it’s free, otherwise $10 per night (honor system). All the sites are full hookup and Airstream provides free wi-fi too. Not bad.
Airstreams on the assembly line, May 2004. Click for larger
August 16, 2006 at 9:45 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Almost there … another long day but the marathon is nearly over.
Along the way, we stopped at the famous gateway arch in St Louis. Or was it?
… and then we parked for the night by a giant bowling pin. It’s a day for giant fakes, I guess.
I forgot to mention that while in Creede at the rally I met up with David Tidmore of Roger Williams Airstream and picked up our new aluminum rim, hub cover, and a replacement Centramatic balancer. Thus our equipment is once again complete. I just need to get the spare tire mounted on this new rim and put the steel rim we are currently using back into the spare carrier.
David also inspected the lug bolts that I took out of the wheel when we had that breakdown in Green River, WY. The bolt that broke definitely had been overtightened. He showed me the stretched threads — they were easy to see. Interestingly, none of the other five bolts I removed from that wheel showed any signs of thread stretching, so they may have been fine, but I’m glad I removed them as a precaution anyway.
August 15, 2006 at 11:42 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Normally full-timers don’t travel as quickly as we are right now. I always hate these big pushes, because we have to pass dozens of interesting spots. Instead of the relaxing travel style we normally have, it’s rush-rush-rush.
Most full-timers we know don’t do more than 300 miles in a day for any reason, and usually try to cover only 100-150 miles and then stop for a few days. Today we covered 532 miles — the most miles we’ve done in a single day since we started full-timing over a year ago!
But that’s I-70 for you. There’s not much to see along I-70 in Kansas and the speed limit is 75 MPH most of the way. (We don’t tow any faster than 69 MPH, by the way, regardless of the speed limit.) Although I was glad to pass the cornfields quickly, I was disappointed to pass the “Wizard of Oz Museum“. (I love their phone #: 866-458-TOTO)
I’m always aware of when we are traveling through Missouri, whether on I-70 or I-44. It’s the only state in the Union with a sex shop at every exit! No kidding, they are everywhere. I can think of a few theories why there are so many here, but I’d probably better keep those theories to myself…
Since we have only 516 miles left to go tomorrow, we could finish the drive in one more long day, but I think instead we will do 350-400 miles and give ourselves a break tomorrow evening to walk around somewhere. That will leave a short day for Thursday and we’ll get a chance to do more while we are at Airstream’s “mother ship” in Jackson Center.
Since we are on a high-speed leg, you’ll note we aren’t bothering with campgrounds. Tonight we are in the parking lot of a Cracker Barrel restaurant, for example. This saves money but more importantly it saves time. Checking into a campground at 8:30 pm is usually a procedure that takes 15-30 minutes, and for what? It’s quicker and easier just to park somewhere for free. We aren’t going to use the campground facilities anyway, so why bother with them?
We certainly aren’t lacking for anything, without a campground each night. The solar panels have given us all the power we can use, so our batteries are full again tonight. I have researched dump stations along the highway using a web site but we really don’t need to hit one. We’ll be fine without any hookups or dump stations until we reach the Airstream Terra Port on Thursday night. Being independent is a big part of why we travel this way, and it’s fun to use the capabilities to their best advantage when we are trying to cover a lot of miles quickly.
August 14, 2006 at 6:44 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
The Big Dash East has begun. We hung out in the west as long as we could but it’s time to head home for a while. We’ve got an appointment in Jackson Center, OH (Airstream headquarters) on Friday and that’s 1,656 miles from Creede, CO where we left this morning. So there’s some serious driving to be done this week.
We said goodbye to Rich C this morning, with a big “group hug”, and also bade farewell to a few other good friends in the vintage club. I checked all the tire pressures and lug nuts carefully, and by 10 a.m. we were driving beautiful Rt 149 southeast. What a sweet section of road that is — decorated with green hills, red cliffs, the fast-moving water of the Rio Grande, and old mining towns. It was a nice drive.
We made good time today, thanks to speed limits of 65-75 MPH most of the way. The best news is that absolutely nothing bad happened. Eleanor and I listened to music on the iPod, Emma watched some Scooby Doo, we had stuffed animal fashion shows in the car (I was the judge), and generally the time passed uneventfully.
Tonight we are in Goodland KS at the Wal-Mart. It’s sunny, sultry, and breezy here. We’ll take a walk, do some shopping, make a pizza and watch a movie. The road trip is off to a good start.
August 13, 2006 at 10:37 pm · Filed under Uncategorized
Another great day at the RMVR. Today was the Open House day. In the morning, we (and all the other rally participants) were open for each other to visit, and in the afternoon we were open for the general public. Thus, we basically spent most of the day socializing.
In between the two Open House periods, we headed over to Creede to take in the underground Mining Museum. In 1990 Creede hired some miners to tunnel out a Community Center, Fire Station, storage for the local constabulary, and a museum. All of these are located in the side of a mountain of rock just north of downtown. I’ve never seen a Fire Station built underground before, and it’s odd to imagine a chicken dinner fundraiser or a Seniors Bingo Night being held in the underground as well, but that’s what they do here in Creede.
The weather was changeable today, as it has been in Colorado for weeks now, so most of my photos ended up as interiors. Here are a few of the people at the rally and their trailers…
Harry and Kim Truitt have made over this 1966 Airstream Safari beautifully. Now they are ready to tackle the outside. Harry’s the guy who sold me the 1960s Thermos.
I didn’t get this gentleman’s name but I will later. He owns a pair of 1940s Airstreams, both in remarkably original condition.
Patty Raimondo demonstrates the Dickinson marine fireplace she recently added to her very customized 1954 Flying Cloud.
Diane Bailey and her dog seem very comfortable in this plush 1961 Bambi.
Rob and Sadie Super have been customizing this 1973 Safari for quite a while. It has a very cool aluminum and naugahyde interior. There’s some finishing work yet to be done here, but the design inside is excellent.
A friend of Rob & Sadie’s made this sign to commorate the long effort:
“Rome was not built in a day — and they did not build it out of ALUMINUM!” Sign of the week!
This evening at Happy Hour everyone gathered around and sang Happy Birthday to me. (I’m 43 today!) Then we got a group of about a dozen people together and brainstormed for about an hour on the 1952 Cruiser project we are doing for Matthew McConaughy (Project Vintage Lightning). Some excellent ideas came out of this, which you’ll be able to read about in the Fall issue of Airstream Life.
I want to publicly thank all the people who worked to put together this superb rally. It’s a lot of work to put on a good rally, and the talented people who volunteered their time have made this rally one of the best in the nation. Everything, from the signup process to the goodie bags, from the entertainment to the presenters, was first-rate.
This is our last day in Colorado. Tomorrow we must hit the road to Ohio if we are to keep our appointment at Airstream. We’re already packed and ready to hitch up. It’s going to be four days of long hauling … We’ll also be saying goodbye to Rich C for a few months. He’s heading to Florida for medical treatment, and we will probably not see him again until November. It is a bittersweet time for us, leaving the west and many friends behind, but we are headed home to other friends and family, and that will be a nice thing too.
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