Perhaps as a reminder of how quickly things can change, the river behind our campsite has nearly dried up. Apparently it is dam-controlled, and the water releases are only Monday through Friday.  By Friday night, it was a mere trickle about two inches deep, but still pleasant to be camped near.

Super Terry and Marie arrived, and on Saturday morning the ladies all headed out for a day of activity around Asheville while Terry began his maintenance checks of our Airstream.  The first task was a four-wheel brake and tire inspection.  I’ve been anticipating this for a long time, since we’ve historically fought with our disc brakes and tires.  At nearly every previous service stop, we’ve found the disc pads wearing unevenly, once to the point of catastrophic failure, and the repeated belt separations on our tires are embarrassingly well-documented on this and the Tour of America blogs.

So I was extremely happy to find that on all four wheels, the brakes are only lightly worn, wearing perfectly evenly, and need absolutely nothing. At last!  Super Terry gets all the credit, since he did the last four-wheel brake job in January.  With these Kodiak disc brakes, it seems critical to properly lubricate the slider pins and some mechanics (in our experience) don’t do it right.  Given the light wear on these semi-metallic pads, we should have many more miles of use ahead, but I’ll check again every 10,000 miles or so.

At the same time, we examined the new tires.  Readers of this blog may recall that, after years of frustration with various brands of ST (Special Trailer) designated tires, we finally ditched them for a set of Michelin LTXs.  They have performed beautifully. The wear is very light and even, at about 9,000 miles, and we’ve had no punctures. They look good for many more miles, and should easily outlast the STs they replaced.

As each tire came off, I took the opportunity to look at the axle torsion arms, the shock absorbers, and the wheel wells.  Everything looked good (undamaged, clean, dry, tight).  So with no repairs needed, we turned our attention to other projects.  I hadn’t realized how many little things we needed to do until we started going over the trailer.

The first project was to install a zerk (grease) fitting on the hitch coupler.  This allows me to grease the hitch ball without removing the Hensley hitch.  I have to grease the hitch ball about 4-5 times a year, and before installing this zerk, the job took about 15 minutes because of the labor involved in loosening the hitch and then re-installing it.  Now, it takes just a few seconds with the grease gun.

This is a simple job but it requires one specific tool.  We hitched the Hensley to the car, loosened the strut bars, then released the ball coupler and raised the trailer off the hitch ball, using the power jack.  Then we covered the ball with a piece of plastic wrap to keep metal shavings from getting all over the greasy ball.  Super Terry drilled the proper size hole through the very thick metal of the hitch coupler, and threaded it using a thread tapper.  He screwed in the zerk, and the job was done. Total time: about 20 minutes.

The steel step by our entry door is bent somewhat toward the rear of the trailer.  This was probably caused by hitting a curb long ago.  It hasn’t been a major problem but lately we’ve noticed that the bend makes the step difficult to raise.  Lubricating it helped only a little bit, so Terry applied a prybar and bent the step back into alignment enough to alleviate the issue.

For some time, our water heater has been intermittently screeching as it heats, which was caused by a poor air-fuel mixture.  Adjusting the mixture is a simple matter of loosening a bolt and sliding a vent until the flame burns strong and blue.  I should have done that one a long time ago.

Another bug was our entry door.  After we had the entry door adjusted to close more smoothly, last summer at the factory, we noticed that the door lock no longer worked.  We’ve been using the padlock exclusively ever since.  So today Super Terry removed the lock, diagnosed the broken part, “convinced” it to behave, and re-installed the lock, all in about two minutes.   Like the water heater fix, it’s one of those things that is easy when you know how.

A few days ago Eleanor was plugging in our Doran 360RV tire pressure monitor and the 12v  cigarette lighter adapter broke in her hand.  We really rely on that monitor to warn us of tire problems, so its absence was felt.  Terry and I picked up a replacement 12v adapter at Radio Shack today, and he wired it up in a few minutes.  Another problem solved.

Since we were rocking along so well, I went looking for other bugs to fix.  Bugs … hmm … stinkbugs … and then I remembered, our center Fantastic Vent was absolutely disgusting with greasy dirt and dead bugs.  That vent is the closest to the kitchen and gets all the cooking smoke, so it gets the dirtiest. It’s impossible to fully clean the vent without getting on the roof of the trailer, so I borrowed Terry’s folding ladder and got up on top, with a roll of paper towels and some orange cleaner.  Cleaning the vent cover, fan blades, and surrounding area took only about ten minutes.

While I was up there I noticed that the black rubber gasket of the vent had come loose. Super Terry to the rescue again!  He had a tube of 3M Weatherstripping Adhesive, which I applied lightly to the gasket.  We closed the vent for a few hours to hold the gasket in place while the adhesive cured, and the problem was solved.  I got all the dead stinkbugs out of there, too.

While Terry was inspecting my work on the roof, he pointed out that the white caulk surrounding the Fantastic Vent is cracked and approaching failure.  Long-term sun exposure will do that.  That particular vent was factory installed, so the caulk is older than the other two vents on our trailer.  I’m going to have to buy the appropriate caulk and a scraper, and get up there in the next few weeks to correct that problem before we get a roof leak.

That was the last of the work for today, but there was one other thing I should mention.  A few days ago we noticed that the shower was leaking at the wall next to the toilet.  This has happened before. The silicone caulk eventually loses its grip in this spot, probably because it is trying to adhere to a wood wall with waterproof wallpaper covering.  This needed immediate attention, because the leak could quickly cause a much more significant wood rot.  I did the fix on Thursday afternoon before we left Clemmons, and the shower was ready to use again by Friday night.

It’s a good feeling to have done the checkup on the running gear, and especially to remove the little annoyances like the screeching water heater, the filthy fan, and the disabled door lock.  You don’t realize how those things begin to weigh on you until you resolve them.  Letting problems accumulate tends to make people feel that their investment is slowly turning to junk, and then the self-defeating idea of “trade in” begins to appear.  On the other hand, fixing the little bugs and doing a little cleanup can make you feel good far out of proportion with the actual effort involved. I’ve advocated that a single Airstream can last for your entire life, so I have to take my own advice and keep ahead of the creeping crud of neglect that will defeat even the best-made product.

Tomorrow we will begin our trip to Florida with a good feeling about our equipment.  We’re out of time for our east coast tour, and need to get down to Florida (for many reasons), so the next 450 miles or so will be covered at an uncharacteristically quick pace. But now, we’re ready to get going.

Lately, when I’m thinking about where we are, I am reminded  of the excellent description given by Verne Troyer in the movie “The Imaginarium of Dr Parnassus,” when he is asked “Where are we?” by Heath Ledger:

“Geographically, in the Northern Hemisphere.  Socially, on the margin.  And narratively, with some ways to go.”

Sometimes that’s how I feel too.  If you overdo it when traveling, all the campgrounds can start to look the same, making your location seem less special and more like “somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere.”  And socially, we are occasionally reminded that not everyone views our life in an Airstream as exotic; for some, we are itinerants who live in a trailer.

In fact, today that’s exactly where we are: living in a trailer down by the river. In fact, it is the Broad River, running silently and swiftly about 20 feet behind our back bumper through the shady trees. I view this as a fine location for camping, but I’m sure there are those who cannot fathom what in the world makes us choose this quiet spot in west-nowhere-North Carolina instead of a fancy hotel in a cosmopolitan city.

This is not the sort of place we normally choose to camp.  It is a commercial full-hookup campground in the middle of nowhere, where our phones barely work, and we bypassed a couple of interesting-sounding state parks to be here. That’s because we are meeting Super Terry and Marie, and they picked the campground.   But this is a good thing, because it looks nothing like the places we have been lately and that aspect of diversity helps us stay oriented.

Also, I like the break. Having no “bars” on the cell phone means I can justifiably turn it off and have a phone-less weekend.  The campground has satellite-based wifi, so the blog can continue, but it’s slow and that justifies leaving the computer off most of the time too.  Although it is Friday afternoon on an absolutely gorgeous Fall day (75 degrees, sunny, dry), there are very few campers here and so the place is nice and quiet.  We floated little leaf-and-stick boats down the fast-flowing river to the “rapids” and watched them sink, then we played a board game on the dinette, and now I have the enviable option of lying down on my comfy Airstream bed and reading a book.  At times like this, our trailer magically transforms from our home and office on the road, to a getaway vacation cabin, all without packing or unpacking.  Time to break out some cold drinks, chips, and guacamole, and snack our way through dinner.

The town is Rutherfordton, which we have not seen since we are in the boondocks (and there may in fact be no town center).  The name sounds to me like they couldn’t decide:  “Rutherford, or Rutherton?  What the heck, let’s call it both: Rutherfordton.”  Rutherfordington Center would have been even better.  I’ll post that in the town’s Suggestion Box if I can find it.

I have to post  a small warning about stinkbugs.  These guys have been plaguing us since Pennsylvania, the origin point of these annoying fat flying insects. They are harmless but in the Fall they will invade an RV in massive numbers if they get a chance.  We caught the beginning of the stinkbug invasion season in September at French Creek State Park, then encountered them again in Falls Church VA, and have been finding a dozen or so every day inside our trailer ever since.  They are seemingly endless.

The strange thing is that we never actually saw more than a few flying around while we were camped.  They have an amazingly ability to sneak into refuge points when you’re not looking.  I’ve found them in the screens, in the vents, rolled up  inside the awning, inside windows, and every other possible crevice that they can get into.  I would like to say we’ve got all of them, before we carry the little nuisances to Florida, but as the temperatures warm, more of them show up.  And there seems to be no practical solution other than to find them all by hand (or by vacuum cleaner).  Fortunately, Emma likes to capture them with her bare hands.

This weekend while Emma is catching the bugs, Super Terry is going to take a look at our brakes, bearings, and tires.  We last serviced all those items in January 2010, back in Riverside CA, and since then we have logged about 8,000-9,000 miles.  That isn’t a tremendous amount of mileage but we have historically had problems with brakes pads wearing unevenly, and tires failing and so I’m being extra-cautious.  If there are any hints of trouble, I’d rather know now.  On Sunday and Monday we are going to log a lot of miles very quickly, and from there we will be doing a lot of towing around Florida.  At this point I have no indications of trouble (tire wear appears nominal and braking is excellent) but we’ll pull all four wheels off and take a look anyway. I’ll post an update on that later this weekend.

In other words, narratively, we still have some ways to go.

Our camp near Winston-Salem, Tanglewood Park, has proven to be a great choice for this week.  This is a former Reynolds estate (we’re in tobacco country now, hence the familiar names Reynolds, Winston, Salem) turned into a large county park.  Tanglewood includes a golf course, inn, stables, gardens, tennis courts, and two lakes — and recently, an RV campground.  Since we’re here during the week and off-season, the park is nearly empty.  Other than the three camp hosts, I see only four other rigs camped here in the 44 available sites.

Over the years I’ve often posted praise about various places we’ve camped, but it feels to me that I should probably share the information a little more broadly.  RVParkReviews.com has been a useful tool to us when trying to find a place to stay, so I’m starting to post reviews there of places we’ve visited.  I wouldn’t have found Tanglewood without that handy website.  So instead of discussing campgrounds in detail here, in the future I’ll post a link to my review.

Since this is a working stop, our explorations have been limited. I’ve been locked up in the Airstream all day, every day, working at the computer and making phone calls.  I’ve been starting before dawn just because there’s so much to do that I can’t sleep in.  When we make a “working stop” like this I am usually rushing to do two weeks’ worth of work in 3-4 days, which is stressful but it’s what makes the extended “fun stops” possible.  Eleanor and Emma typically find something to do to get out of the trailer for at least part of the time, even if it’s just some homeschooling while the clothes spin at a nearby laundromat.

But we did find some time late yesterday afternoon to break out.  Not having researched the area at all, we asked the GPS to suggest an Attraction and it said “Old Salem.”  That turned out to be an awesome find: a five-by-two block collection of fantastic old houses and buildings, plus a good visitors center and museum.  It’s a cross between a living history museum and an old city quarter — some houses are private residences and others are open to the public with live demonstrations.  We arrived too late for anything to be open but that turned out to be a fine thing: we were alone on the street as we walked the brick sidewalks in the perfectly clear and crisp fall weather.

Our mail drop included a replacement Kindle for Emma, courtesy of our friend Joe, who was kind enough to offer Emma his at a reduced price. She’s happily back to reading on it.  The nice thing about the Kindle is that all of the books on the lost device are easily retrieved.

One of the tricky tasks this week has been re-scheduling.  As long-time blog readers know, I hate making reservations.  Having reservations means we have no flexibility, and flexibility is one of the key freedoms that traveling this way is supposed to allow.  But sometimes there is no choice.  State parks have become much more popular since the recession hit, so we have to look ahead to weekends and make sure that we aren’t going to get shut out for the places we want to visit.  We’re heading into peak season in Florida, so the great state parks with camping — like Anastasia, Blue Spring, any of the parks on the Keys, Oscar Scherer, Jonathan Dickinson, etc, etc. (there are LOT of great parks in Florida) — will require reservations on weekends in October.

The other complicating factor is that we are cheapskates, and so we do a lot of courtesy parking with friends.  It’s not fair to our friends to say  “we’re coming, but we won’t tell you when until just a couple of days before,” so we try to set dates and stick to them.  But sometimes things change.  In this case, I realized that I need to go to the Lake Mirror Classic Auto Festival in Lakeland FL, October 15-17, and that has drastically altered our original plan for Florida.  We were going to slide down the Atlantic Coast to the Keys, then return up the Gulf Coast, but now we are going to do something more like a figure-8.

That change has forced a flurry of calls and emails to people we were going to see.  The logistics involved took hours of research, emails, and fiddling with the calendar.  Our strategy is to reserve only on weekends, and leave the weekdays roughly planned but open to possible changes.  I think we have it hammered out now, and the end result is really a better plan than we had originally, so we should have a good time.  We are going to be in Florida for nearly a month and see a lot of Florida friends:  Dave & Becky, Bill & Wendimere, Brett & Lisa, Pierre, Alice & Tim, plus a nephew in Miami, a niece in Gainesville, and Mickey Mouse.