Archives for 2010

Oct 05 2010

Shenandoah National Park, VA

On the ideal trip, it feels great to be heading toward your destination in the wilderness, and it feels great to be heading back out to civilization. That means you’ve gotten your fill of change and perspective, and hopefully are more appreciative of everything you’ve got in life. That’s how I feel about our past few days in Shenandoah National Park.

We could hardly have had worse weather coming into the park. The big rain that everyone was talking about (see comments on the previous blog entry) hit the Washington DC area as we left, and we towed the 95 miles up to the mountains in a moderate rain, with fog along the top of the Shenandoahs obscuring all of the views along Skyline Drive. All we could see were waterfalls splashing down the exposed rock along the edge of the roadway. This is the sort of weather that tells you if you have a leak in your rig; fortunately we did not.

We were expected by friends who had already been at Shenandoah for over two weeks. Bert & Janie Gildart were there, working on the fourth edition of their popular guide to Shenandoah National Park (published by Globe Pequot Press), and they’d been joined by Adam and Susan, who were hiking the trails with the Gildarts. To update the book, Bert needed to hike every trail again, take new photos, and capture GPS coordinates of all the trailheads.

Everyone was out when we arrived, so we hit the Visitor Center first, to get oriented and get Emma’s Junior Ranger program. The Jr. Ranger badge for Shenandoah is a tough one, requiring the purchase of a $3 workbook and completion of 12 activities plus attendance at two ranger programs. It ended up taking all four days for Emma to complete.

The Visitor Center at Big Meadows tells a very compelling story of the formation of the park, focused on the political and cultural struggles that surrounded it. During the Great Depression, when the park was approved, the land was occupied by tenant farmers and homesteaders, most of whom were relocated, and there was quite a bit of travail associated with that. There’s also a story surrounding the contribution of the Civilian Conservation Corps, whose signature stonework and architecture are visible everywhere.

The pouring rain and fog reminded me of our visit to the Hoh Rain Forest in October 2007. On that trip Eleanor made an apple crisp, and coincidentally she made an apple pie while we were in Shenandoah. There’s something about baking in the Airstream on a cool rainy afternoon that makes it feel very cozy.

Unlike our trip to the Hoh, we were also comforted by our catalytic heater, which really paid off on this trip. There are no hookups in the Big Meadows campground, so we were operating solely off solar power and batteries. I like the smooth, silent, radiant heat the catalytic heater produces without needing electricity, and its high efficiency. We ran it each night as the temperatures dipped into the low 40s. Our friends were admiring it as well, since they were going without heat on some nights in order to budget their power. The generator hours in this campground weren’t really enough for them to recharge their batteries fully if they used their furnace extensively.

Fortunately the weather turned beautifully sunny on Friday and stayed that way all weekend. Shenandoah runs about 10 degrees cooler than the valley below, which meant perfect fall hiking weather in the 60s each day. The rain took a lot of leaves down, but there were still plenty to show some early fall foliage color, and the air was sparkling clear for stunning vistas both east and west.

I did two short hikes on Friday morning with Bert, Adam, and Susan, and in the afternoon we picked up Janie, Eleanor and Emma for a 3.3 mile hike to Lewis Spring Falls. Emma and I celebrated the day by trying the chocolate shakes at Wayside, the cafe and store at Big Meadows.

Our evening activity was the 7:30 pm ranger talk at the amphitheater, shivering on a cold aluminum bench outside despite hats, gloves, and warm jackets. (Wow, the things we will do to get a ranger signature on the Junior Ranger program…)

The weekend campers arrived in droves on Friday, which predictably meant we spent the weekend in a haze of campfire smoke. Bert and Janie had the bad luck to get some noisy neighbors with “Diplomatic” license plates. (They apparently confused diplomatic immunity with a license to be obnoxious.)

We chose to take the day in Luray, down in the valley below, to get some extra propane and diesel, and to visit the famous Luray Caverns. The caverns are bigger than I remembered, much more sophisticated (now with an audio tour) and much more expensive at $23 per adult. But the ticket includes admission to two other small museums on site, one filled with antique cars, the other filled with Shenandoah valley historical objects. The result is a solid two to three hour visit.

This time we had the chance to actually see things as we covered the 15 miles or so of Skyline Drive from Thornton Gap to Big Meadows, so we stopped at every overlook along the way. Several were closed for renovations, with signs that say “Your Recovery Dollars At Work”, but there were enough spots open to get a really nice look at both the eastern and western valleys. Back at camp, things were smokier than ever, and we had to peer through a haze to see the ranger’s presentation that night, but we knew it was the last night we’d have to endure camping in the midst of a forest fire.

Sunday’s hike amounted to 5.5 miles roundtrip to South River Falls, in 46-52 degree temperatures. Eleanor and Janie stopped at the falls overlook while the rest of us continued down to the base of the falls. It turned out to be a good call for those of us who went down, because we spotted a bear cub along the way. Momma Bear was nowhere in sight, but I’d guess she was in the direction we saw the cub running.

Supposedly bears have not been a big problem in Big Meadows campground, but the rangers are careful about it nonetheless. I left a 12-pack of diet soda on the picnic table for Adam, and while we were gone the rangers confiscated it. They left a note saying it could be retrieved at the campground entrance station, and Adam picked up the soda with good humor while Eleanor made a dessert treat for everyone (pound cake with a reduction of fresh raspberries and Grand Marnier, dark chocolate sauce, and Amaretto cream.) Dinner came later. As they say, “life is uncertain — eat dessert first.”

Since we were budgeting our water in the Airstream very carefully in order to get four nights of use out of our 39-gallon supply, I volunteered to take a shower far up the hill at the campground’s shower/laundry area. It was far enough up the hill that I drove the car over, with my towel and soap. The deal was $1 (four quarters) for five minutes of water in an unheated shower cubicle. Since the time limit wasn’t actually posted at the showers I used, I guessed how much water I had left—and I guessed wrong. Unlike a car wash, there was no “beep beep beep” to warn of the impending end of water. It just suddenly slammed off, and I was left with a significant portion of soap on my body.

There is no negotiating with these machines. The only thing they care about is four more quarters, which I did not have. I needed 30 seconds of water but you can’t get sympathy from a coin-op machine, so I wiped off most of the remaining soap, dressed, and drove the car back down to the Airstream where the rinsing was completed.

Solar-wise, we did well. The first day was a washout, and the last day (Monday) was a washout, but the other three days were very sunny. Every day we were fully recharged by afternoon. We left the park on Monday morning in an extremely heavy fog with 75% of our battery power remaining. We had planned to leave on Monday, but even if we hadn’t it was definitely time to go: the weather was abominable, with wind, light rain, dense fog, and temperatures hovering around 40. Adam and Susan left as well, but Bert and Janie will be there another week or two to complete work on their book.

Emma was concerned about towing in the grim weather. The fog was so dense that deer could not see us coming, and would jump out into the road with no warning. The speed limit on Skyline Drive is 35 MPH, but we covered about 15 miles of that twisting and hilly road at a very sedate 25 MPH, carefully studying the trees as they appeared from the gloom for signs of deer. Two passed right in front of us but we were going slowly enough to stop. I posted some video showing just how spooky this tow was, on YouTube.

We are now near Winston-Salem NC in a pleasant county park. It is Fall even here, but much warmer and fairer. For the next four days we will be engaged mostly in work and school since this is a spot with conveniences such as cell phone service. Our immediate plans from here are vague, but generally we are headed to Florida where various appointments await. For the next two weeks, we are mostly free to roam between here and there.

Sep 30 2010

Falls Church VA

I am contemplating the rain. Parked in a driveway in Falls Church VA, we are having the sort of endless heavy rain that rarely happens in southern Arizona. I hadn’t forgotten what it was like, but the experience seems much more novel to me now. It has been raining, in light showers on and off, for three days. It was raining when I hitched up the trailer in Winchester on Monday, and dropped it off in Falls Church later that morning. It was raining as I drove 260 miles up to northern New Jersey that afternoon for my meeting, and it was raining as I drove 260 miles back down the Jersey Turnpike and I-95 on Tuesday.

There was light rain much of Wednesday while I worked at the kitchen table in Bobby and Danine’s house, with small sunny breaks in the clouds at a few points, but that was nothing more than a tease because the weather forecasters said we should expect a real gulley-washer today and so far they have been right. The strip of lawn where we have the car parked is becoming mushy with mud. The brown leaves on the ground, normally a crunchy sign of Fall, have decayed into mush. All night we heard the intermittent pounding of rain on the aluminum roof of the Airstream, and it seems as the day goes on, the rain gets heavier and heavier.

The humidity is 100%. It is not warm, so we don’t have that oppressive heaviness that comes with high heat and humidity, but being so close to the dew point means that even inside the trailer we have condensation forming on every surface. We can’t run the air conditioner on the power we’ve got, so the only solution is to run the vent fans. Unfortunately, two of our vents are Fantastic Vents which, when open, will allow the rain to come into trailer. The third fan is a Maxxair that has an integrated cover so that it can be run in the rain, and we are relying on that for our primary ventilation. This sort of extended wet and humidity is not good for the Airstream over the long haul, but for a few days it is not a big deal.

The other impact of the rain and fog is that it will make towing more difficult today. This afternoon we are expected in Shenandoah National Park, about 90 miles away, by our friends Bert & Janie, Adam and Susan. They’ve all been up there for weeks, enjoying fine fall weather (until recently) and hiking the mountains, and we promised we’d join them at Big Meadows Campground today, rain or shine. So later this morning we will head out. I am hoping that when the time comes to hitch up the Airstream and put away the wet power cords, the rain will be light. Hitching up in a downpour is a really awful experience.

It has been a good visit. Bobby, Danine, and Elise are very much our counterparts in this Airstreaming world, or at least they were at one time and will be again. They traveled for a year in the same model trailer as ours, using a nearly identical truck, the same hitch, homeschooling the same age of daughter, and emphasizing the National Parks as we have. The major difference is that they had the discipline to plan exactly one year of travel and then go back to a more settled life in Virginia, whereas we kept going for three years and still haven’t really managed to settle down.

So coming to see them is a very comfortable experience. They know where we’ve been. They understand what we are thinking and doing as we back the Airstream into the driveway. They know we don’t need to be offered their guest bedroom, and they don’t have to ask questions like, “Don’t you ever get tired of being in that little trailer?” We haven’t seen each other in over two years but with Airstreamers that doesn’t seem to matter. The moment we meet, we just pick up where we left off — as if the two years didn’t happen.

The past three nights have been highlighted by amazing dinners each night. Eleanor is trying to earn our keep, I think, which means that we’ve all been stuffed like the Christmas goose. I have completely given up eating lunch just because of these big and delicious dinners. Last night she made an apple pie, the leftovers of which, according to courtesy parking tradition, will remain with our hosts. I hope to get Eleanor to make another one this weekend.

Up in Shenandoah we will not have the luxury of an electric line from the house (in fact, no hookups at all), and so we will be back to our minimalist existence. It will be chilly (highs in the 60s, lows in the 40s). We will be back to carefully watching our power and water usage for four nights. Plus there’s no cell phone or Internet up there, so I’ll be out of touch and won’t blog for a few days. The tradeoff will be a chance to decompress and reflect in a wilderness setting, while hiking the Shenandoahs with other good Airstream friends. Can’t complain about that. I plan to take photos and make notes, and will post a blog or two about our experiences when we settle in somewhere else next week.

Sep 27 2010

StarFest 2010

It has been cars, cars, cars all weekend. We’ve been attending StarFest 2010 in Winchester VA, which is the annual national event of the Mercedes Benz Club of America.

It’s quite different from the Airstream events we normally attend. Obviously the attendees stay in a hotel rather than in their vehicles. But beyond that, the emphasis is different. Airstreamers tend to focus more on the community of people than the trailers. This crowd is interested in the cars more than anything else: driving them, maintaining them, showing them, and talking about them — especially the exotic, rare, or old models, like the award-winning red 300SL pictured at right.

There was some passing interest in the Airstream, but mostly it was regarded as an amusing curiosity, and again the attention was mostly paid to the GL320 that towed it. At the Concours Award Banquet on Saturday night, I was interrogated by my fellow table-mates about its performance. They appeared to be suitably impressed.

As with the Airstreamers, the crowd was mostly older, but there was a small contingent of young guys who all operated independent shops specializing in 1960-1993 (approx). Mercedes cars — the “affordable classics.” You can still easily find a lot of great old Mercedes cars in good operating condition (cosmetically imperfect) for very reasonable prices, and guys like these will help you keep them on the road forever. I went to a talk given by representatives of the MB Classic Center, and they emphasized that Mercedes intends to keep producing parts to keep old cars on the road, safe and reliable, for decades to come.

There were other interesting talks that I attended (and I got a few ideas for next year’s Alumapalooza, too!) But the big event of Saturday was the Concours show, where we had excellent examples of Mercedes vehicles from seven decades. On Sunday, we dropped in on the Autocross for the morning and watched some of the hotter cars zip around a complex and tight little course. We did the Defensive Driving course again, just for practice.

Wondering why there’s a Smart car in the picture at right? It’s a Daimler product and some Mercedes enthusiasts own them. It’s not for me, but they are awfully cute and I bet this one would have done well on the Autocross if the owner was willing to give it try.

I was pleasantly surprised by Winchester. The “historic downtown” (a phrase horribly abused by some local chambers of commerce) is truly historic. There’s a ton of great Colonial architecture remaining in town, centered on a handsome and vibrant brick pedestrian mall. The city reportedly changed hands 71 times during the Civil War, and the Court House held both northern and southern prisoners. You can still see their graffitti on the interior walls of the building, upstairs.

While a few buildings are in obvious distress, the majority of the downtown is well restored and housing robust businesses. Eleanor and Emma were intrigued by the bead shop, while I was astonished to find an independent old-fashioned third-generation clothing store, the kind you never see in downtowns anymore. The architecture is spectacular, with historic brick buildings, stone buildings, and even a log building. Winchester’s center has a lot going for it.

We have now relocated the Airstream to Falls Church VA, where E&E are courtesy parking with Bobby, Danine, and Elise. We first stayed with them in 2007, then they stayed with us in Tucson in February 2008, and now it’s our turn again in 2010. But I am up in northern New Jersey for an overnight, doing some business, so I’m once again in a hotel. I’ll rejoin the group on Tuesday night and we’ll get back to the serious business of Airstreaming.

Sep 23 2010

From the Moon to Winchester

We had intended our courtesy parking stop in Columbia MD to be a very relaxing time. An old friend and co-worker let us block most of her driveway with the Airstream, so we had a nice spot in a suburban neighborhood with an electric cord running into the garage for three nights.

But it wasn’t very relaxing after the first night, when Eleanor made dinner for everyone. The next day things got away from me (work-wise) and I ended up running back and forth to the local Fedex Kinko’s and worrying about mail that was supposed to have arrived but didn’t. The next day we had a series of frustrations, culminating in a really terrible haircut for me (I now look as if I’ve recently had chemotherapy), my glasses spontaneously breaking, and Emma losing her beloved Kindle. So most of our visit was not particularly relaxing, but at least we were in a place where we could deal with it. Time will fix the bad hair, and large quantities of money will eventually fix the glasses and Kindle. We’ll live. Our hosts had their own hassles too, so there was plenty of commiserating going on.

On our last night Eleanor and Emma did their usual Moon Festival stuff, which includes making “moon water” and putting a tray of round things out under the full moon. Note the very bright planet of Jupiter shining just below the Harvest Moon, visible even near major urban lights.

On the short 95-mile trip from Columbia to Winchester, we paused at Harper’s Ferry National Historic Park just to check out the situation. We knew we didn’t have time for a proper visit, and once we got to the Visitor Center we realized that even a cursory visit would take hours. The park is gigantic, spread across nearby lands and towns. You take a shuttle bus from the Visitor Center to various locales, each of which takes anywhere from one to six hours to explore. This looks like a really great park for a fall visit some year, and I am sure we will eventually be back, but this just wasn’t our chance. Not only was the heat and humidity reaching oppressive levels (this late in September!) but we have — alas — a schedule to keep. At least our visit gave us the chance to replace our expired “America The Beautiful” Inter-agency Pass (good for national parks, forests, and other public lands).

There’s not a lot of camping in the area, except for the super-deluxe KOA that is conveniently next door. It’s not cheap but it does look very good. We dropped in to use the dump station ($5) and refill our water, then pressed on to Winchester VA, where we will spend the next three days attending the Mercedes-Benz Club of America’s “StarFest 2010”. It’s sort of like the WBCCI International Rally, but for Mercedes enthusiasts.

Of course, not having rolling homes with them, the Mercedes crowd books into a hotel. After pondering our options for a while, we have decided to join them for a change. So the Airstream is parked in the back of the hotel where we can see it from our room, taking up six parking spaces. We have converted the hotel room into a sort of quasi-Airstream by requesting a microwave and hauling in food, clothes, computers, etc. — in other words, we’re trying to make a hotel room as comfortable as our Airstream. It’s a tall order. There’s really nothing as convenient as having your home behind you, your own food in the fridge, complete cooking & bathing facilities, no need to pack and unpack, etc., but you knew that already.

Sep 21 2010

Hopewell Furnace NHS, PA

The smoke and the hubbub of the full campground died down on Sunday as all the weekenders headed back home, and by late afternoon we found ourselves virtually alone at French Creek State Park. We didn’t mind the loss of the campfires, since we were now finally able to open the windows and air out the trailer a little, but it was a shame for the other campers to miss out on such a fine fall day.

We took the opportunity to head over to Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, which is directly adjacent to the state park. It’s one of those smaller national parks that we often miss because it’s not a “destination” park for most people. But you get a lot of value out of these small parks, and I’m always glad when we can get a chance to drop in on one of them.

Hopewell is a small community that supported an iron foundry. They diverted water for miles, to power a waterwheel, cut down acres of trees to make charcoal, and hauled in iron ore and limestone to make iron. This was a major business in the 18th and 19th centuries, strategically important in the war of independence against England and in the general independence of the new American nation. A small settlement surrounded the main building (blast furnace and casting building, where parts for cast-iron stoves were made), with housing for workers, a school, blacksmith shop, barn, store, smokehouse and spring house. You can explore most of the buildings by reading the interpretive signs or by audio tour. And yes, there is a Junior Ranger program.

Monday was one of those days that gets lost in travel. We had only a 2.5 hour tow planned, from Elverson PA to Columbia MD, but all of the minor tasks surrounding the tow ate up the rest of the day. I spent about two hours working early in the morning, then shifted over to getting the trailer ready to tow. Then we pulled over to the water outlet (further down the campground loop) and refilled the trailer’s fresh water tank. Then we hit the dump station. As a result, the Airstream actually rolled out of the park about 11:30 a.m.

Half an hour into the trip, we stopped for diesel fuel and Eleanor spotted a convenient grocery store. Since she was planning to make dinner for our next hosts, she went in, while Emma and I stayed back in the trailer (another opportunity for me to catch up on Monday work, while Emma dug into one of her books). By the time Eleanor was back, the groceries were packed away, and everyone had had their bathroom stop, it was 2 p.m. We pulled into Columbia at 4 p.m., and then it was time to quickly set up the trailer in our friends’ driveway, and start making dinner. Poof! Another day gone.

Well, not entirely gone. We at least got to see some friends that we have not visited in four years. Eleanor fed everyone a huge dinner of bowtie pasta with a cream sauce and chicken, grilled vegetables (eggplant, onion, baby peppers), tossed green salad with one of her homemade dressings, etc. It was a good ending to a long day and since we will be in the driveway at least one more night, we’ll get a chance to relax and maybe even explore a little before pressing on to StarFest later this week.

Now, some disturbing news. Kirk, a friend of Alumapalooza (author of the Alumapalooza anthem), spontaneously had 2,000 “Alumapalooza” decals made up. He was doing a job for another client and tacked these little stickers onto it. He notified us afterward and shipped all the stickers to my office in Tucson.

What was I going to do with 2,000 little stickers (about 5 inches long) that say “Alumapalooza”? Well, if you order anything from the Airstream Life store including hats, shirts, books, or back issues, you will receive absolutely free of charge, a bonus of several of these silly little stickers. Such a deal, eh?

If you want a few, but don’t want to order anything from the store, just send a Self-Addressed Stamped Envelope to: Airstream Life, Alumapalooza stickers, PO Box 42288, Tucson AZ 85733-2288. We’ll be happy to ship you a few at no charge. They’ll look great on your Airstream’s bumper. Really.

If you order something from the store but don’t want any stickers, I’m sorry but you’re getting some anyway. I hope you can find a use for them. Maybe they’d be good for minor repairs, in place of duct tape?

But in the interest of full disclosure, here’s the disturbing part: Eleanor noticed that if the sticker is turned upside-down, it says “ezooledewme.” We have no idea what that means. It could be an ancient and powerful magical incantation. It could be a gross insult in some foreign language. It might be a secret code word that will get you into the back door of the Nigerian embassy. All I can say is that if you dare put this sticker on your trailer upside-down, I can’t be responsible for the consequences.

« Previous Page
1
…
6
7
8
9
10
…
24
Next Page »