Sep 18 2017

Fly and be free, Caravel

While I love having Airstreams and cars and all sorts of other things, periodically I stop to evaluate what “stuff” is in my life. That’s because the human habit of collecting things combined with the abundance we enjoy in North America quickly results in clutter—and I hate clutter. Clutter inevitably decays (the universal process of entropy) and becomes kipple. (Read Philip K Dick’s novel, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep” for a good understanding of this.)

Kipple slowly saps your energy and your money, like negative chi. It keeps you from being able to move forward creatively and efficiently, trapping you in a world of what was instead of what could be.

I am very devoted to the future and not very attached to the past, so I’ve been looking at the stuff–>clutter–>kipple connection around our home base and trying to figure out whether things fit into our future or are just boat anchors. The boat anchor-type items will get cleared out.

Surprisingly, one of the big items that made my hit list is our beloved 1968 Airstream Caravel. This trailer has some real history with my family, as it was our first Airstream, and the inspiration for Airstream Life magazine and all the things that have followed it.

We’ve kept it in fine condition—in fact, considerably better than when we found it, thanks to a major renovation—but in the last few years we have rarely used it. Almost everything about it has been repaired, replaced, upgraded, or polished.

And yet it sits, because a 17 foot Caravel just isn’t what we’ve needed for the past decade. It was a lovely trailer when Emma was three years old and we were taking weekends all over New England and Quebec. Everywhere we went people would stop us and ask about it, beg for a tour of the interior, and say “That’s a cool vintage trailer.” But Emma will be old enough to vote in a few months and three adults in a 17 foot trailer just doesn’t work very well for our style of 5-month roadtrips.

Still, over the past few years I’ve kept everything in working condition and ready to go at a moment’s notice just in case we might decide to pop out for an old-fashioned camping weekend. I’ve kept it insured to the tune of $600/year (on a more expensive “Agreed Value” policy since the trailer is fairly valuable), locked with a Megahitch Lock, battery charged, and in a prime spot out of the sun and rain in our carport.

One of my favorite memories of the Caravel was in 2004 in Florida, when we decided to spend a day at the beach near Bradenton. We parked the Caravel next to the beach in the regular lot and used it like a cabana for the day, staying to watch the sunset long after all the other visitors had gone home, and then making dinner before heading away. It was one of many blissfully peaceful times we spent in that old trailer.

Memories like that tempt me to keep the trailer just a little longer, in the hope that somehow we’ll recreate them. But life has moved forward: Emma is driving herself around, making her own plans, and we’ll never have a 4-year-old toddler again, nor will we ever be in our early 40s again. I’m looking forward to the things we can do now, instead of wishing for experiences we can never repeat.

The Caravel, to its credit, has a long life ahead. It is too nice to become kipple, so rather than let it sit and slowly deteriorate we’ve over-invested in maintaining it (as vintage owners often do). It is stocked and trimmed and ready to travel. Just about everything from the axles to the roof vents has been refurbished or replaced. Marmoleum flooring, AGM battery, gray tank, PEX plumbing, and aluminum propane tanks are just a few items on a lengthy list of upgrades. Someone else will benefit from all of this, and hopefully love it as much as we have, and probably take it on many adventures of their own.

If you know someone who might want this trailer, or are interested yourself, there’s more detail here.

But before we let the Caravel go, we are taking one last trip as a family this week. We’re going to the 8th Annual Buellton Vintage Trailer Bash in Flying Flags RV Park, Buellton CA. Nearly 200 vintage trailers will be there!

Our good friend David Neel runs this event and it has been on our “must do” list for years. Finally, we’re going to make the 600 mile trip with our vintage trailer and join the fun (and hang out a “For Sale” sign).

The Caravel is not the only possession of ours going up for sale; I’m also selling my 1984 Mercedes-Benz 300D Turbo, for similar reasons. It was a great car to me for the past five years and a great vehicle for Emma to learn to drive in, but it doesn’t fit our life going forward. Since that’s a non-Airstream topic I’ll spare you the list of things I’ve done to that car, but believe me when I say it’s an extensive list.

We’re doing a lot more downsizing of “stuff” than these two examples, but you get the idea. I’m upbeat about it. I’m not forced to clear out stuff, I want to. Clearing out the cobwebs and stuff we don’t use will open doors we can’t even imagine yet—and I believe that the longer we avoid kipple, the longer we’ll avoid becoming kipple. And the Caravel will be happier too, when it’s back on the road and seeing America as it was always meant to.

Sep 04 2017

Stops along the way from Chicago to Tucson

From Chicago to Tucson could have been a blur of interstate concrete, and to be honest most of it was, but we did manage to make a few pleasant stops along the way.

Ideally this would have been at least a week-long trip. Unfortunately I had to get back to Tucson to supervise a major move: the Airstream Life Store was at long last scheduled to escape our broom closet-sized office. Going from about 300 square feet to 1,350 square feet was something the staff and I have been looking forward to doing for quite a while, and I wasn’t going to miss the big moment.

This meant a mad dash of 1,870 miles the way we went, across Iowa and Nebraska, to Golden, Colorado and down Route 285 to Santa Fe. The days were spent covering miles, but each night we tried to find somewhere interesting to stay. The first night was a big hit at Rock Creek State Park in Iowa (conveniently located just off I-80, pictured above). After our four nights in a truck lot in Chicago it was genuine luxury to have access to a dump station, fresh water, and 30-amp power.

The second night was kind of fun, at the Great Platte River Archway. The parking lot is noisy but you can’t beat the price or convenience as an overnight stop, and there’s a pleasant multi-use trail nearby that I got to ride early in the morning before we hit the road again.

From there we plowed ahead to Golden CO, climbing to the higher elevations to escape the heat since we’d be boondocking again. Picking up I-25 would have been quicker but not nearly as scenic as the beautiful Route 285, which brought us winding through the mountains and along rivers in cool air between 7,000 and 10,000 feet all day.

Tourist brochure hyperbole? Blogger exaggeration? I understand. I’m skeptical of many travel writers who strive to make ordinary experiences seem far more exciting that they were, so check out the two roadside stops we made (lunch and a quick exploration of the North Fork South Platte River) and decide for yourself. You wouldn’t find such attractive spots along I-25.

Route 285 continues all the way down to Santa Fe, and honestly nearly every mile is scenic. We stopped in Santa Fe for two nights to recuperate from too much time sitting in the car, and took advantage of gorgeous weather to ride one of the many city trails into downtown.

Even with my self-imposed deadline to get back, it was tempting to linger in Santa Fe. The town has a lot to offer, and it’s kind of like Tucson but with flowing rivers, more greenery, and an amazing art community. Neat place. We’ll probably take more time to explore it on the next trip northward. But this time, there was no choice but to get down to the low desert, back to the late summer heat, and projects waiting.

We spent one more night on the road before getting home, and I’ll write about the final miles in the next blog.

Aug 29 2017

Walking Chicago

The weather in Chicago turned so ideal that we decided to extend our stay for a fourth day, to walk the downtown and just be brainless tourists. The ability to make a spontaneous change of plans is one of the things I like most about traveling by Airstream.

By now it was a familiar routine: walk to the edge of Moe Street by the truck parking lot, tap the Uber app, and in about two minutes someone pulls up to take us into the heart of the city. We left the electric wheels behind this time, intending to log as many miles of walking as possible. (Gotta keep the Fitbit happy, you know.)

Other than enjoying a leisurely view of a major city, the best reason to walk is to justify eating as much as possible along the way. Chicago is a great place to graze, so we started with the French Market, which is just the sort of place Eleanor loves best. Thirty or so food stalls means a minimum hour-long visit. I don’t mind. I bought a Honeycrisp apple and sliced it up with my pocket knife to share with Emma, just to stave off the constant impulse to eat everything we saw.

After resisting pastries, kabobs, chocolates, seafood, and much more, we finally lost our control at the cheese counter. The cheese at left is an example of what went into my backpack that morning. It’s called Alp Blossom and the colorful rind is compressed and dried flowers. The taste is magnificent.

If you try it, don’t waste it on a cracker. Just nibble it and savor it. Besides, at $20/lb. it’s not the kind of cheese you melt over nachos!

We lingered at a sidewalk cafe over French pastries and coffee. I think it was probably over two hours before we even left the block. And then on to Union Station, crossing the Chicago River (one of several times), past the “Willis” Tower (which everyone knows is forever the Sears Tower), up State, along the Riverwalk, and over to Navy Pier. We stopped and browsed enough that this took most of the day.

Another cab ride brought us to Chinatown that evening, where we got dinner and then headed back to (home sweet home) the truck parking lot and our Airstream.

Eleanor’s comment that night was that she’d like to come back to Chicago to explore some more. Maybe even catch a live show of “Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me”. It’s ironic that we all felt that way, because we started this visit with a sense of dread—Oh no we’ve got to tow the Airstream into a major city— and it became a really memorable and fun visit. I may have re-think my attitude toward major metros, and begin to embrace the advantages of urban camping.

Aug 28 2017

A tight spot in Chicago

I mentioned before that our reason for towing the Airstream to Chicago was to get a little work done on our backup camera setup. I’ve been working with Mid-City Engineering, the company that sells the module we’ve been using since 2009. This mod allows me to see the view from the Airstream’s backup camera on the dashboard of the Mercedes GL350.

We had some trouble getting the mod to work in the new GL, and I finally decided to brave the inner city and visit Mid-City in person. This took some planning, as their shop is located off an alley and there isn’t much space to maneuver a 30-foot trailer.

(The red arrow above shows the approximate position of the Airstream.) The only way in was via what is optimistically called Elizabeth Street. That turned out to be the easy part.

The guys at Mid-City fixed us up with a new camera on the Airstream (the existing one was dead for unknown reasons). However, we had to wait until 6:30 for the new camera to arrive at the shop, and so by the time the work was done it was getting dark. Plus, I needed to fuel up the GL and that was never going to work at any of the local gas stations with the trailer in tow.

To help out, the Mid-City guys left all the gates unlocked for us based on our promise to lock everything up when we left. They went home around 7:30, leaving us alone in the dark alleyway.

The owner offered to let us spend the night there, but we decided to head back to the truck lot downtown. So, I unhitched the GL from the Airstream and very carefully maneuvered the car around the building to go get fuel. If you look closely at the satellite view above you might think there’s no road around the northeast side of the building, and you’d be right. There is just barely space to get a car around the perimeter, inches from the brick building and chain link fences. It took me a few minutes to clear all the obstacles.

That still wasn’t the hard part. Coming back, I had to perform the same maneuver in the dark, backwards because the car needed to arrive in position to hitch up again. That took a bit more sweat and care.

And yet the biggest challenge was yet to come.

Once hitched, the first step was to carefully back the Airstream onto N Elizabeth Street again, and then go forward (southeast). We couldn’t turn right onto W Walton Street due to cars parked everywhere, so the only escape was down N Elizabeth. On the satellite image this looked easy, but it turns out that at night the residents park on both sides of the street, leaving only a narrow single lane down the middle for traffic to pass.

That single lane would be no problem for, say, a Mini Cooper. It was nerve-wrackingly tight for the big Mercedes GL, and seemingly impossible for the Airstream, which is 8.5 feet wide. Still, I swallowed hard and decided to go for it, knowing that if we got stuck I’d have to back up—and that might be worse.

I wish I had photos, but you know how it is in the moment of crisis. There was a dim light from some streetlamps, and cars parked crazily along the curbs. We literally inched the Airstream forward with Eleanor hanging out the passenger window to look down the side as the Airstream squeezed past parked cars. Our progress was glacial. At many points we cleared cars by about an inch.

At several points I stopped the rig entirely to see if we were completely screwed. A local in his car behind us began honking, frustrated at having to wait a few minutes for this aluminum behemoth to clear his street. That always adds to the fun but I’ve learned not to let people rush me so I ignored the honking.

Finally, we reached a point about 3/4 of the way down the block where there was simply no possibility of getting through—the cars were parked too far from the curbs and we just couldn’t fit between them.

I jumped out of the GL, prepared to go negotiate with the local driver behind us. You can imagine how that would have gone. ME: “Uh, we can’t fit. You’ll have to back up the alley or we’ll be here all night.” DRIVER: “!@$@#$!#$ you, tourist @#$#@%”

But before that happened, Eleanor began folding the side mirrors of the cars parked along the street. Those inches made the difference, and I was able to creep the Airstream past the final cars, inch by inch, without clipping anything.

You can imagine our relief when we finally cleared the block and began working our way back to the highway. It’s a great feeling to have survived an ordeal like that. All seemed well as we rolled down the entrance ramp to I-90/94 … and then Eleanor said,

Did we lock the gate?

Of course in all the excitement we forgot about the gate. So we took the first exit, maneuvered our rig through the streets again, but this time did NOT go down the Elizabeth Street alley. I pulled over to the side of a larger road with the flashers on, and Eleanor ran down the alley to lock the gate.

Later, set up again in our space at the truck lot, life seemed very peaceful in comparison. Sure, there was still lots of loud activity around us and we had to run the fans all night for white noise, but the roominess of the truck lot felt pretty good after our alley experiences. Plus, the weather had changed for the better and we had a free day in Chicago to look forward to.

As much as this shortened my probable lifespan I have to admit it was fun to face the challenge. Still, little nightmares like this don’t have to be part of the game for most people. Recreational towing is supposed to be fun. If you would prefer to avoid premature graying I’ll recommend staying off the side streets and alleys of cities.

Aug 23 2017

Dirty little secrets about electricity

We decided to extend our visit to Chicago for an extra day, after necessary business was concluded, because a cold front came through and weather conditions became exceptionally nice. After a trip across town with the Airstream (an urban towing “adventure” that I’ll blog another day) we returned to the McCormick Place Truck Marshalling Yard for another night.

After three nights the truck yard feels like home. It’s not nearly as scary as it first seemed. We’re accustomed to the noises: the occasional bang of a tractor trailer hitching up, the clack-and-whoosh of commuter rail zipping by, the night-time jackhammering on the Rt 41 overpasses during construction, etc. It feels like we could spend a lot of time here if we wanted to.

At this point we have two limitations: fresh water and electricity. We have no source to fill the Airstream’s fresh water tank so it’s just a matter of conservation. We’ll be here a little over three days in total, which is easily covered by our 39-gallon tank plus a few jugs of drinking water.

Electricity is normally not an issue thanks to rooftop solar panels that charge the Airstream’s big Lifeline 8D battery. But it was cloudy Sunday through Tuesday, and we were running all three roof vents 24 hours a day to cope with the heat, plus the fridge fans, so our power consumption was higher than usual.

By the time we towed the Airstream from the truck yard to our stop across town on Tuesday, the Tri-Metric was telling us that the battery’s usable capacity we depleted to 39%. (We count only half the actual rated capacity of the battery as usable, so our usable is 127.5 amp-hours. 39% of that is about 50 amp-hours, so we used about 78 amp-hours of battery capacity. This slightly understates total power consumption because the drain from the battery was offset by whatever solar power was generated.)

Without good sunshine for a full day, we needed to plug in get that power back. So while we were parked in an alleyway for a few hours (I’ll explain why in the next blog) I ran a cord to an ordinary 15-amp household-type outlet.

You might be surprised to find that your Airstream uses very little electrical power, except when running the air conditioner or microwave oven. I’ve always said that living in an Airstream (or indeed many types of RVs) is one of the greenest lifestyle changes you can make. This is the first time I’ve bothered to actually calculate the electrical portion of it.

The red/black meter is our Trimetric 2020, which is measuring the power going into the battery. It’s showing that the Airstream’s built-in battery charger is running near maximum capacity (55 amps) with a net of 49.8 amps going into the battery at that moment. So this represents the peak consumption of our Airstream’s battery charger.

What does that 49.8 amps translate to? You multiple the amps by 12 (volts) to get 598 watts. That’s not a lot of power when you consider that your coffee maker by itself will use 1,500 watts.

Now here’s the curious part. The white meter pictured is counting the watts at the plug, so it’s measuring all the power going into the Airstream. In the photo it’s showing that we were drawing 1,068 watts.

Why the difference between 1,068 and 598 watts? It appears that somehow at least 470 watts are disappearing before they get to the battery.

Actually, there are more than 470 watts disappearing. At the time these photos were taken, the rooftop solar panels were generating 119 watts of power that was also going into the battery bank. So of the 598 watts showing at the Tri-Metric meter, the battery was actually receiving 479 watts of power from the wall outlet and 119 from the solar panels.

That leaves 589 watts of the 1,068 coming from the wall outlet (at the white wattmeter) unaccounted for. Those electrons were going somewhere else. Where?

Some of that power was being consumed by appliances in the Airstream. The refrigerator was running on gas, but it still consumes a small amount of 12 volt power, as do many other appliances in standby mode. The total of all these “parasitic” power draws accounts for another 2.5 amps (on average in our trailer, YMMV), or 30 watts. That still leaves 559 watts missing.

The ugly truth is that most of that 500 watts is going to waste, at the battery converter/charger. Sadly, most RV power converters are very inefficient, dissipating as much as half of the power they consume as heat. That’s why they have big cooling fins or cooling fans.

A high-end charger will have something called Power Factor Correction to enable a much higher efficiency rate (95% is possible). But since most people will never notice the difference, it’s not something the RV industry suppliers tend to build into their converters.

So in practical terms this 500 watt waste is not a big deal. We fully charged our Airstream, our two electric unicycles, electric scooter, all our i-devices and laptops, camera batteries, etc. and the wattmeter showed that we used only about 2 kilowatt-hours (kWh). That was our requirement for two days of life in the Airstream, electric toys included.

To put that into perspective, our house uses an average of 54 kWh in the same amount of time, meaning that our electrical consumption for two days in Chicago was 27 times more efficient. Now to be fair, we didn’t run the air conditioning during our stay in Chicago and we definitely would have if the option was available, which would have brought our usage much higher. But still, it would have been a lot less power than living at home.

Another way to look at it: we’re using about 10-12 cents worth of power a day. So you can see why it doesn’t really pay to upgrade to a more efficient power converter.

Now that everything is re-charged, and Chicago is enjoying absolutely beautiful dry clear weather with temps in the mid-70s, we’ll enjoy another day in the city. The solar panels will easily keep up with whatever power we need, and even if they didn’t our full battery has plenty of capacity.

Man In The Maze

by Rich Luhr, Editor of Airstream Life magazine

Fly and be free, Caravel

Stops along the way from Chicago to Tucson

Walking Chicago

A tight spot in Chicago

Dirty little secrets about electricity