Sep 27 2017

8th Annual Buellton Vintage Trailer Bash

Our good friend David Neel has been organizing a “Vintage Trailer Bash” in Buellton CA for eight years, and each year he very kindly invites us to attend. Normally we’re still traveling somewhere far away from California in September (except last year when we were busy with Alumafandango) so we’ve missed out.

But not this year! Coming back to Arizona in August has its perks, and one of them is being able to hitch up the old Caravel for a 600 mile road trip to the gorgeous Pacific coast for a rally.

The only problem was that the Caravel hasn’t been used much over the past few years, and storage is never kind to a travel trailer. Even though we have kept it out of the sun in a dry desert climate, inevitably things get funky. So I ended up replacing the spare tire, battery, and a few belly pan rivets. The toilet valve was stuck, the entry door lock was stubborn, the bathroom vanity needed a latch re-aligned, some screws and nuts had magically vibrated loose or gone missing, the dump valves had begun to leak (uck) … you get the picture.

Airstreams really prefer to be used rather than stored. Even in ideal storage conditions, stuff happens. In our climate, rubber seals go bad and lubricated parts dry up. I wasn’t surprised we had to do some maintenance, and overall I was pleased that it was as mild as it was. The fundamentals of the trailer were all still good: no weird smells, no rot or leaks, appliances all fine—so with a few days of part-time tweaking and lubricating we were ready to go. The final step was on the second day of travel: we stopped at a car wash in Blythe CA to get the dust off and were feeling pretty good about things.

Of course it wasn’t quite that easy. Something had to happen. See that white blob on the roof (the AC shroud) in the photo above? After a few years the plastic shroud covering an RV air conditioner tends to get brittle and crack, and then come loose. Apparently, ours suddenly departed the Caravel somewhere along I-10 in California—unbeknownst to us— and so we arrived at the rally with a naked air conditioner. It gave the trailer a bit of a “Mad Max” look on the roof.

(I have since ordered a replacement shroud which will be at our home on Friday. It’s a simple matter of four screws to put on a new one, so not a big deal. I have no idea where the old one is. Upon landing it undoubtedly experienced a RUD.)

The rally, in case you are wondering, was fantastic. David really has found an ideal mix of trailerites and activities, and the result is a fun time with a lot of cool people. In fact, the rally is so popular that it sells out in a matter of days, so David has had to deal with a lot of flack from people who want to attend but couldn’t get in. Success has its drawbacks.

We participated in the vintage fashion show and the vintage scooter parade, among other things. Eleanor made a 1960s dip (which contained of a lot of stuff you’d never knowingly eat today, but which when combined actually tastes pretty good) for the Vintage Appetizer Party. She and Emma missed no opportunities to dress up, including the 70’s Disco Party and the Tiki Party.

Of course we had to watch the vintage movie by the pool (the 1966 Batman movie, fantastically campy), and who would miss the morning “donut truck” on Sunday before departure? When at a rally, diets are forgotten and there is no shame in being goofy.

Returning home, I had a mix of feelings about the Caravel. The trip had proved that it is really too small for us, but the trailer is so adorable and relaxing that part of me wanted to keep it. It’s fun to meet up with other vintage trailer owners, and once we sell the Caravel that door will be never be open to us in the same way.

This made our final night, parked in the remote BLM land at Quartzsite, somewhat poignant. I took a picture of Emma sleeping in the trailer, in exactly the same position as that little three-year-old we used to travel with, and realized this was the end. The Buellton bash was an excellent way to experience it just one last time so we’d all remember the Caravel with a fresh fond memory.

We’ll probably stick close to home for the next month or two, but you never know. Perhaps something will come to entice us away for a few days. In the meantime we’re going to be perfecting the Caravel for sale and planning a longer trip for this winter.

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. [UPDATE: now sold]

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.

Jan 26 2017

The Airstream “sharing economy”

Last week a woman who knows us only slightly asked Eleanor if we ever rent our Airstream to other people. She wanted to see if an Airstream might be right for her family and thought she could evaluate it by trying ours first. Perhaps more to the point, she noted it would also be useful as housing for her visiting sister for a few days.

The idea comes up now and again, but to date we’ve always passed over the opportunity to collect a few dollars. An Airstream is very personal, especially to us since we’ve lived in ours for several years (cumulatively) including a three year period of full time travel. Renting it to a stranger would feel like an invasion of privacy.

Lately I’m hearing more inquiries and I attribute it to two things:

The so-called “sharing economy”, where people rent their homes through VRBO, AirBnB and other sites. Heck, people even rent overnight space on their guest beds through sites like CouchSurfing.org, and use of their personal cars through GetAround and Turo. There’s talk that car sharing will be a big thing among Millennials and younger generations, especially as self-driving cars become the norm. (They’re coming sooner than you think!)
Lots of interest in Airstreams in general. For the past four years Airstream has been selling as many trailers & motorhomes as they can make and there’s no sign of a slowdown yet. Those of us in the business think the Baby Boomer retirement tidal wave may propel the RV industry for up to 10 more years. So people who can’t afford an Airstream or who don’t think they’ll use one enough to justify a purchase are looking to borrow or rent instead.

Ten years ago I had to search around for the few places in the world where you could rent an Airstream “hotel room”. These days there are literally hundreds of Airstream hotel rooms (at dozens of locations) and more keep popping up. That’s a trend that I suspect may be a bubble and I’m wondering how soon it will pop.

It might be hard to resist the call when someone is willing to pay $100-200 a night to sleep in your Airstream—until you look at the risk and expenses. The woman who inquired most recently wanted us to put the trailer on her land. Let’s see, that’s about two hours of my time for hitching up, towing across town, unhitching, setting up utilities, and explaining how to use everything.

Then there’s the time spent getting the trailer ready for guests, which we do often in the winter for friends. That normally takes a couple more hours, including doing the sheets & towels, stocking a little food & coffee, and removing our personal items. Afterward of course there’s cleanup and more laundry.

Finally, there’s the hassle factor. One set of friends had a little boy who didn’t get the memo on how to flush the toilet, so he filled the black tank in the first evening. When I was called the water level was within half an inch of overflowing the toilet bowl. If we didn’t have a handy sewer hookup in the carport that would have been a massive problem.

Another guest left such a mess (I’ll spare the details) that it took several hours to restore the trailer to habitable condition. (That person was put on double-secret probation, which means “never again”.) And we take precautions even with our friends: dogs are carefully screened and smokers are forbidden. Fortunately we’ve never had any permanent damage but there’s no question being an innkeeper comes with certain risks.

But what about the idea of buying a used Airstream cheap and then setting it up as a permanent rental? Sure, lots of people are doing that. From what they tell me, there’s not much of a business model in renting to individuals but the corporate rental gigs can be nicely profitable—when you can get them. The “cute” vintage trailers tend to get the biggest bucks, as long as they look nice.

Personally I’ve been offered as much as $2,000 for “three days” of rental of our 1968 Caravel (pictured above) at a trade show, but in the end we’ve never actually gone through with a rental deal. The $2,000 was predicated on my towing it for six hours up to Las Vegas, and there were load-in and load-out dates that had to be respected so my total time investment was going to be nearly a week. It just didn’t make sense once I factored in my time, travel mileage, and either airfare or hotel for several days—not to mention the risks associated with putting a delicate vintage trailer in the middle of a trade show floor.

So in my opinion there are a lot of problems with the “sharing economy” at least as far as it applies to Airstreams. Still, I would like to find a way to either make the Caravel stop costing us money every year (insurance, minor upkeep) and get it out of our carport. We hardly ever use it and two Airstreams are too much for a suburban driveway. But like an elderly pet, the Caravel is so beloved that we can’t just get rid of it.

Right now the grand plan is for Emma to inherit the Caravel at some point. I wonder if that will actually happen. A characteristic of her generation that I’ve been noting lately is they don’t want their parents’ stuff. [See articles: 1, 2, 3, 4] It’s not just the silver tea set and ridiculously formal dining room furniture they don’t want. This allergy extends to pretty much all the material goods. The kids want to make their own lives, not duplicate ours—and they are accustomed to getting the latest new version of everything every year or two.

Big sigh. I can relate to that. I never wanted anything of my parents’ either. They gave me a rusty 1977 Chevy Camaro in 1984 and it was helpful for a while during college, but once I had my first post-college job I preferred to buy my own stuff even if I had to take out a loan to do it. Fortunately there are always going to be a subset of American society that values nice old vehicles, and if Emma doesn’t show marked interest in the Caravel someday one of those other folks will get it instead.

And now that I think of it, there’s the original “sharing economy”: If you don’t need it, sell it to someone who will use it. Airstreams last a long time with proper care. I think I’ll offset my costs by keeping mine in good shape and hopefully someday sell it and get my money back, or make a little bit on appreciation.

Dec 22 2014

Things polishing taught me

For years I’ve seen the amazing mirror shines that people have put on their vintage Airstreams, and I’ve thought, “I’ll never do that on my ’68 Caravel.” My impression of polishing was that it was an exercise for (a) people who are trying to pump up the re-sale value of a trailer. i.e., flippers; (b) people who think a day spent detailing a car for a show is a day well spent, i.e., (to my point of view) masochists.

Well, there I was on Friday and Saturday of this past weekend, in the driveway spending most of the daylight hours with a rotary buffer in my hands … and so I have to admit that my assessment was far too harsh. There are good reasons to polish a vintage Airstream that go beyond financial profit or masochism.

As I said in the previous blog entry, the impetus for this project was Patrick’s offer to come down with a batch of Nuvite polishes and tools, and show me how to do it. It was impossible to say no to that. So despite my earlier prejudices, I’m now one of those guys who has polished his Airstream—and you know, it’s kind of cool.

In the course of the two days, I learned many things, such as:

Polishing isn’t as hard as I thought. I had imagined severe muscle strain from holding a heavy rotary buffer, and excruciating effort to reach every little crack and seam. Actually, the buffer did all the work and even the edging work wasn’t that bad.
It’s not as messy as I thought. I suited up with a long-sleeved shirt, vinyl gloves, and a baseball cap, so my skin was barely exposed. I thought I’d end up covered in black aluminum oxide, but it wasn’t much at all and it washed off easily. Even the driveway cleanup was easy: just a push broom to sweep up all the little black fuzzies that came off the buffing pads. However, I’m glad I chose to wear my cheap sneakers.
Polishing actually “repaired” the surface of the Caravel’s metal body, at least at a microscopic level. After nearly fifty years, the skin had a lot of pitting and scratches. The polish moves the metal around so that pits and scratches get filled. I was amazed to see lots of little scratches disappear.
The neighbors love it. I was concerned that two days of buffer noise, flecks of black polish getting flung around, and the sight of us working on a vehicle in the driveway in defiance of our neighborhood’s antiquated deed restrictions, might cause some of the neighbors to get a little upset.Far from it—people who were passing by paused to wave or give us a thumbs-up. Yesterday a neighbor dropped by to say how amazed she was with the shine. Turns out that polishing a vintage Airstream is kind of like having a baby. Everyone praises you, even though it’s noisy and messy. Now my Airstream has been transformed from a kind-of-cool “old trailer” to a showpiece.

The only unfortunate part of this is that we ran out of time. Patrick came down from Phoenix on Friday so we didn’t get started until noon, and both Friday and Saturday we had to stop around 5:30 because we ran out of daylight. It’s hard to get big outdoor projects done near the Winter Solstice. (I suppose I shouldn’t complain—many of you are buried in snow right now.) On Sunday we both had other things to do.

We got as far as polishing every section of the trailer two or three times in Nuvite F7 (with F9, a more aggressive grade for a few heavily pitted areas). We also managed to do about 90% of the trailer with the next grade, Nuvite C. Realizing we would run out of time, we finished just one panel with the final grade (Nuvite S) using the Cyclo polisher and some towels, just to see how it would look. That’s what Patrick is doing in the photo above.

It’s fantastic. The shine is definitely mirror grade. The metal still has lots of blemishes (deep scratches, minor dings, and pits) but from more than five feet away all you see is a reflection of the world around the Airstream. Click on the photo for a larger version and notice how well you can see the palm tree in the reflection. You can even me taking a photo.

Compare that section to the panels above, which have been done up through Nuvite C but haven’t had the final step yet. The blackish smudging on the upper panels is just some leftover polish that we haven’t cleaned up with mineral spirits yet. It wipes right off.

Since we are both tied up with holiday and year-end stuff, and then I’ve got Alumafiesta prep to do, Patrick has offered to come down for a day sometime in January to do the final work on the Caravel. That should take him about 4-5 hours. If I can help, I will. In any case, the Caravel will be on display at Tucson/Lazydays KOA during Alumafiesta in late January 2015, so if you are coming to that event you can see for yourself what we did.

Dec 12 2014

The polishing project

Although the North has been dealing with winter storms and the usual inconveniences of winter, down here in the southern Arizona desert it’s the best time of year for outdoor work. For the past couple of years I’ve taken the opportunity to do major Airstream maintenance between mid October and January, taking advantage of the cool and generally dry weather we get at this time of year.

This time around it looked like I might get away with just chilling out, but then Patrick called and prodded me about getting the Caravel polished. He’s The Guy from Nuvite Chemical Corp., and if you have a vintage Airstream you probably know the name Nuvite. It’s the premiere polishing compound used to make Airstreams shine like mirrors.

Now, Airstreams never came out of the factory with “mirror shine.” They generally had a sort of matte shine, the color of factory-fresh aluminum (which of course is exactly what they were.) You could see yourself in it, but not very clearly. With time, the aluminum would gradually oxidize to a dull battleship gray color, not particularly attractive, which is why Airstream began applying a clearcoat in the 1960s. The clearcoat delayed the oxidization so the trailer looked new longer.

But eventually the aluminum oxidized anyway, and so vintage trailers owners have a choice: live with the dull patina, or get to work with some polish. Polishing is a labor-intensive job, so for my 1968 Airstream Caravel I chose the path of least resistance for many years. I had the clearcoat chemically stripped off back around 2005 when Colin Hyde was doing some sheet metal replacement on it, and then around 2010 my buddy Ken took it upon himself to do a polishing pass on the trailer, to even out the differences between new metal and old. But the Caravel has never really been super-shiny, and lately it has oxidized back to a patina that belies the trailer’s 46 years.

The photos below show what I’m talking about. The first photo is a 1953 Airstream Flying Cloud that we used to own. It is fully oxidized. Once a layer of oxidization forms on the trailer, it protects the rest of the aluminum and doesn’t deteriorate further. So there’s no harm in leaving it like this, but it’s not very pretty. (The streaks below the reflectors are from rusting steel trim around the reflectors. This trailer had been sitting for over twenty years when we bought it.)

The second photo shows another 1953 Airstream Flying Cloud, but nicely polished. (It belongs to Dicky Riegel, former president of Airstream and more recently the founder of Airstream2Go.) Hard to believe that the metal can go from one state to the other, but it’s absolutely true. This is what you can do with a few cans of Nuvite and some work.

Enter Patrick. He is The Guy who goes around the country demonstrating how Nuvite works. I can’t figure out how he does it, since polishing is a demanding task that involves holding a heavy power tool against the trailer body for hours. The black aluminum oxide stains your clothes and skin too. Yet Patrick is always smiling when I see him, and his fingernails always seem to be clean. He seems to think he has the greatest job in the country.

That must explain it, because he called me and reminded me that months ago we talked about polishing the Caravel. He certainly could have let it go, since I wasn’t chasing him, but instead he’s going to drive down from Phoenix on December 19 and spend a day or two in my driveway showing me how Nuvite can turn the Caravel into a mirror-like “jewel.”

I’m going to help him, or at least attempt to. I’m pretty sure he can finish the trailer before I figure out how to get my gloves on, but he’s a good sport and willing to give me lessons on technique. I’m also inviting some local friends to drop in and observe or help. With luck this might end up as a Tom Sawyer-esque episode where all my friends help do the work.

If you are in Tucson or willing to drive down on Dec 19, ping me and I’ll give you directions to the fun (email: my first name at airstreamlife.com). If you want to observe from afar and keep your clothes clean, I’ll post photos here of the process.

I also hope to learn more about the chemical process of polishing. It’s interesting in a geeky way. From what I know so far, we aren’t removing anything from the aluminum, but rather “turning over” the surface material chemically. I’ll ask Patrick for details. And if you want to see the trailer in person, drop by Alumafiesta in late January. I’ll have it on display in the campground or inside the Event Center.