Nov 03 2020

Say this over my grave

Take a moment to shut off your social media. Think about what really matters.

Try this exercise: go to news.google.com and type “Airstream obituary” into the search bar. Then take a few minutes to read the summarized stories of Airstreamers who have gone before us.

I did this and was surprised at the impact that it had on me. At the time I was having “one of those days” in which a steady stream of bad news had rained down on my head.

The day started at 6:00 a.m. with the realization we’d sent out an email to thousands of people with a bad link, and it just spiraled away from me after that. Bad news about an elderly relative, difficulties with the bank, unexpected interruptions, toner ran out in the printer in the middle of an important document, problems with staff and vendors, general uncertainty about this and that … You get the picture. It just wasn’t going to stop being a Monday.

And then, around 1:30, in the midst of a rapidly-growing funk, I spotted this in a random obituary that turned up in one of my Google searches:

… and suddenly things began to fall into perspective.

My mother died this year. My mother-in-law will likely die this year. I’m going to die someday (hopefully not soon). Nobody except Benjamin Button is getting younger. When I’m very old I will not care about the “Mondays” I’ve had. I want to be able to look back on a life of adventure and exploration, full of memories of people and places that taught me things.

When I die, I want people who knew me to be able to say something like what they said for Eva Richardson of Warrenton VA, or Frances Davidson of Charlottesville VA, and many other people I read about:

“He enjoyed traveling in his Airstream all over North America.”

Look at Peter and Doreen Clark of Rome NY. They got married when Doreen was 62 years old, and promptly took off for a cross-country trip in their Airstream, followed by many other travels for the next 13 years. I’ve never met them but I think they might be new heroes of mine.

I’ll let some of the others speak for themselves:

Here’s the one that really tugged at my heart, the dual obituaries of Art & Marvene Elliott:

Art died at age 99, on September 17, 2020. His wife Marvene died the very next day.

That’s a romantic story and I love it. We could all aspire to be in love for seven decades and travel in an Airstream. If we all aimed for goals like that instead of focusing on demonizing each other over politics, I’m convinced the world would be a better place.

Try it yourself. Just spend a few minutes reading about the Airstreamers who have gone before us. I don’t think there’s any way you can do that and not realize that whatever happens today, there are more important things for you to be thinking about.

I especially like this last one, about Sidney R Klein. He sounds like a guy who knew how to spend his life.

Way to go, Sidney.

Jul 08 2019

To love me is to love my Airstream

I think the aspect of Airstreaming that I love most is that it cannot truly be defined. Life aboard the Airstream is whatever you choose to make of it: an almost overwhelming array of choices enabled and even encouraged by the simple idea of bringing your home to your interests rather than waiting for them to come to you.

I have seen people in their Airstreams thrilled by the prospect of hiking a glacier, while others are thrilled by the prospect of a trying out an interesting donut shop followed by a good double espresso. The size of the adventure does not matter; both are valid. It only matters what you desire to achieve. If it’s important to you, the Airstream is ready to facilitate your journey.

I’ve seen people crying away the pain of recently-lost love, and others striking out with quivering anticipation in search of a new life partner. But it doesn’t have to be a choice, because you can load your Airstream with memories of your life while building fantastic new ones. The Airstream does not care if you are sad or elated, it will cosset you with warm blankets and familiar foods at the end of the day regardless.

This season of travel has been unlike any other for me. On the surface, the Airstream has done what it always does. It has been my home away from home base since mid-May, allowing me to visit close friends in the Gulf Coast states, then to participate in Alumapalooza in Ohio, explore more of New York state beauty, and finally hang out with family in Vermont. It has carried the material to run a pop-up store, and the accessories needed for long-distance bicycle touring, urban explorations, motorcycling, hiking, and more.

Beneath that practical layer the Airstream has opened doors I did not expect. I’ve often said that that the Airstream is excellent lock-pick (it opens doors everywhere it goes) because people are often attracted to the dream of running off to adventure and thus are eager to share their world in exchange for a few hours of vicarious living.

While that’s still true, this spring I realized that the Airstream also helps me meet people by virtue of what it is not. Isn’t it true that there’s an instant bond with someone who says, “You have an Airstream? That’s so cool!” You can tell instantly that person is destined to be a compadre, an appreciator of the traveling lifestyle, like-minded and ready to hear more about your travels.

The flip side of that is the person who hears “Airstream” and calls it a “camper” or “mobile home”—or worse, avoids mention of it at all, treating the core of your living situation as a dank secret best swept under the rug. I think some of those people feel that they are somehow doing a favor, as if the Airstream were a facial blemish that everyone can see but nobody in polite society would dare to point out. If it’s not a traditional house or apartment (so the logic goes) choosing to live in a “camper” for part of the year must be a symbol of your reduced circumstances. Given the price of Airstreams nowadays this is not logical but it is surprisingly common thinking.

Sometimes those people can be taught to appreciate what the Airstream represents. It’s worth a try. After all, you wouldn’t want to miss out on a potential friend (or even the love of your life) just because she cluelessly called it a “camper” a few too many times. I’ve heard of and experienced this phenomenon myself. But I actually appreciate that a certain category of individual will permanently avert their eyes, and thus reveal that they are not very open-minded. It saves time.

Pet-owning friends of mine have said, “to love me is to love my animals” and similar platitudes. I get that—whether it’s your children, your dogs, cats, or budgies. To love me is to love my Airstream. You don’t have to live in it. But you do have to understand that it is the floor that I walk on. Without it, a huge part of my life would vanish. I wouldn’t be able to have the experiences I’ve had, my family would never have seen the 48 states, and I wouldn’t be the person I am. The people destined to be friends and partners know that instinctively and they embrace it.

Rich Jef Erica

This spring and summer I’ve met and reunited with a few such people, which I regard as the biggest win of the entire year. Long after the travel memories have faded, I hope to have them in my life. For me, this season, the Airstream has facilitated the beginning and the furtherance of wonderful relationships. It brought me to my interests and it will continue to do so in the future. You gotta love that.

Rich Laura Steve Atlanta R C

May 12 2019

Growing older with an Airstream

The other day I found myself having one of those conversations that older people seem to have. You know, the kind of conversation you never think you’ll have when you’re young, like a serious explanation of how your colonoscopy went. In this case I was commiserating with a friend (a Gen-Xer, but still someone in her fifties), about how most consumer products of this century are designed for short lives, and consequently are often rented rather than owned. Phones and cars come to mind, and even most brands of RVs, but not Airstreams.

It has long been a selling point for Airstream that the aluminum trailers last forever, with normal care and maintenance, but I never thought I’d grow old with my Airstream. Honestly, when I bought it during my early 40s I had no thought to keeping it for any particular length of time. It was just an expedient to a full-time family adventure.

But that adventure stretched out for three years, and then became a half-timing experience for the family each summer, and now I find myself still in the Airstream, old enough to stay at “55+” communities and wondering if the trailer will outlive me. It’s a strong possibility; I’ve seen many Airstreams that are old enough to collect Social Security still rolling on the roads and making a splash at vintage rallies. Will my Airstream someday be one of those historic relics, “discovered” resting behind a barn somewhere and restored by a nostalgic member of the Flying Car Generation in 2065?

I kind of hope so. I’d like my Airstream to still be in serviceable condition in 2065, if not actually in use, and beloved by someone who is at this very moment being born. While I’m fantasizing, I’d like this person to have a son or daughter who is in training to join the Mars or Moon Colony program. It would be like having your vintage Corvette purchased by a member of the Apollo space program, a neat juxtaposition of past and future adventure.

Ah, but first the Airstream must take care of me, and so I must take care of it. I’m about to launch for points East in a few days, and that means a careful check of all the systems and supplies. I’ve documented what I check in my book Airstream Life’s (Nearly) Complete Guide to Airstream Maintenance so I won’t repeat it here. A good inspection of the Airstream is not difficult, requires no tools trickier than a flashlight, and doesn’t take all that long. You can bring your Airstream to a service center for inspection but I recommend you start doing it yourself. You know your Airstream better than anyone and are really the best person for the job.

So far my checklist has yielded only a few things that need attention. I had to lube the awning arms with Boeshield T-9 because they were getting hard to slide. One of the Fan-tastic Vents has a wonky gear mechanism that causes it to not close correctly, and the hydraulic disc brake fluid should be replaced just based on the length of time it has been in use. I could take care of those last two items myself, but it’s always more fun to work with Super Terry and neither task is urgent, so they’ll get done when we meet up in the days before Alumapalooza.

Alumapalooza, of course, is high on my list of things to prepare for. This year it’s particularly tricky because I’m going to try something new: an Airstream Life Pop-Up Store. We’ll have a big tent filled with some of the most popular Airstream upgrades that we sell. Every year the Canadian attendees beg me to bring stuff to Alumapalooza so they can avoid the prohibitive cost of shipping across the border, and there are a lot of items that are best shopped in person (like wood cutting boards).

We’ll also have “show pricing” on certain things like TST tire pressure monitors. So in addition to shipping a bunch of stuff to Jackson Center, the back bedroom of the Airstream will be filled with boxes—in addition to my bicycle, two electric unicycles, and other toys for the summer. Maybe it’s a good thing Emma doesn’t come on these trips anymore …

I’m almost done prepping for this trip, which is about right since launch is in three days. The Airstream looks poised and ready to go. Clothes are packed, food is stocked, laundry is done, the interior has been cleaned, and all systems are go. Just a few more errands to run in the next few days, and the Airstream & I will begin the long trek east. We’re both a year older than the last time, but we’re both still game.

Aug 21 2018

Re-start

I’ve often said that it’s easy to wreck an Airstream by neglecting it, but it’s hard to wear out an Airstream by using it. Despite a long hiatus in this blog, our Airstream has seen a fair bit of use over the last ten months. I haven’t been writing about it because I felt, after 12 years of continuous blogging (Vintage Thunder, Tour of America, Man In The Maze) that it was time to take a long break.

The break was not just from blogging, but also from tackling new projects like books and events. We’re just doing Alumapalooza now—instead of Alumafiesta, Alumafandango, Alumaflamingo—which gives us time to attend other events that other people are hosting. That’s kind of a novelty for us. Last February Eleanor and I hit a Greater Los Angeles Airstream Club event in Palm Springs during Modernism Week, and it was refreshing to just float along while someone else sweated the daily details.

I spent a chunk of the winter and spring closing out projects so that when we hit the road in May, I’d be able to focus on traveling across the country with Eleanor and Emma. This might have been the last time we ever do this together, since Emma is now 18 and heading toward all the obligations and opportunities her age implies. We did nothing exceptionally different on this trip compared to any other year, but for me there was a certain tinge of sadness in the background because I knew it could well be the end of a wonderful era of Airstreaming as a family with our daughter as a child.

Emma Four Corners lunch stop — A lunch stop somewhere in the Four Corners region

We spent a couple of days in Moab with our friends Koos & Stefan, a couple of weeks at the Airstream factory doing Alumapalooza, another day or two in Ohio with Loren & Mike, and a few other small stops. Every time we stopped it felt like a farewell tour. Here’s the kid one last time. Enjoy, because the next time you see us she’ll be an adult and we’ll be empty-nesters. Traveling together is all we’ve known since Emma was a toddler. What will we do next?

APZ9 Eleanor seminar — Eleanor’s culinary seminar at APZ9

The summer, mostly spent in Vermont, slipped away like a dream in the morning. There were the traditional activities of a Vermont summer, like Farmer’s Markets on Saturday morning, dinners with friends in the Champlain Valley, fishing and boat rides on the lake, a motorcycle trip for me (to Nova Scotia), trips to the Boston area to see other friends and family, concerts & movies & fireworks … and then before the sweet corn and blueberries were ripe, it was time to fly Emma back home.

She’s there now, managing by herself, living on her own. For the first time in her life she’s bound by a school schedule. She’s driving around in her car, looking for a part-time job and prepping for college. Eleanor and I, on the other hand, find ourselves in the northeast with a 30-foot Airstream and a lot fewer obligations than we’ve had in the past two decades. This would seem to be an enviable situation—lots of time and eight wheels ready to roll—but we are both still adjusting to the concept.

Several times we have considered downsizing from the 30 foot Safari Bunkhouse but ultimately we know that this Airstream suits us pretty well even though it is quite a bit bigger than we need. Fourteen years of upgrades and customizations have resulted in a travel trailer that fits us like well-worn leather jacket—and Airstreams really don’t wear out if you take care of them.

And that brings me back to the first sentence of this little essay. After sitting still in Vermont for two months it finally came time to hitch up and head west. I always have a little sense of unease on the first day because it’s the day that all the little things that have gone wrong during storage become apparent. The first travel day of a long trip is usually the hardest one for me.

The week before we were scheduled to go I began to run through the usual pre-trip prep, like filling the propane and re-organizing our supplies for travel. The night before departure I checked the tire pressure and found that one of them was a few pounds low, so I removed the tire pressure sensor and pumped it up. The next morning, that tire was completely flat.

What happened? When I removed the sensor, a tiny rubber gasket that seals the stem apparently fell out. Without this gasket, the sensor will leak air. (This was easily verified with a few squirts of soapy water solution from my “little things” toolkit.) Unfortunately, I somehow forgot to include the little baggie of spare gaskets that is provided with every TST sensor kit, so I just removed the sensor for now and will replace it later.

By itself that wasn’t a big deal, but it led to the discovery that my 23-year-old air pump was ready to die, and it did so with a pathetic “cough” just as it completed the job. Farewell, old friend. So our first stop of the trip was to buy a replacement, and truth be told I like it a lot better. Since we have a “whole house” inverter on our Airstream, I can now use a powerful 120-volt AC pump instead of that anemic 12-volt pump.

These sorts of bugs really slow down the departure day. You think you’re going to get somewhere and then stuff happens. It was noon before we had everything squared away, which led to us not getting very far. At first this was frustrating but then Eleanor pointed out that we’re not on a tight schedule. We’ve got plenty of time to get to Arizona.

For the next 2-3 weeks of travel across the country Eleanor and I have time to think. This trip is more than just a drive home; it’s a chance to gain perspective on what our future travels will be like. The trailer is bigger and quieter without Emma, but also less energetic and thrilling. Much of what we saw and did over the past 15 years has been channeled through our child, infused with her spirit and freshness, and I’ll miss that.

What will the next two decades of travel be like? I think we can only find out by moving forward, rather than bemoaning the inevitability of our little girl growing up. She’ll always be a part of it even if it’s only via picture messages and phone calls. Eleanor and I will hitch up again in the morning, and see what the road brings.

Oct 09 2017

One community, indivisible …

I was writing my Editor’s column for the upcoming issue of Airstream Life the other day, and part of it touched on the recent spread of Airstream’s product line. I’d like to expand on that here, because the space I allot for myself to bloviate in the printed magazine is very limited.

Once upon a time, and for several decades, Airstream meant aluminum travel trailers almost exclusively. There were a few experiments here and there with fiberglass (such as the “Wally Bee“) and with canned ham styling (the “Wally Byam Holiday” trailer), but otherwise Airstream stuck to what they knew. Even the painted Argosy trailer line in the 1970s was still mostly the same construction beneath.

The Airstream motorhomes of the 1970s were essentially trailer bodies laid atop commercial truck chassis. Even though the idea of an Airstream motorhome was initially unsettling to travel trailer purists, at least the final product resembled the beloved shape of the iconic Airstream trailer.

Sadly, things went downhill from there for a while. Airstream made a few stabs at expanding the product line in the 1980s and beyond, introducing creatively-challenged products such as the Legacy fifth-wheel series and white-box Land Yacht motorhomes, both of which were virtually indistinguishable from any other manufacturer’s if you removed the AIRSTREAM labeling. Those products might have been good for the bottom line at the time, but nobody remembers them fondly.

Around 2004-2005, when it became clear that the Class A motorhome business was dying, Airstream stopped producing white box motorhomes and began to try to think a little more out of the box—or perhaps “away from the box”. The first experiment was the Airstream Westfalia, a Mercedes Sprinter-based mini motorhome based on the popular James Cook sold in Europe. Airstream imported it and upfitted it to meet US standards starting in 2004.

I thought the Airstream Westfalia was a really cleverly-designed motorhome with a ton of potential, and so did Airstream leadership for a while. But dealers in the US didn’t seem to know how to sell it and Airstream buyers didn’t “get” it. At $85k or so (more than PleasureWay and RoadTrek competitors at the time) you’d want to really be convinced this was the right choice before buying. Only about 192 were imported before Airstream killed the product.

Then they tried the Basecamp, as a sort of rolling sporting goods hauler designed for Millennials and Gen-X’ers who hopefully would not care that it lacked a real kitchen, any sort of bathroom, and cost about $25k. Unfortunately, it turned out that the target market did care about those things. The optional Kelty tent for the rear didn’t save the original Basecamp from being compared to an expensive horse trailer.

Around the same time Airstream brought out the first Interstate motorhomes, based on the Mercedes Sprinter 2500 chassis. These Class B motorhomes were moderately successful as far as I know, but the real leap forward came a few years later when it was completely re-designed on the Sprinter 3500 chassis (dually rear wheels) and upgraded in just about every way possible.

Suddenly, Airstream couldn’t make enough of them, and even with the price rising from the $90k neighborhood to $150k+ over the past eight years, the Interstate has become the most popular diesel Class B motorhome on the market. For comparison, Airstream is selling this tight little 25-foot Class B for more than they had been selling their much-larger “white box” style Class A motorhomes in 2005!

In 2011 Airstream tried to dumb down the Interstate to attract a lower-budget audience by building it on a Chevy gas van platform. The short-lived Airstream Avenue was the result. It was a “me too” product: looked like everyone else’s B-van and didn’t have the elite Mercedes diesel drivetrain. There’s a good reason you’ve probably never seen one on the road. It bombed.

I think at this point the light went on for Airstream management. If making the Interstate better was the secret to success, maybe the earlier failures were not because they were too expensive relative to the competition—but not expensive enough! People didn’t want cheap Airstreams, they wanted better ones.

In that context it’s not surprising that the Basecamp eventually came back with a full kitchen, full (wet) bathroom, and lots of clever innovations that transformed it from a essentially empty shell to a functional travel trailer, without compromising the sporty aspect. It’s more expensive than the original design. And now they sell.

Well, since Airstream has cracked the code and the economy has been humming well for the past couple of years, Airstream’s new problem is keeping up with demand. Their response has been to come up with more cool ways to go traveling. For example they bought the design of the fiberglass Nest trailer invented by Robert Johans and will be producing that later this year.

The upcoming Winter 2017 issue of Airstream Life will have an in-depth interview with Airstream senior managers that reveals why they bought Nest, what they’re thinking, and how it will fit into the Airstream family.

The other news this month has been that Airstream is launching yet another new product, a Class C motorhome called “Atlas”. It’s also based on the Mercedes Sprinter 3500, but it’s much larger than the Interstate and priced at over $200k. (We’ll take a close look at Atlas in the Spring 2018 issue of Airstream Life.) This means Airstream will soon be selling five separate lines: Atlas, Nest, Base Camp, Interstate, and the classic aluminum travel trailers.

People often ask me if Airstream is just cannibalizing its own products. Well, of course they are smarter than that. If the Base Camp was eating into sales of the Airstream Sport 16 and 22-foot travel trailers (which are priced slightly higher), they would have noticed and done something about it. But so far every new product they’ve launched in recent years has found a new audience, expanding Airstream’s customer base. Atlas and Nest are expected to do the same.

This all sounds great for Airstream, and great for all those people who are now going to get an Airstream (Nest, Atlas, Basecamp) who would otherwise have not bought an aluminum travel trailer. But did Airstream think about my needs? Noooooooo.

See, I’ve always had a big challenge in publishing Airstream Life magazine: unifying the community. When I started the magazine in 2004, the hard part was trying to come up with articles that appealed to the vintage trailer owners (of which there are many) and the new trailer owners, plus a small contingent of motorhome owners. Hardly a month went by that I didn’t get a letter from someone griping that “The magazine has too many articles about [insert subject other people care about] and not enough articles about [insert name of letter-writer’s own trailer].”

I still get those letters from time to time. In fact last week someone wrote a lengthy note with their non-renewal, listing all the article categories that they didn’t like as well as a helpful list of the exact articles they’d like to see in the future. The letter concluded by saying that only if I complied would they consider mailing me $24 for a year’s subscription in the future.

(Sadly, it is my policy not to negotiate with hostage-takers. The $24 will have to be sacrificed.)

I try to explain to people that Airstream Life is not about the trailers. It was never about the trailers, or the motorhomes. It’s about the other things that Airstreamers are interested in: community, history, art & design, technology, destinations, etc. Sure, we talk about trailers and motorhomes, but if you look at any issue you’ll see that most articles are agnostic, talking about great adventures or ideas. Whether those things happened in a trailer or motorhome, vintage or new, it doesn’t matter. At least, that’s what I hope.

So in this respect I try to be a Great Unifier. Or to be more accurate, I try to help keep the Airstream community from fracturing. I’ll keep touting the message that no matter which Airstream you own, you’re a part of Airstream Life. Special interest groups within the Airstream community are cool, but in the end we’re all people united by a common love of travel, adventure, learning, socializing and —well, to be honest—eating.