Apr 06 2010

Readying for summer 2010

As always, we are looking six to eight months into the future to plan our travels this season. This year the plan is fairly ambitious for a family that is supposedly not full-timing anymore. We will leave Tucson in early May and likely not return until mid-November.

I’m not entirely sure about this amount of time on the road this year. Life in Arizona has been pleasant and easy, and I like to be here for at least a little of the hot weather. Last year we stayed until mid-June and got a solid month of 100-degree days, which I actually like except for the air conditioning bill. And usually we get back in October, just in time to catch the last week or two of hot days and warm nights. So I find myself reviewing the tentative travel plan and wondering, “Do we really need to be out that long?”

But when I flip over my Magic 8-Ball, the answer keeps coming up “Yes.” We have a lot to do this year. I am launching a new magazine (first issue due out in October 2010, topic to be announced later) and that means double-duty on the road. We’ll be doing both Airstream stuff, like Alumapalooza, and prep work for the new magazine all over the country. Plus, we are expecting to attend a wedding on the east coast, and visit family. So Eleanor and I have been playing “connect the dots” with the US map, and we’ve strung together a route that basically goes like this: AZ-CO-OH-NY-VT-MA-CT-VA-NC-GA-FL-LA-TX-NM-AZ. I figure we’ll log about 14,000 miles all inclusive, over six months.

(Flags on the map are only the stops we know of at this time. We’ll make others …)

This may be the last year we can pull off this sort of mega-trip. Our daughter is reaching an age where she has responsibilities and long-term projects that can only be completed at home base. I am gradually accumulating projects that may require a little more air travel, too. We’re going to have to face some tough decisions in 2011. So as always, we need to look at this trip as if it might be our last, and try to make the most of it.

Part of our pre-expedition prep is to get the tow vehicle and Airstream in shape. The Airstream is already set to go, in fine running condition thanks to work done on our California trip in January. (I can’t wait to log some real miles on those new Michelin LTX tires and see if they live up to the promise! Finally, a trip without multiple tire failures? Wouldn’t that be nice?)

The Mercedes is also set to go, but I’m going to make a few improvements. One item to be installed will be a clear paint protector on the hood, mirrors, and forward part of the fenders. Here in Arizona you can tell the mileage of a car just by counting the chips in the hood and grill paint, thanks to our sandy/gravelly environment. The Mercedes is less than a year old, but already has two chips in the paint on the hood and a few more on the mirrors. Since I plan to keep it for a long time, I guess I’ll spend the money on the paint shield. Bah. We didn’t have to do this on the Armada, because its hood was much higher off the ground. I’ve noticed that the lower the hood on a car, the more quickly it gets dinged.

Another upgrade will be to install Ingo’s camera. Last January when we were camping in Anza Borrego Desert State Park, a fellow named Ingo Werk happened to be camping nearby. Ingo and I “knew” each other only via the Internet (a couple of years ago he contributed a small article to Airstream Life magazine), so it was nice to finally meet in person. He’s an Airstream owner of course, but it turns out that he also has a company that makes automotive upgrades — and his latest product is “INGO VISION,” a very cool backup camera system with “night vision” and two cameras. One camera goes on your tow vehicle, and the other goes on your Airstream.

I saw this in operation on Ingo’s rig and was very impressed. There’s a 7-inch LCD screen that mounts in your truck and operates the cameras. At the push of a button you can see the view from either camera. The system is wired rather than wireless (so you can get a reliable and extremely clear view in color). With his “premium cam” Ingo supplies wiring and connectors so you can hook up the Airstream camera from the truck using a quick-disconnect plug. When you are towing, you can constantly monitor the traffic behind your Airstream on the LCD screen. When you’re not towing, the backup cam on the truck still works, which is handy for hitching up.

There was only one problem for us. The interior space of the GL320 is pretty limited, and I could not find a place to mount the 7″ screen where it would not crowd us. In a typical truck or larger SUV there would be no problem, but we are already struggling with a GPS and tire pressure monitor in a fairly tight cockpit. Fortunately, I discovered the wizards at Mid-City Engineering, who make OEM-quality upgrade modules for various cars. They have a little magic interface box that will make the Ingo Vision camera image appear right on the built-in nav screen in the car. Very cool.

So I’ve gotten that box and arranged for the local car electronics place to install it tomorrow, along with the plug on the back of the Merc for the Airstream’s camera. I’ll still need to mount the Ingo Vision camera on the back of the Airstream, and string the camera wire from front to back of the Airstream, but that should be a reasonable DIY job. Once it is all running, I’ll be able to watch the view behind the Airstream while towing, which should be a huge help to my overall situation awareness. (Normally I’m all about looking forward and not backward, but in this case I’ll make an exception.) I’ll post pictures of the setup in a separate blog post, later.

Finishing up house projects is the other major task before we go. We have begun to take our house a little more seriously, so we are very slowly fixing the things that we have ignored over the past three years. None of the projects are huge, but it’s important to tie up all the loose ends before we take off. Mostly that means planting a few trees and getting them established, fixing some drainage issues, finalizing some painting projects, zapping the weeds, and other such homebody tasks.

Doing these things helps motivate me to leave. I don’t like doing house maintenance. Once we are on the road, we can forget we have a house and just live in the moment. It’s always briefly disorienting, then freeing, and finally comforting to know that don’t need to a house and all the stuff that goes with it. When we are in the house, that perspective is hard to maintain.

We’ve got one more camping trip planned locally before we take off. Sometime in the next two weeks we’ll go to southeastern Arizona to explore the wonderful Chiricahua National Monument and some great national forest campsites nearby. This will be a Caravel trip, since the big Safari won’t fit in those campsites. The mountains run about 5,000-7,000 feet, which is why we’ve waited as late as possible in the season to visit them. Even in mid-April we’ll probably have freezing nights. But this area has been on our “to do” list for three years and if we don’t go in April we won’t be able to go again until sometime in 2011. There won’t be nightly blog reports since I don’t expect any cellular service, but I’ll post a full report upon our return.

Feb 02 2010

Tow vehicle on the track

Towing a big trailer intimidates a lot of people when they try it for the first time. It should, because you can very quickly get into trouble when towing. It requires drivers to learn a new set of skills, and apply good driving practices at all times. I think it is particularly intimidating when you’ve just signed a loan agreement obligating you to 10 years of monthly payments, and you realize that a considerable portion of your net worth is now rolling along with you, presenting a large and shiny target for every nutcase driver on the road. A new truck/Airstream combination can easily come in at $80-100k. Atop that, there’s the knowledge that you, your family, and your dog are all going to be involved in any accident you get into.

So suddenly those “defensive driving” tips you have taken not-so-seriously rise to an unprecedented level of importance. Suddenly you’re the one cursing that guy who cut in between you and the car in front of you, using up all the distance and reducing your time to react. Now you’re paying attention to the rollover warning sign on the Interstate exit ramp, and the 25-MPH speed limit on the big cloverleaf intersection. You realize, “Hey, they mean me” when you are towing two or three tons of expensive housing behind you.

In late 2000, Eleanor had a rollover accident with baby Emma in the car, and ever since I’ve been interested in getting both of us some advanced driver training. We know how to drive, but do we really have the instincts to react properly when it all suddenly goes very wrong at 60 MPH? I’d like us both to have some more confidence about our abilities in adverse situations, and the trained reactions to avoid a crash.

Now, after years of Airstream ownership and years of full-time travel, I am pretty sure I know how to handle my Airstream. The number one rule is simple: SLOW DOWN. There are many other practical rules as well, involving getting in and out of tight spots, evaluating situations before getting trapped in them, backing up, passing, rough roads, etc. I’ve got all those pretty well figured out by now, mostly as a result of painful experience.

The thing that concerns me about towing is not the trailer, but the tow vehicle. Most tow vehicles have a high center of gravity and are more prone to rollover than the average car. Adding an Airstream actually tends to help with this, by putting weight down low and stabilizing the vehicle — if properly hitched. But adding people, fuel, and cargo usually raises the center of gravity in an SUV, and most drivers aren’t aware of this until they notice adverse handling.

Moreover, pickup trucks and SUVs are generally lousy at high-speed maneuvers. They aren’t designed for that. You’ve got a narrow maneuverability envelope to work in at highway speeds. Exceed the envelope, and the tow vehicle will go out of control, often without much advance warning. That’s further reason to understand the limits of your vehicle, and to train yourself how to react properly.

Last weekend a local car club was holding a “Defensive Driving” course up in Phoenix, and we signed up. The instructors recommended showing up in the vehicle you drive the most, so we brought our Airstream’s tow vehicle, the Mercedes GL320. At 6,000+ pounds, it was by far the largest and heaviest car on the track. Most people were in small sedans or sportscars.

The course included about half an hour of “chalk talk” followed by individual instruction on a course set out in the parking lot of a former Wal-Mart. We took turns driving through the course with an instructor in the right seat. The tasks included an emergency lane-change maneuver, a slalom, an emergency brake followed by immediate lane change, and a panic stop strong enough to engage the anti-lock brakes.

I thought all of this would be routine, but I was surprised. Each task had an unexpected element to it. In the emergency lane change, I discovered how easy it is to go the wrong way when you’ve got to make a snap decision. In the slalom, I was frankly amazed at the handling of the GL320 — it went through much faster than I had expected.

The panic stop was a particular challenge for me. I thought I was pressing pretty hard on the brakes, but I had to try three times before getting the ABS to kick in. Once I did, the GL320 came a stop really fast. Turns out that I’ve been holding back on the brakes, probably as a result of learning to drive up in Vermont without ABS, in the snow, where you’ve got to keep a light foot on the brake to avoid skidding. Old habits die hard, but that one needs to go. The ABS computer can do a better job of modulating the brake pressure than I can.

After lunch, the course was re-set as an autocross. Racing your “daily driver” through the course is the icing on the cake at these events. We walked the course twice, then Eleanor and I each took a couple of tries at it. On our second try, we were timed. You can see me driving the autocross course at our Airstream Life photo/video community. My time was 49 seconds, Eleanor’s was 51. Not bad actually, considering the vehicle we were in. (Our past tow vehicle, a much larger and taller Nissan Armada, probably would have skidded excessively or tipped over if I’d driven it that hard.) The best time of the day was set by a past national autocross winner, at 38 seconds (in a Mercedes E300), and I think the highest time was 55 seconds.

Sure enough, leaving the event I had a sense of much greater confidence in the vehicle, knowing much more accurately how far I could push it in a turning or braking maneuver. We’re far from professional drivers at this point, but the day was well spent and I hope we’ll advance our skills later in another similar event.

Nov 28 2009

I-10 from Tucson AZ to Midland TX

I woke up at 4 a.m. Without looking at a clock I knew it was far too early to be getting up for the big drive today. The Great Horned Owl was still shrieking in the back yard, warning off his potential rivals in between soft hoots. His warning call is like the screech of a frightened small child, and it always wakes us up. But he never does it in the morning, so I knew I had to get back to sleep if I was to be ready for ten hours of driving. I rolled over and tried not to think about what lay ahead.

The strange thing is that we go on roadtrips all the time, and I don’t have this sort of nervous anticipation normally. Something felt different about this one, but why should I be surprised? Traveling without E&E, hotels instead of Airstream, and a rigid 600-mile per day schedule. Everything was different.

Well, I did get a few hours more sleep, and was finally rolling away at 7:50 a.m. The trip started off with a bad omen: the GPS would not power on. It worked fine just two days ago. Why should it suddenly die? I took it along anyway, thinking that by wiggling some cords or perhaps applying some other form of persuasion I would get it working again along the way. The day’s route was as simple as could be. Get on I-10, and stay there for 600 miles. I didn’t think I’d need it for a while.

I did stop at The Thing in Arizona, but the sky was gloomy and my photographer alter ego said to try again on the way back, when I have the Airstream in tow. I took a few half-hearted snapshots of the exterior and continued on.

Along the road I counted five Airstreams, all headed west. One of them was a Caravel, just like the one I’m going to pick up, which gave me a pang of wistfulness. I wished I had it in tow already, and I was heading for Big Bend National Park instead of Louisville.

But for today there was the compensation of just driving the heck out of the car without anything in tow. Mercedes enthusiasts says it is “autobahn ready,” which means theoretically I should be able to go 150 MPH with no trouble. In reality the car is electronically limited to 130 MPH, and even in Texas that’s a big ticket. The speed limit was 75 through Arizona and New Mexico, and once I was about 30 miles past El Paso things opened up to a neat 80 MPH, which meant I could at least flirt with what the car could do in those big empty spaces between El Paso and Van Horn.

By the numbers: 622 miles total driving, average speed 73, fuel economy a startling 26.7 miles per gallon! I hadn’t expected such good fuel economy at 80 MPH, but speed doesn’t seem to affect the fuel economy on this car very much. After 622 miles the computer said I could go another 59 miles, but when the orange “low fuel” indicator went on I decided to call it quits. I was in Midland, where I had planned to stop anyway. It was just a matter of finding the hotel I had reserved. And then I remembered: no GPS.

The dead Garmin is still a week inside it’s one-year warranty period, so tomorrow I’ll call for a return authorization, and when it comes back we’ll have a GPS for each car. In the meantime, I need a functioning one to navigate my way around half a dozen cities on this trip. Fortunately, all along America’s highways one can find handy superstores, so I stopped at the first one I saw and bought a replacement GPS.

And with that, I found my hotel, grabbed some takeout dinner, unloaded my valuables into the room, and settled in to update you with the millionth re-run of “Caddyshack” playing on the TV in the background. I think the presence of a cheap room, cheap takeout, and a brainless old movie at the end of the day completes the requirements for this to be an official roadtrip. It has been a long day, and tomorrow another long day lies ahead.

Nov 27 2009

The ghost of Thanksgiving future

For us, Thanksgiving was last weekend. We’re splitting off into different directions tomorrow, and Eleanor wisely did not want to make a her normal “ginormous” meal and then have nobody around to eat the leftovers, so we did the big feast last Sunday. Three of us and two guests cut into the delicious goodies Eleanor made, and we barely made a dent.

We’ve been eating leftovers since. Twice a day, every day, it’s turkey, gravy, roasted vegetables, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry relish, pumpkin soup — probably the same sort of thing that you are salivating over today. Well, let me tell you, enjoy it while it’s still a novel experience. Because I’m your future, and I can tell you that in three days, you’ll be begging to be released from leftover jail.

(Image credit: Brad Cornelius)

Emma mutinied this morning. I was prepared to surrender on Tuesday but after seeing how much was remaining of that 23-lb bird I felt it was my husband-ly duty to persevere, even though my mouth was craving something — anything — different. We managed to wipe out the soup, 90% of the vegetables, the cranberries, 80% of the stuffing, and the gravy, but that darned fowl is still sitting in the refrigerator, taunting us from under a tent of aluminum foil. When Emma cracked, I lost my willpower as well and we declared the season of Thanksgiving leftovers officially over.

Tonight I want Chinese food with lots of unidentifiable MSG-laden sauce. Or maybe spaghetti with spicy meatballs and lots of chopped garlic. Anything that has pungent odors for the palate and alternate textures for the tongue will do. Just please, no more “white meat or dark meat?” this week.

So without traditional Thanksgiving things to do, we are spending the day packing. E&E are flying up to Vermont for a visit to the seasonal gloom and wet (just kidding, they’re really going to see family), and that is an adventure that requires much packing, analysis, unpacking and repacking (repeat ad infinitum). I am leaving for a major roadtrip to Louisville KY and Grand Rapids MI, among other spots.

The roadtrip will be a screamer compared to the way we usually travel. Being solo, I can roll out of bed, jump in the car, and knock off 800 miles before dinner. Bathroom stops will be brief & infrequent, lunches can be eaten with one hand at 75 MPH (or during a very short rest area stop), and the route will be 100% high-speed Interstate highway. My route is easy to remember — I-10, I-20, I-30, and I-40 — but being Interstates, the drive itself should be pretty forgettable. Thanks to the wide-open spaces of the west, in my entire first day I will pass through only one major metro that could slow me down (El Paso). The rest of the time the speed limit is 75-80 MPH and there’s not a whole lot to bother stopping for.

Actually, I might detour very slightly in Arizona to drop in on “The Thing.” I know what The Thing is (but I’m not telling!) My reason for stopping is to get a few photos for an upcoming article in Airstream Life (Spring 2010) about “America’s Favorite Tourist Traps.” But other than that, I don’t plan to stop for much until at least Odessa, TX. That’s 600+ miles from Tucson. I don’t even expect to stop for fuel, ’cause like the other Mercedes Bluetec diesels, the GL320 can get up to 700 miles out of a tank when there’s no Airstream dragging it down. That’s a feature I haven’t had a chance to test out yet. So with a few distractions like these I’ll try to make the trip more interesting for myself.

In case you are wondering, the thing pictured above isn’t The Thing. But it’s a Thing anyway. I don’t know what the heck it is, really. It seems to be the result of Brad working out a nightmare he had. He’s a brilliant illustrator and that means sometimes odd things come out of his head. He’s the guy responsible for the Alumapalooza poster design, as well as all the Tin Hut illustrations that have appeared in Airstream Life, and if you come to Alumapalooza next summer you can meet him.

One last thing to do tonight: cut up the remaining turkey and freeze it. Eleanor says there’s enough left that we can have it for Christmas, and the carcass will become soup. It seems the ghost of this turkey will be haunting us for some time to come.

Oct 10 2009

Exploring the Green River, Canyonlands NP

Staying a third night at Horsethief campground turned out to be a good move. Eleanor’s back was not ready for backpacking, but just a short distance from the campground was a 12.9 mile dirt road (Mineral Road) that led through BLM land to Green River just west of where it enters Canyonlands National Park. This road is favored by mountain bike touring groups. They start at the Rt 313 end (8 miles from the Visitor Center of the park) and cycle to the edge of the canyon, then get a ride back.

The sad thing is that they see the least interesting part of this long dusty road. It rolls up and down across a fairly featureless scrub plain with almost no canyon views until the very end. But just a few feet further, the road becomes an adventure, zig-zagging down into the river canyon to the banks of the Green River. In the photo above, you can see us starting the trip down.

This road is much easier and more civilized than the Shafer Trail, and easily twice as wide in most places, but there are still a few tight and “interesting” spots to keep you awake. It might look smooth and easy from the picture, but that’s deceiving — 4WD is a very good idea and don’t expect to go more than about 8 MPH at any point. Still, it’s a drive almost anyone who is not terrified of heights can make.

At the bottom you have a choice: left to follow the river, eventually to enter Canyonlands and the White Rim 4WD road; or right one mile to the Mineral Bottom boat launch. We tried left and explored along the river for a while, then turned around after a few miles and went to the boat launch for a picnic. Rafters launch here for multi-day trips. A few miles from this point, the Green and Colorado Rivers meet in a confluence and then begins some of North America’s greatest whitewater rafting, so I’m told. The group we saw departing was off for a week, heading all the way to Lake Powell.

Once back, we decided to check out the Gemini Bridges, also near the Horsethief campground. No 4WD needed for this trip, since it’s just a typical dirt road most of the way. The Gemini Bridges are a pair of natural sand stone bridges that you can walk over (or beneath if you approach by a different route) — well worth the trip off pavement to explore. The hike from parking lot to the bridges is only a quarter-mile or so.

We left the Canyonlands early this morning, spurred on by the need to get to Cortez CO (150 miles away) before the post office closed. Before departing Cortez I felt the need to pick up some diesel and ventured into a Shell station that I shouldn’t have. Normally I check carefully before turning into a station but in this case the sun was right in my eyes and I couldn’t determine the situation clearly until we were committed. Of course, it was one of those impossible arrangements for trailers, and we got wedged in between some pumps and the building.

What to do? Well, first, may as well fill up. So we did that, and evaluated the situation while the pump was running. There was no chance of proceeding forward, and no room to back up. We’ve been in tight spots before, and one thing I’ve learned is that you never panic, and always remember that other cars can be moved. Eleanor got out and started negotiating with a guy parked behind us so that we could carefully back up into his space. Then another parked car moved and we were able to start see-sawing back and forth to straighten the trailer a little.

To escape, we needed the cars in the middle pump aisle to clear out entirely. This was tricky because the gas station was very busy, and clueless people in little cars kept zipping in and out. Meanwhile, the owner of a Porsche Cayenne seemed intent on not merely washing his windshield, but detailing his car right there at the pump. Once he finally cleared the aisle, Eleanor stood blocking the entry. I maneuvered the trailer a little more — veeeeery carefully — to both get a better starting position and to intimidate anyone foolish enough to try to slip past me. A little more negotiation ensued, and soon the next car left. Vroom! We were outta there.

And of course as we drove through Moab, we passed at least three other stations with wide open spaces for big trailers and diesel fuel for five cents less per gallon…