Nov 14 2009

The story of the Caravel

It has been a long time since we last camped in our first Airstream, a 1968 Caravel. I suppose that a first trailer holds the same romantic spot in one’s heart as the first love, the first car, or the first house. It may not be the best one you’ll ever have, but it will always be the one that started you off on a road of adventure and travel.

Owning the Caravel was a life-changing moment for us. Emma was only three, and I was in another career. We had muddled our way through a few marginally-acceptable “family vacations” with the usual stresses and disappointments that go with shuttling a toddler around with aircraft and hotels. I was looking for a better way, and after months of research, I settled on the Caravel as something worth trying. We plunked down $5,500 and bought a car that could tow it, and struck out for a few trips together.

It was a hit — a huge hit. Between August 1 and October 12, we were out in the Caravel 20 nights, which is a lot for a rookie couple with a toddler and a full-time job. We camped at the biggest balloon festival in Canada, visited Acadia National Park in Maine, and explored numerous places in New England. I was so entranced by the lifestyle that I started Airstream Life magazine. It was a sad day when we had to finally winterize the trailer in mid-October (Vermont has a short camping season).

Since that 1968 Caravel, we have owned a series of other trailers, each with its own particular character and advantages. The 1977 Argosy 24, for example was a wonderful “upgrade” from the Caravel, with much more space and modern comforts. It was my first involvement in a full-blown DIY trailer restoration, starting from a severely water-damaged and virtually abandoned mess found in a damp Florida backyard. Together with Brett, we put half a year of restoration work, 600 hours of labor, and over $22,000 in parts into it. We sold it only because we had begun to travel full-time and needed more space.

A lot of other trailers have passed through our hands, some which we used and some which we re-sold without restoring despite their obvious assets. The 1953 Flying Cloud we found was a great trailer with a lot of potential, and so was the 1952 Cruiser … and the 1952 Boles Aero, and the 1963 Serro Scotty. All of those have found good homes and are either restored or in process. But we never adopted any of them in our hearts like the tiny 1968 Caravel. At just 17 feet, it is really too small for us to co-exist in it for long, and it had a lot of body damage and vintage quirks. Caravels are regarded as highly desirable, and we could have sold it easily at any time, probably for a profit. Yet, we kept it for sentimental reasons.

For the last five years the Caravel has been disassembled for restoration, with its guts torn out. We brought it in for a replacement axle in 2004 and discovered rampant floor rot, among many other problems. The scope of the job kept growing until we found ourselves with $18,000 sunk into the trailer, and completion still far away. The project came to a stop in 2005 and for the most part, the trailer has sat since, tightly sealed against the elements and wholly unusable.

In the summer of 2008 I finally decided to start the Caravel project again, but using my own labor (with Eleanor’s help) to complete the interior work. You can read about that in our Tour of America blog. We got about 80% of the woodwork done before we ran out of time. This summer, I had an invitation from my good friend Ken Faber to let his private restoration shop complete the job for me. (That same shop restored Ken’s one-of-a-kind Airstream named “Der Kleine Prinz” which was recently donated to the RV/Motorhome Hall of Fame.)

Even in the final stages, a restoration means lots of phone calls and debates about details. We thought we had all the hard work behind us, but still there were the details of things like hooks, hinges, trim and handles. These items seem small until you get them wrong, then you realize how important they really are. For the past few months we’ve been figuring out faucets, fabric, foam cushions, and finishes, and passing along all the information by phone to the guys who are doing the work.

And now, the trailer is nearly complete. Only the upholstery work remains. From a scratched, dented, rotting, and rusted (but well-loved) trailer, it is emerging as a shiny, clean and ship-shape silver pod that I can’t wait to sleep in. Ken has been teasing us with a few scattered pictures of the work in progress, and we made one interim visit back in September, but for the most part we haven’t seen the finished product yet.

Everything will be done in a couple of weeks, and I’ll be off to Michigan to pick up the trailer. So right now I’m thinking about all the things I’ll need in the car to outfit the trailer for the return trip to Tucson. It’s a more challenging pack job than you might think. I need to bring all of my personal stuff, my office stuff (so I can work from the road), all the furnishings for daily life like dishes and blankets, tools & parts, RV supplies, and work clothes for two days I’ll be stopped in Louisville KY for business. All of this will go into bins in the back of the Mercedes for the 2,200 mile drive north.

Of this list, perhaps the most important is the tool kit. Completely restored trailers always have bugs to work out. I may have to tighten a water fitting, replace some screws, or re-rivet a corner of the belly pan. When the trailer was new to us (35 years old), I was rather accustomed to having to fix or patch something on every trip. Paradoxically, at age 41 it should be more sturdy now. I wish that were true of people.

In the photos you can see a few details of the trailer that came about in this restoration. Colin Hyde oversaw the heavy work, handling all the exterior sheet metal replacement, removing the dents on top, adding a spare tire carrier, rebuilding the entry door, and many other things. Inside he installed a new plywood floor covered by Marmoleum, rebuilt the black tank, and refinished the entire bathroom. The Marmoleum was a big expense but I’m glad we chose it. It is incredibly durable and beautiful material. You can also see the new refrigerator (no more frozen lettuce and miniature ice cube trays!), the new catalytic heater, and the Marmoleum countertop. All of the furniture you can see in the photo was built and finished by us in summer 2008, and finalized & installed by Ken’s guys, Garrett and Jim. They did a nice job fitting the Marmoleum to the countertop and building matching wood trim for it.

What you can’t see is all new plumbing, a giant gray tank, new insulation throughout, new axle, brakes, tires, dump valves, window seals, wiring, power converter, battery, 12v breaker panel, window glass, door locks, and a thousand other details that have gone into this trailer. Like every good restoration I’ve ever seen, it has turned out better than hoped, and certainly much more expensive.

Now the question arises, what would anyone do with two Airstreams? We had considered keeping one in the northeast for excursions up there in the summer, but for various reasons that idea failed. We plan to keep the Caravel in locked storage in the Tucson area, somewhat pre-packed and readily accessible for spontaneous weekends. The sky islands in southern Arizona are mostly national forest lands, and they are dotted with gorgeous little campgrounds connected by dirt roads. These roads and campgrounds can generally only accommodate trailers of the sub-20-foot variety. That has kept us from exploring some great places in southern Arizona, like Chiricahua National Monument and the surrounding area.

We could have tented in those places, but when we are usually in Arizona the national forest campgrounds are cold because of their high elevation. A little Airstream with snug insulation and a catalytic heater is the perfect vehicle. It’s also the right choice for short trips where we want to get away from the “liveaboard” lifestyle that the big Safari allows, and get closer to a sense of “camping”. In the big trailer, it’s too easy to hole up inside, since it is so comfortable. The size of the Caravel forces us to live outside, and that’s a good thing when you want to engage your surroundings.

All of this anticipation has me actually looking forward to the marathon drive north after Thanksgiving. I plan to go alone; that way I can move quickly. If all goes well I’ll be back in a 10 or 11 days, but since I hate being on a tight schedule I will pack for two weeks and take my time on the way back if necessary. Want to come along? OK, cross your fingers and join me here for daily updates, starting November 28.

Nov 09 2009

All Souls Procession

In the southwest, the dead are very much with us, as they reputedly are in southeastern cities like Savannah and New Orleans. Influence from south of the border brings the dead close to us, particularly at this time of year, when the Mexicans observe El Día de los Muertos, or The Day Of The Dead.

The dead are not scary here. They are remembered as loved ones who have moved on, and even in their skeletal form they are looked upon fondly. It can be a little startling to a northerner to see altars in shops and homes featuring little skeletons dressed in their best clothes, alongside incense and gifts and remembrances. But to many people here, the dead are still family and their graves are places to visit.

Between October 31 and November 2, Mexican families in southern Arizona will go to their relatives’ gravesites and honor them. They’ll sweep the site and decorate it with gifts and flowers. They’ll repaint the name of the deceased on the cross, and perhaps spend the entire day visiting. The dead are remembered well, and their final resting places are not neglected.

So it is not surprising that Tucson (along with some other western cities) has several cultural events around this time. The biggest is the All Souls Procession, a 20-year tradition that looks like a mashup of Mardi Gras and Halloween, with a touch of Burning Man thrown in. At first impression it is a parade, with a route starting in Tucson’s funky Fourth Avenue district and winding through downtown Tucson past the historic Congress Hotel and Rialto Theater, for a mile and half.

But the All Souls Procession is more than a parade for many people. Those who walk in the route run the gamut. There are artistic displays, actors on stilts and unicycles, fantastic costumes, and even a “dead” array of marching bagpipers. There are also individuals waving photos of dear friends now gone and shouting out a description of their good character, and people waving posters of their dearly-departed cats. There are families pushing strollers, with even the children wearing skeletal face paint, and slackers slouching along with clove cigarettes in their street clothes.

Good wishes to the dead can be written on a form provided by the organizers, and burned in an altar at the end of the procession, but there is no formality at all to the proceedings. Whatever sort of remembrance or mourning you wish to do is generally accepted, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the other people.

When we arrived at the parade route along Congress Street we were reminded of Mardi Gras in New Orleans, but then the differences began to appear. The streets are not littered with drunk celebrants. There’s no screams of “throw me something, Mister!” or people flashing their body parts for trinkets. All Souls is a subdued celebration, and a family event. Anyone can participate. Dozens of people walked the parade route pushing baby strollers. There are signs of respect for the dead, and respectful protest (“Iraqi war dead,” “Death of the Pima County Library,” “Men, Women, and Children Killed By AIDS”). And just when it starts to feel like a carnival, somebody walks by with a somber look carrying a photo of a friend mounted on posterboard, with a list of that person’s wonderful attributes.

In this culture, people die three deaths. The first death is when bodies cease to function, the second death comes when the body is lowered into the ground and disappears from sight, and the third death is when there is no one left alive to remember.

I think there’s something in that. It is habitual for some to forget the dead and never speak of them again. But when you forget someone, all the lessons and experiences that person brought to your life are just as easily forgotten. El Día de los Muertos reminds everyone, especially the children, that the dead are more than markers in a graveyard; they are the people who made us who we are. I can see why the Latin American culture respects them every year.

More photos here.

Nov 01 2009

My week in tweets

From time to time in the course of a friendly conversation I’ll be asked why I don’t have a Facebook page, or why I don’t “tweet” on Twitter. A lot of my friends do, and I certainly am happy that they are having a good time doing it. Generally I give the quick and easy explanation that I have this blog, the Airstream Life web store, a photo/video site, and considerable email correspondence to keep me glued to the computer. I don’t really want any more. Besides, if there’s something you wanted to know about me that isn’t already revealed somewhere in the past five years of blogging (Vintage Thunder, Tour of America, Man In The Maze) then you are probably getting a little too close and personal.

Now that I think of it, that does seem to be exactly what people want. I mean, how many Twitter feeds are out there where people are talking about what they are eating right at that very moment? Twitter celebrates the mundane moments of our lives and encourages narcissism for even the most boring people. If you can convince friends and family to “follow me on Twitter!” you’ve created an audience for any sort of blather you might generate. You can tweet away in 160-character bursts, secure in the knowledge that all of those subscribers are forced to receive the latest news about your manicure or even your bowel movements.

Well, that’s true at least until people wise up. It’s as easy to tune out the noise as it is to sign up in the first place. For that reason, and because of a little business intuition, I will predict that the popular tweet-fest will subside rather rapidly soon, and the media will move on shortly, as they did with MySpace (remember them?) and dozens of others.

The gist of Twitter is that you can bore people, er, I mean “communicate with people,” in succinct 160-character notes. Because you can Twitter right from your mobile phone, you can do this all day long as you go through the motions of any day in the developed world. But I figure we can do one better than Twitter. With blog technology, I can give you all the tweets you’ve been dying for, all at once. In other words, why sit by your computer awaiting the next tidbit of my fascinating life, when you can sign in right now and get the week’s worth of news in one easy session?

So without delaying you even one more second (because we’re operating on “Internet time” and even ten seconds is too long to expect anyone to wait), here’s my week in tweets:

Back from Copperstate Fly-In. 3 tries to get Airstream in carport. Embarrassing.

Found more mouse droppings in kitchen. Can you say “hantavirus?” LOL

Looking for yellow tape at Lowe’s to mark carport. Maybe now E can back me in straight.

Eleanor back from grocery store. $200, and she used coupons! But got apple cider so I’m happy.

@bnsf Yes, she bought mouse traps too.

Can’t sleep waiting for SNAP sound all night. Why don’t they just leave voluntarily?

Why did the diesel pump at Fry’s shut off when my tank was just 5/8s full?

Remembered cider gives me gas. ROTFL. Actually, not exactly laughing.

Cold snap in Tucson: http://www.c4womenblog.com/2008/12/cold-snap-in-tucson.html

8 presenters signed up so far for next year’s trailer event. Woo-hoo!

Emma’s bat costume is nearly ready. I’m squirreling away Butterfingers & Snickers for myself.

Planning solo trip to Louisville starting Nov 28. Anyone need a trailer hauled from the southwest?

Cleaning Weber grill with heavy tools. Last night’s salmon stuck to it. Not LOL.

@lrko No sauce, just Deep South Tangerine Pepper dry rub. Sprayed the grill but it stuck anyway.

Winter 2009 issue of Airstream Life printed today. Should be in mail in a week or so. YMMV

Car show in Tucson: Cops and Rodders. Shot 100+ pics. http://www.copsandrodderstucson.org/

Eleanor’s new MacBook arrived. Logic board and hard drive dead on old iBook G4. (4sale)

About 40 kids for Halloween. Nice warm night. Then I watched The Big Lebowski.

And there you have it. Fascinating, eh? An utter failure to inform in a meaningful way, and a nearly-complete failure to entertain, in easily-digested bursts of 160 characters or less.

There’s a lot of credence given to the theory that “today’s generation” doesn’t read, doesn’t have an attention span, respects only what they read online, etc. People point to the failure of daily newspapers all over the country as evidence that someday, everything will be online. Maybe it will be. But that day will be a long time coming. There’s still value in old media.

Perhaps I’m biased as a publisher of a print magazine, but I don’t think so. After all, I’ve introduced an online version of Airstream Life. I believe in the value of online as a new medium. My suspicion starts when people assume that semi-literate yakking about trivia will replace deliberate thought. No, Twitter won’t replace the beauty of good composition, exchange of intellect, a well-researched report, or meaningful debate. (Daily newspapers could have remained relevant in an online-oriented world, if they had less arrogance about their exalted position in society, and more willingness to re-invent themselves to suit the modern competitive environment.)

For many people, tweeting is a way to have their own little reality show. Like “reality TV,” the only compelling stories are faked, exaggerated, staged, or incited. Some people are happy to fight with their spouses (or someone else’s spouse, a la Wife Swap) on TV for money. Most of us would prefer to keep that sort of thing private. It’s the same with Twitter: those who have something to promote or gain will contribute, and many of them will lie or tell only the truth that suits them; the rest will be boring. Very few people have the ability to say anything interesting and true in 160 characters.

But now everyone, regardless of talent or motivation, can have their own communications channel to the world. It’s like blogging, except that the signal-to-noise ratio is much worse. There’s not much chance of meaningful value being conveyed with a tweet.

So now you know the real reason I don’t use Twitter. I could break down my day into 160-character blips, but the nuance and richness of life, the exploration of ideas, the ability to invoke emotion and sway opinion, and much more would be lost. As a writer, I can’t find satisfaction in writing only shallow phrases, while foregoing sentences and paragraphs. As an editor, it’s hard for me to respect the content that comes through the Twitter stream. The pen is still mightier than the sword, but only for those who know how to use it.

PS: If you comment on this blog entry, please restrict your thoughts to 160 characters or less!

Oct 28 2009

Copperstate Fly-In

Traveling via Airstream is great, but I also love being able to park at an event and spend the night. At the end of a day at the fair, jam, balloon fest or rally it’s really nice to just retire to your home rather than getting in the car to drive away. When you’re camped at the event, you’re usually away from the general parking crowd and close to the action, too. That’s why we took the Airstream to the Copperstate Fly-In rather than just making a long daytrip out of it (80 miles from our home in Tucson).

The Copperstate Fly-In is not so large that access is a problem even for casual visitors, but still it was nice to be camped just a few feet from the flight line. The RV camping area is just a dusty parking lot with white chalk lines to delineate sites — nothing fancy at all. No hookups, just blue porta-potties and trash cans. For $10 a night it was a decent value because of the proximity. We could see the aircraft taking off without even leaving our site, and easily hear when some warbirds were starting up for some formation flying.

The only downside for us was the generators. Quiet hours were posted for nighttime, but during the day several RV’ers left their generators running up to six hours. We were unlucky enough to be parked near several of them, and the fumes were constant. I’ve seen many cases where people did this in hot weather because they (or their pets) needed air conditioning. Dealing with heavy generator use seems to be a regular factor when we attend these sorts of events.

Being October in the Sonoran desert, we could have gotten any kind of weather. We were lucky enough to get near-perfect weather for a fly-in: highs in the low 80s, clear skies, and not much wind to kick up dust. Visibility was typical for this area, about 20-30 miles. Like most fly-ins, access to the airplanes and the owners was excellent, so we could walk up and talk to anyone about anything we saw on the field.

I spent a lot of time with the Cirrus guys and sat in the SR-22 G3 Turbo X (fantasizing), and also chatted with owners of powered paragliders, warbirds, biplanes, helicopters, and light sport aircraft. There were also amphibious aircraft, homebuilts, and a gyrocopter.

By the way, Emma was very comfortable in the Cirrus’ back seat, and it looks pretty easy to fly. Does anyone want to make a donation? I just need another $600,000 to buy it.

If you want to see more pictures from Copperstate, check out my Flickr album. I uploaded 156 photos there, enough to satisfy all the airplane buffs in my audience, I hope.

We spent three nights camped at Casa Grande Municipal Airport, so there was plenty of time for side trips to the area around Phoenix. One stop we made was to the Queen Creek Olive Mill, to take the $5 tour. It’s a relatively brief one, involving an informative talk about olives, olive oil, and the pressing process, and then a quick look at the room where the extra-virgin oil is pressed out. The pressing machine itself is the least interesting thing. It’s basically a large box from which oil and “pomace” (leftover olive bits after pressing) come out. But the guide and informative signs all around are educational, and the gift shop/restaurant are well done. I recommend the gelato.

This trip is one of the very few times we’ve done an “out and back” short trip from our winter home base. The nature of these trips changes a lot of our assumptions about how we travel and what we do. Most people do only these sorts of trips, but for us it is the exception, and we are still getting used to it. Some aspects are really great, like the low fuel consumption. In four days we used only 1/2 a tank of fuel including 140 miles of towing and about 150 additional miles not towing. Other aspects are not so great, like the day we spent re-packing the Airstream.

If there were more multi-day events available in the area with RV parking, I think we’d do more … something for event organizers to consider. I certainly intend to take my own advice. Here’s a sneak preview. Next year, Airstream Life magazine will be hosting a major event. It should be great fun, with seminars, vendors, entertainment, a barbecue, and much more. It will be open to all RV owners (Airstream and non-Airstream, new and vintage), but be warned, if you show up in an non-Airstream trailer we will convert you on the spot! As to location, all I can say is that it will be east of the Mississippi. I can’t reveal more at this time but there will be a formal announcement with all the details sometime in November.

The corollary to this is that the popular Vintage Trailer Jam will not be back in 2010. The co-sponsors of the event have decided not to continue with it. We all had fun but we’ve decided to let it go. So if you’ve got time next summer, keep an eye open for the new event.

Oct 21 2009

Home life didn’t last long …

We’ve been in the house for nearly a week. Time to hit the road!

I’m serious. We haven’t even unpacked the Airstream from our four month odyssey this summer, and we’ve already found a reason to take off again. On Sunday I was doing what suburbanites do all over the USA: reading the Sunday paper. (In my case, it was mostly for the novelty of it, since I haven’t read a Sunday paper in about a year.) And there it was — an ad for the Copperstate Fly-In,the fourth-largest fly-in event in the USA.

To appreciate how that hit me, you need to know that I was for several years a card-carrying member of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) and the Experimental Aircraft Association. In those heady days B.K. (Before Kid) when we had disposable income from two well-paying jobs, we owned an airplane which we flew all over the east coast. My mother, father, and one older brother all have pilot’s licenses.

In the era B.K. my brother and I flew to major aviation events including EAA’s Oshkosh, the world’s biggest fly-in, and camped next to the airplane in a tent along with 13,000 other aircraft. My brother and I also flew to the 2nd largest fly-in event, Sun-n-Fun, in central Florida, and camped there too.

The third largest fly-in is the Arlington Fly-In, held up in the northwest. I haven’t made it to that one yet. But I was pleasantly surprised to see that the fourth largest fly-in is held only about 80 miles from our home, right here in southern Arizona, this week!

It seems like the perfect diversion from sedentary suburban life. The weather in southern Arizona is ideal right now, and it’s a shame to spend the time cooped up in the office. I think Eleanor is not in a hurry to settle into housewife mode either. All I had to do was mention the existence of Copperstate, and she was immediately on board.

Hey, what’s not to like? Dry RV camping for ten bucks a night, right by the action. Aerial demonstrations, rides, exhibits, and all kinds of aircraft. We’ll see warbirds, ultralights, historic aircraft, plenty of home-built aircraft, helicopters, and who know what else. When the action slows down, I can return to the Airstream to do some work, take a nap, have lunch — or we can drive a short distance to Tempe and Scottsdale for some retail action. (We’ve got a few things on our list at REI, IKEA, and other places up there.)

One of the really great parts about camping at a fly-in is that you can always hear the sound of engines coming and going, all kinds of different engines. Old rotaries radials on the antique fabric bi-planes, pistons on the modern single-engine craft, turbines on the big boys, little 2-strokes on the ultralights, and lots of variants. Pilots love aircraft noise. It is part of the fun of being on the field. I remember one damp morning, very early, at Oshkosh when we were overflown by a low-altitude diamond formation of WW II bombers. I’ll never forget it. The sound was so thunderous and menacing that we all were shaken from a sound sleep and rolled out of our tents thinking (in our half-awake state) that we were going to die. It was great.

So I hope for a few exciting moments like that, this week. Feeling the ground shake as 50-year-old warbirds fly over gives you a tiny taste of the fear of war. In that moment when the bombers passed by, I suddenly knew the terror and helplessness that people must have felt in Europe when the machines of World War II visited them. I think that’s an experience that would be good for anyone, to have perspective on what it means to go to war.

And during the rest of the time, I hope Copperstate causes us to meet some local aviation folks, and maybe a few RV’ers. I’d like to explore the possibility of getting back into aviation in the next few years. It would be fun to do a little flying again, perhaps in an ultralight like we used to do in Vermont.

So now we are re-packing the Airstream. Since we took very little out of it, our re-packing efforts are more about removing things than loading up. Eleanor has unloaded some heavy items like Emma’s schoolbooks and her sewing machine, and we’ve taken out the things that we were transporting from Vermont. We’ve filled the fresh water tank and defrosted the refrigerator. Tomorrow I’ll toss my office bag back in there and hitch up. That should do it.

Still, I’m keeping a lot of stuff in the trailer that, strictly speaking, we don’t need for a three day trip. I can justify this because it’s more trouble that it’s worth to remove those things, but the real reason is that I want to leave the option open to extend the trip. What if we suddenly get the brainstorm to keep wandering, say, up to Roosevelt Lake for a few days? It would be a drag if we couldn’t only because we left some piece of equipment behind. So we are packed as if we are going out indefinitely. I doubt we will stay out more than three days, but anything could happen …