Jan 04 2016

A good trip is worth some effort (and money)

It’s roadtrip time again. After several quiet weeks of relaxing and taking care of lots of little things (including a set of kittens from the Humane Society), we are getting ready to launch the Airstream for a few weeks in California.

The trip will be great fun, but getting ready to go has been stressful. The big thing for me was the putting in another refrigerator cooling unit—again—with another “lifetime warranty” replacement unit. (The lifetime of the first one was six months.) Putting in a cooling unit is a hassle. It takes two guys to get the fridge out of the trailer, and about four hours for me to do the swap and re-install. The end product always includes a few bleeding fingers and some back pain. So I don’t enjoy it.

Just in case you read a prior blog about this and were wondering if the company that sold me the cooling unit has risen to the customer service challenge since last I posted, the answer is NO. They have been uniformly anemic: Calls not returned, endless excuses, and delays were the name of the game. From the time I gave them the results of the tests they required (to prove failure of the first cooling unit) to the time they finally shipped the replacement was about three weeks. It was another two weeks before I got it, in early December.

I installed it last weekend and guess what? It doesn’t work. Wouldn’t produce any significant cooling even after running full-bore for 24 hours. In fact, the one I sent back was actually working better. I sent them a message to let them know but of course nobody replied.

Enough of the fridge battle. I bought a new Dometic this morning from a local store and popped it in this afternoon. (I’m getting very good at replacing refrigerators.) It is presently doing its thing quietly in the carport, and I expect ice in the freezer come morning. As I often say lately, there aren’t many problems that can’t be solved by throwing large amounts of cash at them. In this case, fifteen hundred simoleons. That may seem like a lot but it’s a good deal compared to replacement cooling units that don’t last or don’t even work out of the box.

(Thank you for reading my rant. I feel a little better. I’ll now switch to some happier information.)

Our upcoming trip is the result of several happy accidents and confluences. We will start off in Quartzsite to get a long-awaited inverter installation. I’m going to be evaluating a new Xantrex pure sine wave inverter that will power our microwave oven even while boondocking, which should be a real convenience.

Then we’ll head to Death Valley to meet friends and camp for a few days. Our next major stop will be Malibu CA for a bit of seaside camping and a chance to overlap a night with some other Airstream friends, then up to the SF Bay area to attend an Airstreamers’ wedding and visit Silicon Valley friends we haven’t seen in many years.

Then we plan to take Route 1 down the California coast (yes, you can do that with a 30-foot Airstream, no problem), and after a couple of nights we’ll head back to home base in Tucson. All told, about three weeks on the road.

You’ll notice the word “friends” appearing frequently in the above trip plan. This trip is entirely driven by our desire to share experiences with good people, many of whom we’ve met along the road in prior travels. We always see some friends on every trip, but it’s a particularly good trip where nearly every stop has a friendly face waiting at it.

Right now Eleanor and I are working through long lists of things that must be done before we can leave, and it’s a lot of work. Earlier today when we realized the fridge was dead and a few other obstacles popped up we considered delaying the trip. But I know that once we get rolling, all the effort to get ready on time (and the sliced fingers, and the money) will be worth it.

Nov 21 2015

Learning to do an Airstream pre-trip inspection

Last week I got a call from a local Airstream owner who wanted to know where he could get a pre-trip inspection before going to the beach in Puerto Peñasco, Mexico. This owner had recently purchased my Airstream maintenance guide recently but he didn’t feel ready to do this inspection himself.

I can understand that. It takes time to absorb all the information and feel confident that you’re not going to overlook something important. The temptation is always there to just call a professional and pay them to inspect instead.

That’s why in the book I recommend that new owners start learning to inspect while their Airstream is still new, so they can become accustomed to how things are supposed to be. Any changes that occur later will be a lot more obvious that way.

This particular Airstreamer was quoted $350 by a shop to get an inspection done. This would include testing all the systems and a general inspection to find any problems. This might be worthwhile to many people for a pre-purchase inspection, especially if they aren’t highly familiar with Airstreams, but I can’t see why any long-time owner should have to pay such a fee.

First off, there’s very little inspecting that a shop will do that you can’t do yourself. The only really complicated tools you need are eyes, fingers, and a brain.

Second, if you already own the trailer you’re really just paying them to find problems that they will then charge you to fix. To my way of thinking such an inspection should be free or very cheap. Lots of automotive repair shops will offer free brake inspections, for example–and they are doing that because there’s a good chance they’ll find something that needs repairing.

Third (in this case) the Airstream was in pristine condition. It was a 2009 model that had been used only a few times. The owner told me the first tank of propane lasted him six years!

Since the last trip it was stored under cover and on pavement in a desert environment. That’s just about the ideal environment for storage. The only major things to worry about in that situation are keeping the battery charged, discouraging rodents (pack rats) and preventing things from drying out (rubber seals and battery fluid primarily).

The owner never hesitated to get repairs and maintenance done, and it showed. The wheel bearings were recently re-packed, the exterior was clean, and the tires and brakes were in great condition. The fact that he was considering paying $350 to have it inspected before a 500 mile round-trip showed how meticulous and careful he was about maintenance. So it wasn’t likely that the Airstream needed much to be ready for its trip.

I don’t normally get involved but in this case I was interested in meeting this owner and understanding better what challenges he might be facing to get his Airstream ready after a long period of storage. (I’m collecting updates for a future second version of the maintenance book.) So we arranged to meet at his house on Friday.

We walked around the trailer talking about the things described in pages 18-25 of my book, but clearly this trailer didn’t need a deep inspection. The only problems I could find were:

one missing interior rivet (see replacement procedure on page 57)
one loose hose clamp on an exterior gas line (p. 193)
low air in the tires (which is normal after long storage, discussed on p. 120)
a few window latches that needed a quick shot of silicone spray (p. 82)
a door hinge pin that was working its way out (p. 84)

The inspection and test drive took less than an hour including stopping off at a local tire shop to get some air. We didn’t need any tools to do the inspection.

Was this worth dropping the Airstream off at a local shop and paying $350? Of course not.

We’re all led to think that only professionals can do a good job of maintaining vehicles, because vehicles are too complex for the average person. Airstreams aren’t complex. They’re really very simple conglomerations of lots of separate items, and just about anyone can learn how to inspect and do basic maintenance on them.

I replaced the missing rivet and left the owner with a short list of things to fix and check on his own, including checking the water in the batteries (p. 178).

By the way, he’s towing with a new BMW X5 and I have to say that it’s an awesome combination with that 23-footer. We adjusted his Reese Strait-line hitch to improve the weight distribution and took it out for a test drive. The drive was so enjoyable I almost didn’t want to let him have it back. We got up to 45 MPH and I did a few fast lane changes and two simulated emergency braking maneuvers and just couldn’t believe the excellent performance from this combination.

I normally don’t experience such good manners from somebody else’s tow vehicle combination except when driving one of Andy Thomson’s tricked-out rigs, so it was a nice surprise. My own Airstream and tow vehicle are optimized for best possible towing performance too, but there’s a world of difference between the long wheelbase Mercedes GL/30-foot Airstream compared to the BMW X5 and a 23-footer.

Now, if you live in the Tucson area, don’t think I’m starting to do house calls. This was a one-off deal! Instead, take some time to learn more about how things work on your Airstream and you’ll find you can easily do it yourself. Someday you’ll be proficient enough to pass on the knowledge to a fellow traveler. Personally I was glad I did: I made a new friend, and he’s going to have a great trip to Mexico in a very sweet Airstream 23D.

Nov 16 2015

Looking back / looking forward

Our trip from Vermont to Arizona has finally wrapped up. After Big Bend National Park we made overnight stops at two old favorites: Balmorhea State Park (Toyahvale, TX) and Rock Hound State Park (Deming, NM), and then landed at home on Saturday.

By the numbers it was a big trip:

nearly a month on the road
over 3,600 miles of driving and 60 hours of drive time (plus side trips)
nine State Parks (General Butler/KY, Fred Gannon/FL, Henderson Beach/FL, Bayou Segnette/LA, Galveston Island/TX, Pedernales Falls/TX, Seminole Canyon/TX, Balmorhea/TX, Rock Hound/NM)
two National Parks (Mammoth Cave and Big Bend)
I took about 600 photos (and E&E took more)
six on-the-road repairs

Despite a few frustrations, we had a nice trip overall. Challenges are to be expected, and after having lived in our Airstream for three years we are used to the ebb and flow of life on the road. We all understand how to be flexible when things happen that force a change in plan. Perhaps it’s also easier to take the bad with the good because the freedom of travel means that most of the experience is very good.

Now of course comes the hardest part: settling back in at home. My Airstream “bug/improvement” list has about a dozen things on it, mostly small stuff. It has been away from home base since May and has traveled about 8,000 miles. I’ve been doing routine maintenance all along, but now we need to do a big clean-out of the trailer, digging deep into the storage areas that we rarely examine to get rid of accumulated stuff we don’t use anymore.

I’ve learned from experience that it’s easier to adjust slowly to fixed-base life. Even though it might seem simple, there’s an emotional reaction that happens when you shift from the free-wheeling life to all the cares and concerns of fixed-base life: house maintenance, medical appointments, work, social obligations etc. It’s like jet leg: you can’t adjust to it all at once. So we always unpack over a period of days, taking out things as we need them and giving ourselves plenty of time to absorb the reality of our situation.

Speaking for myself, the worst thing to do is to give into the temptation to immediately immerse myself in a dozen pent-up obligations. This results in overload, because inevitably I’ve got a dozen house and Airstream projects to tackle, Airstream Life work, appointments to keep … and thinking about all of it just makes the whole landing process too stressful. Instead, I try to focus on one project at a time, and also think about the next trip we might take.

We’ve already got plans to travel a little around Thanksgiving, and we’re considering a pre-Christmas or holiday week trip as well. The Airstream is there to be used, and fuel prices are very low right now. Even if we only go 50 miles, we’ll have an adventure and an opportunity to change perspective. So while I’m looking at a pile of obligations at home base right now, the magic carpet awaits and it is giving us something to look forward to.

Nov 13 2015

Remembering Big Bend National Park

It wasn’t until we’d arrived and I started flipping through my photo archive on the computer that I realized we haven’t been to Big Bend since 2008. How did seven years go by since our last visit?

This park can’t be “done” in a single visit. It can’t be described in a single page. You have to make the trip again and again to really dig into Big Bend. We’ve been here four times and there’s still so much left to see and do.

This visit we started with a classic: Santa Elena Canyon. Sheer walls rising 1,500 feet above the Rio Grande, a river ecosystem, and if you go early in the morning you get some spectacular light. (We didn’t go early … but I remember from a prior trip.) Emma had never been here so it was fun for us to show it to her.

After that we hunted up some spots we hadn’t explored before (or didn’t remember), like ruins and views. You really can’t go wrong in Big Bend. There are no bad spots.

Big Bend has a special meaning to us. It’s the place that really kicked it all off for us. Back in the 1990s a friend in Austin told me about it, and then another friend in Vermont told me more. Inspired, I planned a trip in March 1997 where Eleanor and I flew out to Midland/Odessa, rented a car, drove for hours and then spent a few nights tent camping at the primitive Paint Gap Hills sites.

That was the year of Comet Hale-Bopp. We watched it through binoculars and spotted both tails, thanks to the dark skies of Big Bend. One night a bolide occurred, so bright that we could actually see it through the walls of our tent. We crossed the Rio Grande to visit the Mexican town of Boquillas del Carmen (you could freely cross back then) and eat tacos and drink Mexican Cokes. We soaked in the hot springs and watched the sunsets light up the limestone cliffs each evening. Everything was unfamiliar, exotic, fascinating.

And this was the experience that hooked us on camping in National Parks. We have been doing it ever since. The first half dozen or so we visited with a tent, one or two per year, and after we got the Airstream we picked up the pace. I don’t have an accurate count but probably we’ve visited over 120 National Parks since, not counting those we’ve visited more than once. So, thank you Big Bend, for being so magnificent.

We spent only three days on this visit, which is hardly anything for a park so large but enough to chill and enjoy a few hikes and special places. After all the technical challenges and bad weather of the past two weeks it was a great way to spend the last few days of our trip west. Only a few days remain before we land at home base. I’m glad we are able to end our trip with a pleasant reminder of how it all began.

Nov 10 2015

Driving to Big Bend National Park

For most of its distance, Texas Route 90 from Del Rio to Marathon is not a drive you would rave about, unless you are into vast empty spaces. The towns along this route were all former watering stops for the railroad and without steam trains passing through they haven’t had much reason to exist.

Many don’t, and now only the fly-speck of Dryden and the slightly-larger towns of Sanderson and Marathon offer any services at all. They’re spaced about 50 miles apart, so it’s important to pay attention to your fuel level. Remember, everything’s bigger in Texas.

At Marathon the signs indicate that it’s not that far to Big Bend National Park, but “not that far” in west Texas terms is 39 miles—and that’s just to the Persimmon Gap Entrance Station. From there it’s another 26 miles to the center of the park, Panther Junction, and the speed limit drops from the “west Texas sensible speed” of 75 MPH to 45 MPH, so this trip seems endless. Fortunately the scenery gradually gets more interesting with the craggy Chisos Mountains in the distance and colorful outcrops of rock that are beautifully illuminated by the setting sun.

… which is good, since the sun was setting fast on us at this point. From Panther Junction to the Cottonwood Campground is about 40 miles and I was somewhat concerned about getting in before it was too dark. We finally dragged in at about 6 pm and there was still enough light in the sky for us to find a nice campsite that wasn’t shaded by cottonwood trees so we could gather solar energy during our stay.

The next morning, we awoke to this:

Picking a campground at Big Bend is a strategic choice because of the size of the park. Normally we stay at the Rio Grande Village end of Big Bend because we have a lot of favorite hikes and activities in that area. This year we wanted to re-visit and show Emma some hikes and spots near Castollon that we haven’t seen since our first visit in 1997. The driving distance between Cottonwood and Rio Grande Village is about 60 miles.

No matter where you stay in Big Bend there’s a sort of “end of the road” feel. Unless you are in the Chisos Mountains (and most Airstreamers aren’t because trailers over 20 feet aren’t allowed on the entrance road), you’re probably just a couple hundred feet from the Rio Grande River and Mexico. There’s no further south that you can drive from here. This is a wonderfully remote park.

We particularly like Cottonwood because it’s a no-hookup campground that doesn’t allow generators or campfires. So it’s blissfully quiet and we can open all the windows at night to let in fresh desert air without being choked by someone’s smoldering mess of an amateur “fire” (usually just a plume of smoke). Instead, we smell sage, creosote bush and desert flowers, and we hear chirping birds and the faint breeze passing through the cottonwood leaves.

No hookups, no dump station, and only a limited amount of potable water means that most campers don’t stay long. But we love it here, the weather is perfect, and our Airstream is boondock-ready so we opted for three nights. That’s plenty of time to hike nearby Santa Elena Canyon, the Burro Mesa Pour-Off trail, Tuff Canyon, and visit a few of the historic house ruins.