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Oct 27 2015

Haunted

Gremlins do inhabit Airstreams just like every other place in the world, and I suppose they are especially active at this time of year. After all, Halloween is this weekend and gremlin infestation is the only possible reason I can find for so many things going wrong in the past week.

Let’s re-cap: failure of 3 clearance light bulbs, batteries in the TPMS sensors, O-rings in the kitchen faucet, one walkie-talkie, the Wilson Sleek 4G cellular booster, and the refrigerator. Plus hiccups in the GPS, one laptop, the Verizon MiFi, shower head, Tongue Twister, and a couple of broken leveling blocks.

And then yesterday, when hitching up in a heavy rain (thanks to the remnants of Hurricane Patricia) when leaving Fred Gannon Rocky Bayou State Park in Niceville FL, I rushed the job a little too much and attempted to drive away with one stabilizer jack still down. Ugh. So that’s pretzeled.

I whacked the stabilizer with a hammer a few times—not that it did any good for the problem but it was a good way to work off frustration—and then got out the old speedwrench and cranked the stabilizer up enough to be able to tow. That stabilizer looks seriously deranged and it will never work again. I’m hoping Airstream of Mississippi will have one in stock when we drive past there on Thursday.

Despite the constant series of glitches capped by my own embarrassing mistake, as I was standing there getting soaked in the rain I felt that we’d reached a sort of turning point. It felt like I’d just hit a triple low biorhythm day and from here on things could only get better.

It was time to reach out to friends and associates, and the ever-helpful Mr Google and Ms Amazon, and get back on track. We set up the Airstream for a three-day stay on the Florida panhandle near the beach, and got busy. I ordered a few new parts to be delivered to our campground in Louisiana later this week, made arrangements to borrow a few sockets and wrenches I don’t normally carry, and we went to the local Wal-Mart to buy some Gremlin Repellent.

It must have worked because a miracle occurred. After days of the refrigerator not working (repeated attempts) and no returned calls from Arcticold (repeated attempts), I managed to get Arcticold on the phone. They basically told me that what had happened to us couldn’t have happened, and asked me to do a test to verify the cooling unit wasn’t working.

This frustrated me since I had already run through considerable diagnosis on my own and with Super Terry and knew that the cooling unit had lost its mojo.(1) But they wouldn’t offer a warranty replacement until I did one more test, which involved hotwiring the electric heater element to 120 volt power for 12 hours and then taking some temperature readings on the exterior coils.(2)

At this point the refrigerator had been turned off for about 30 hours since our last attempt. “What the heck,” I figured, “let’s make them happy,” so I turned it back on overnight and made a note to go buy an infrared thermometer in the morning.

And of course, the refrigerator started working again.

The damn thing was 27 degrees when I woke up, thanks to a combination of dry ice and a working cooling unit. I took out the dry ice and let it run all day and it stayed at 32 degrees.(3) Cooling like a glacier, and not even a “oh, sorry” from it for taking a multi-day vacation.

Super Terry’s only comment was “Did Microsoft have anything to do with designing it?” Apparently what it wanted was a long break to let its internal gasses settle, and a re-boot.(4)

Of course by this time we’ve eaten most of the good stuff in the freezer. Last night Eleanor made filet mignon wrapped in bacon with a gorgeous red wine sauce that had roasted garlic and mushrooms and … I don’t even know what else, but it was awesome. That went with little roasted potatoes and sweet squash and salad. Tonight we have salmon planned (it’s already defrosted so we have to eat it). I can’t complain about any of that. Now we’ve got a half-empty freezer and I guess that means we can stock it up with something else tasty.

I don’t trust the refrigerator fully just yet, but I’m going to celebrate by buying some ice cream pretty soon. Take that, gremlins!

(See comments for technical footnotes.)

Oct 25 2015

How to keep your cool

“You appear to have the worst luck with refrigerators,” said my friend Tom from Huntsville, yesterday.

Our trip southwest has been good despite being plagued with a few technological failures. First it was little things, like clearance light bulbs. Our Airstream is a 2005 so it doesn’t have LED clearance lights, and after a decade the bulbs are all starting to blow. I have replaced two in the last week with new bulbs from my spares kit, and it’s clear that I should just replace all of them at the next opportunity to borrow a ladder.

Then Eleanor’s iPhone suddenly stopped receiving email. Then her laptop stopped being able to connect to our Verizon MiFi. While navigating down I-65, the car GPS suddenly couldn’t find itself. The batteries in the tire pressure sensors ran down. One of our walkie-talkies stopped working. The O-rings in the kitchen faucet started to leak. I started to feel the cold breath of a wizard’s curse on my neck.

All of those problems were eventually corrected, but the whammy came at Mammoth Cave National Park when Eleanor announced that the refrigerator seemed unusually warm. Sure enough, the next morning it was unmistakable: the fridge was no longer cooling.

This is our third refrigerator in ten years. The sad history of our refrigerators stems primarily from the infamous Dometic recall that doomed nearly a million refrigerators to early death because of welding problems in the cooling tubes. Fridge #1 died July 2008, fridge #2 died February 2015, and the replacement cooling unit that I installed in April 2015 died this week.

Aha, you say—doesn’t it have a warranty? Yes indeed it does, a shiny “Lifetime Warranty” provided by Arcticold, the manufacturer of the cooling unit. And Arcticold goes further, promising technicians on duty “seven days a week, 9 to 9 Eastern”. A classic case of over-promising and under-delivering. I called twice on Friday, four times on Saturday, and left messages each day. No answers except a voicemail message that says they’ll call back in 1-2 hours.

When I installed this cooling unit back in April I noted in this blog that I’d identify the supplier after I knew that they were OK, because the RV refrigeration cooling unit industry seems to be replete with scam artists and cheesy organizations. So now I’m identifying them. Arcticold, you failed me when I needed help.

Fortunately I have more reliable friends, and (sadly) a fair bit of prior experience about what to do when the refrigerator stops cooling.

The first step is always the same in any circumstance: don’t panic. There may be quite a bit to panic about, but try not to panic anyway. It won’t help. Look at our situation: 2,000 miles from home and enjoying the fall weather in a lovely national park. If we just freaked out and started driving home in a rush we’d ruin the rest of our trip.

So keeping perspective helps. Yes, we have no refrigeration and a freezer full of expensive defrosting food. But we still have an Airstream complete with every other possible comfort of home. Our beds haven’t caught fire, our health is still good, the weather is fine … why ruin a trip for a failure of just one part?

Step 2 is to do some diagnosis. Maybe the problem isn’t severe, and can be fixed on the road. It happens that the Winter 2015 issue of Airstream Life will have an article by Terry Halstead (AKA Super Terry) on refrigerator maintenance and basic diagnosis. That will be in your mailbox in November, but since I’m the publisher I have a copy on my computer and I pulled it up to run through the diagnostic steps.

Alas, in our case the fridge’s two heat sources (electric heating element and gas burner) were both working perfectly, and there was no sign of a leak anywhere, which left only one conclusion I know of: the cooling unit had developed an internal blockage. If so, this is not repairable and it means the cooling unit is done.

This shouldn’t have happened after only six months. A cooling unit can last for decades. The original fridge from our 1968 Airstream Caravel is still running up in Colin Hyde’s shop in Plattsburgh NY (they use it as a drink cooler).

Running a refrigerator off-level can cause it to form a blockage but we’ve never done that. It has spent the last four months running perfectly level in Vermont. I can only conclude that this failure is the result of a manufacturing defect in the replacement cooling unit.

Step 3: mitigate the damage. Eleanor keeps the freezer packed completely, which helps keep it cold, but it’s packed with filet mignon, sockeye salmon, premium ice cream, and various hard-to-find ingredients for the classically trained chef. We don’t want to give up on all that stuff unless we must.

So our strategy was three-pronged: (a) don’t open the freezer until we have to; (b) figure out what we can eat and/or cook first; (c) get some dry ice. We were in Huntsville AL by the time we had a chance to really get serious about this, parked at the US Space and Rocket Center campground.

[If the fridge failure had not happened you’d probably be reading a couple of blog entries about Mammoth Cave and the Space & Rocket Center, but I’ve been too distracted with this problem. Let me just say that we had a wonderful time at both places and highly recommend them.]

It’s also useful to have a good wireless digital thermometer inside the refrigerator to monitor the temperature without opening the door. I found one at Wal-Mart for $10.

Dry ice came from Publix in this case ($23 for two slabs of it, one for the freezer and one for the refrigerator). It only lasts about 24 hours but it works great. It kept the refrigerator compartment at 42 degrees, and keeps the smaller freezer compartment frozen solid. Before we found the dry ice we just grabbed a 10-lb bag of regular ice at the Mammoth Cave camp store, which bought us some time but only got the refrigerator compartment down to 52 degrees. You can also find dry ice at some Wal-Marts, Krogers, and Airgas (Penguin brand) locations.

Eleanor spent Saturday morning cooking things while Emma and I visited the US Space & Rocket Center. We came back to a smorgasbord of delectables, which wasn’t bad at all. Our diet for the next few days may be a little weird as Eleanor finds ways to combine what we have into meals.

Step 4 is to make a plan, and in this case we have decided to press on with our trip regardless of refrigeration. We’ll keep buying dry ice daily when we can find it, and use the refrigerator as an icebox. Later today or Monday Eleanor will stock the trailer with replacement foods that don’t require refrigeration.

I have contacted friends along our westward route to work on getting a new cooling unit or an entirely new refrigerator. That’s still in process. With luck, we’ll have the problem fixed in a week or so. In the meantime, we’re going to keep having fun. Next stop, the beach!

May 26 2015

Alumapalooza 6 begins

The show is beginning. We spend all year thinking about Alumapalooza, and when it finally comes together here on a patch of grass in central Ohio, it’s a great thing. Today is the day.

The past few pre-event days have been mellow. All of the volunteer staff are very experienced at their jobs, and we’ve cross-trained people whenever possible, so if we hadn’t been required to relocate some things as a result of the factory expansion there wouldn’t have been much to talk about. Everyone would have just gone ahead and done their job without any instruction. As it was, things were still pretty smooth. We’re lucky to have such great people who come back year after year to make this event happen.

A lot of attendees are repeat visitors, too. We had 25 spots in the Service Center lot for early arrivals to boondock a few nights, and most of them were taken by people who had been here before. They just roll in at their convenience, settle in, and gab with their neighbors. We didn’t schedule anything except a cookout on Memorial Day, but the folks who arrive early generally don’t need scheduled activities to stay entertained.

Jackson Center weather is always tricky this time of year, with frequent and un-forecast changes. When people ask us what weather to expect, we say “all kinds.” This year has been a great example. When I arrived it was dropping down to about 42 degrees at night. Other years it has been 101. You just never can be sure what’s coming, despite the attempts of the weather reporters to stay ahead of nature.

This year the major weather event has been wind, lots of it, which finally got strong enough to make everyone take in their flags, awnings, and patio mats (or stake them down very securely). I was working on the roof of the Airstream with Super Terry over the weekend, scraping old cracked sealant off the aluminum with a putty knife, so that we could re-seal a couple of spots that might have become leaks. When I’d get a small piece of sealant scraped free, it would sometimes blow right off the roof.

Because of the uncertain weather, we decided to keep the job list to the bare minimum, so all we have done so far is replace the entry door lock and replace sealant in six or seven places. Sometime this week I’m still hoping we can remove the wheels to check the brakes, but now that the event has started it will be hard to find the time. I might have to get to that job at a later stop in our travels.

The big news has been that E&E will miss Alumapalooza. They had planned to catch up with me by flying to Dayton, but Emma got a cold a week ago and still can’t equalize well enough to fly. Our only good option was to have them fly to Cleveland next week, where I’ll pick them up as I’m heading east with the Airstream. So I’m still solo in the Airstream and will remain so quite a lot longer than I had expected.

Without Eleanor to back me up, I’ve had to make some adjustments and rely on the support of friends. There’s still plenty of food in the refrigerator but friends here have been inviting me to dinner nightly, which means I probably won’t have to go grocery shopping until next weekend. That helps a lot, because during one of these events my time is always at a premium. Our friend Mary has volunteered to throw my laundry in with her family’s on Thursday (she pointed out that Eleanor has done the same for them in the past). Others have offered help, too. It’s nice to have such good friends. In this community you can almost take that for granted, which is a big part of the reason Airstream has been so significant in our lives.

As I mentioned, the factory expansion has changed a few things. We can only park about 50 Airstreams in the main field next to the factory, so Airstream personnel electrified another area closer to the Terra Port, and we plan to put another 50 or so there. This also meant the event tents couldn’t go in the usual spot, but we found a really pleasant location in the shade of mature sycamore trees, right next to the Terra Port. The grass is nicer, the ground is more level, and we like how it turned out, so we’ll probably do it the same way again next year.

This also means the staff can park in the Terra Port for the entire event. After six years of parking in the field, I think the volunteers deserve the perk of full hookups during Alumapalooza. They work hard, sweating and getting sunburned (or rained on) every day for a week, and at the end of the day they have to haul the gray water from their shower several hundred feet in a portable tank to dump it. Most of them didn’t get power for air conditioning, either. We supplied them with ice cold water, laundry service, and a free pass—that’s it.

So now they have a well-deserved better deal. Our new spots in the Terra Port put all of the staff very close to the tents, so they can go back and forth quickly, and if the windows are open you can hear the chatter and laughter of attendees having a good time nearby. It’s perfect.

By 9:30 this morning we had already parked 25 trailers and a steady stream has continued to come in. It’s starting to look like Alumapalooza today, with rows of shiny Airstreams parked in the grass, flying flags and displaying lawn chairs and patio furniture under the awnings. By the end of the day we will have close to 100 parked, and more coming on Wednesday.

One of our special guests this year has been Jessie Kresa, a professional wrestler, who is here to show off her hot sauce. She was featured in Airstream Life in our Winter 2014 issue, and it’s great to finally meet her in person. Tonight she’ll join us on stage and give away some stuff, and then on Thursday she’s off to London England to wrestle someone to the ground. After meeting her, I suspect quite a few guys here are going to wish it was them.

I’ll be running a couple of events later today, so for the morning I’m just watching the parkers and water/electric crew do their job. This afternoon the program starts at 2:30 and runs to 8:00, and then tomorrow we go into it full-tilt starting at 7:30.

May 05 2015

Summer 2015, Airstream style

It’s that time of year. While most of the country is celebrating the appearance of spring, it’s already getting kind of “warm” here in Tucson (meaning we had our first 90 degree day already) and we’ve working on our annual trip north to Alumapalooza. By mid-May, when Tucson tends to hit 100 for the first time, we’ve got to be on the road with our Airstream.

I look forward to that day with a combination of apprehension and excitement. It’s nice to get back out in the Airstream, but the prep is incredible. Every house project, Airstream project, and work project needs to be settled (if not finished), and that’s a ton of work. I always advocate to people that they try not to go out on their adventure of a lifetime with a pile of unfinished business, personal issues, or money problems—because those things tend to drag you back to home sooner than you’d like—and I try to take my own advice.

It’s not always possible, of course, to put a “hard stop” on everything in life, so the other side of it is to try to find ways to continue the necessities of life even as you roll down the road. I could write a book about that … and maybe someday I will.

The Airstream has been getting its seasonal maintenance. Being a lady of a certain age and having many miles behind her, I do have to try to get ahead of problems before we head out. So far this spring I have:

replaced the failed refrigerator cooling unit (and the replacement has been running continuously for a month with no problems)
replaced the converter/charger with a Xantrex TrueCharge 2
replaced the dump valves
stripped off the rest of the old “Tour of America” decals
added some aluminum sheet to the belly pan to replace corroded metal (galvanic corrosion is slowly eating the pan, as it unavoidably will wherever steel meets aluminum, and I expect that some large sections will need replacement in a few years)
removed, wire brushed, and repainted the spare tire carrier. I scuffed it pretty badly coming out of a parking lot back in January.
touched up paint on the Hensley hitch (but it needs a total strip & powder coat)
disassembled the center Fantastic Vent, cleaned thoroughly, and re-assembled
flushed the hot water tank & replaced the drain plug
replaced the Pressure/Temperature valve on the water heater
upgraded the propane tanks to aluminum Worthingtons
installed new LED lights in the refrigerator and range vent

And on the tow vehicle, a bunch more stuff including the new dash cam, GPS, tires, rear shocks, front air struts … I think I’d rather not list the rest of it right now. The memory is a bit painful.

If you wonder why I go through all this trouble when I could just buy plane tickets and hotel rooms, well, you aren’t an Airstreamer. Yes, it’s a lot of stuff, but when I compare it to the life we’ve had, the things we’ve seen, and the people we’ve met, a few repairs and maintenance seem like a very small price to pay.

There’s more to do on the Airstream but it just won’t all get done before we go, so I’ll bring a few tools and parts along and give Super Terry something to do when I see him at Alumapalooza. For Super Terry’s benefit, that list includes:

installing a replacement entry door lock, because the one we have has jammed a few times
sealing a small leak somewhere near the front vent fan
lubricating the seals on the vent fans
updating the Parbond sealant around a few spots on the exterior

The big project I had planned, to add a fancy water filtration system, is just going to have to wait until fall, I’m afraid. All the parts are here but the time to do it has gone.

Now it’s time to clean out whatever is left from last year that we no longer need, and stock the Airstream with the ingredients for fun for Summer 2015. Both Eleanor and I have been at it for a while and we’ll be finishing the job over the next two weeks.

So here’s the trip plan for the first half of the summer:

late May: Arizona to Ohio, and then Alumapalooza!

June: tow east to Vermont for a few weeks, and another week-long BMW motorcycle adventure (destination TBD)

late June: I’ll fly back west while the rest of the family remain in the northeast. Brett & I will hike in Navajo National Monument, and then drop in on the WBCCI International Rally in Farmington NM for a couple of days.

July: Temporary Bachelor Man returns!

There’s much more planned through October but my head would explode if I laid it all out right now. I figure we’ll cover about 8,000 miles of Airstream travel and at least 12 states, depending on how we head back. I want to do some exploring in parts of Arkansas and Missouri, especially around the Ozarks, where we’ve never been before.

Yes, it looks like another great summer coming up, Airstream-style.

Jun 03 2014

Maybe the best Palooza yet

This might have been the best Alumapalooza ever.

Going into it, I was thinking maybe it would be a little quiet because we had a smaller crowd this year (about 120 trailers on the field). But we’d done a ton of work putting together a bigger and better event program than ever before, and that paid off. We added off-site tours, more vendors, more new Airstreams on display, a kettle corn stand, and new seminars to the old favorites, and Mother Nature cooperated by bringing us nearly flawless weather all week. I realized we had a winner when people started coming to me on the second day and saying, “We’re having a great time! Thanks for putting this on.” Usually it takes a couple of days before the compliments flow.

It was also less stressful than other events we’ve done, because we had an awesome crew of people. There has been some change every year, but most of them have been working Alumapalooza for years and they really know their jobs. This year we added two new volunteers (Loren & Mike, on parking) and our jazz diva Laura was summarily promoted to “Trash Wench”. (Her job was to collect the trash in the mornings. Before anyone objects, let me say that she picked her own title.)

There was a nice breeze every day, so we flew the Airstream Life flag for the first time in several years. It was nice to see lots of other flags flapping in the wind all week as well. Felt festive.

The events of the week were so complex that I can’t really do justice to them here. You can download the schedule from the Alumapalooza 5 website if you are interested. Basically we stayed busy from about 8:00 a.m. to 9 or 10 p.m. every day. Big hits included Open Mic night, the Aluminum Gong Show, Happy Hour, Josh Rogan, Eric Henning’s magic, and most of the seminars.

Early in the week, someone spotted a killdeer nest just about ten feet from the vendor tent. This was staked off immediately and dubbed the “Jackson Center Temporary Killdeer Preserve.” Momma Killdeer sat on four eggs all week, and on Saturday they hatched—which got a big round of applause when we announced it at Happy Hour. That was the first birth we’ve ever had at an event.

The photo above shows only about 1/3 of the field. Since the field was dry, we could spread out and give everyone as much privacy as they wanted. Most clustered close to the main tent.

Airstream always offers some cheap deals on parts during Alumapalooza, but this year they went nuts and filled a service bay with scratched and used items that were mostly taken off other trailers or returned under warranty. The bargains were incredible. We scored a convection microwave, barely used, for $100 (retail about $500), which Eleanor will use to develop a convection microwave cooking seminar for future events, and an 18-foot curbside awning for $150 (retail about $900). Why so cheap? The awning has one tiny hole in it, made by someone with a 5/16″ drill bit. We’ll patch that easily.

I also got a water heater cover for the Caravel for $5, and a bunch of other $5 items. Brett landed a nice pure-sine inverter, unbelievably cheap. (Wish I’d seen that first!) Super Terry filled his trailer with parts and still couldn’t fit everything he bought. The bargains alone would be worth the price of a trip to Jackson Center.

Since I now had an 18-foot tube in my possession that I couldn’t fit in the car, I needed to get it installed right away. Fortunately, Jim Webb, the president of Zip-Dee Awnings, and Greg Blue (a Z-D rep) were on site. They were busy all week with service calls, so they didn’t get to my installation until about 8 p.m. on Friday. The sun set while they were working, so they ended up finishing the job by flashlight with a crowd of onlookers. A few people couldn’t believe that the president of the company would be doing this … but that’s the kind of company Zip-Dee is, and the kind of guys Jim & Greg are. They finally wrapped up at about 10:30 pm, just in time for Jim to drive five hours back to Chicago.

(By the way, guys — I love the new curbside awning.)

It was a long week, but also the time flew by. It ended the way they always do, with lots of people smiling and wishing they didn’t have to go home, a big dinner, a concert, and a slightly sleep-deprived staff. On Sunday morning we watched all the trailers depart, cleaned up the field, and put away our stuff.

That afternoon E&E and I wandered down to the local one-screen cinema, The Elder Theater, to see Maleficent. Airstream Life had made a donation to help the theater switch to digital projection, and this was my first chance to see the plaque the theater had mounted on a seat in thanks. If you go, look for the Airstream Life seat in the center section, about 2/3 down, one seat in from the left aisle. I was pleased to sit there and enjoy the digital picture, knowing that this old gem of a theater was still able to operate thanks to the financial donations of dozens of people.

That night the Terra Port filled up with people who were waiting for service appointments in the following week, so we just stayed parked in the field alone that night. Why move? It was peaceful, and we still had power and water. So while Eleanor and Emma had one last visit with people in the Terra Port, I was able to chill out with a “guy movie” and a Klondike bar all by myself in the green grass, while the sun set beautifully in the west one more time.

And now we are in our usual decompression spot, the driveway of our friends Lou & Larry, near Cleveland. We’ve got one day here, and then we’ll be trundling east on the final legs to Vermont, to start the next adventures. Coming up: motorcycling through Quebec and New Brunswick.