Man In The Maze

by Rich Luhr, Editor of Airstream Life magazine

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Darn you, Puritans!

Eleanor and I managed one more roadtrip, a short one up to the Phoenix area for a little “this and that”: browsing, a little shopping, a late night cruise in Scottsdale, dinner out and a night in a resort.  But that’s it.  She’s got to head back to Vermont so that our child will remember that she has actual parents.

No, I’m just kidding about that last part.  Eleanor will head back, but Emma is becoming as independent as an 11-year-old should.  We have stayed in touch via video chat and phone calls, and it’s obvious she gets along just fine without us.  Her grandparents have done a great job of keeping up with her schedule of play dates, sailing, and summer art classes.  When I called yesterday I was told that Emma was down at the beach making s’mores and was therefore unavailable to speak to her father.

That’s quite a change from the days when we were living in the Airstream, roaming around the continent but rarely far from each other.  People speculated that she would grow up “needy” or improperly “socialized” as a result of our extreme togetherness, which is of course utter nonsense.  Why do people think that being close to your children or parents is a bad thing?  (Little wonder that as a society we treat the elderly with disdain.)

I speculate that it is an old outgrowth of Puritanical beliefs, right along with the idea that we should be ashamed of our bodies.  In any case, the result speaks for itself: the kid is comfortable in her skin, and while she misses Mom & Dad, she’s pretty happy with the other loving members of her family.

Not so easy for me, however.  When I’m alone for weeks at a time I don’t have the support system of the family around me, and it’s a big adjustment.  It’s far too easy to spend the day inside the house, in front of the computer, and not seeing another living soul all day.  That’s a trap.  Pretty soon you can turn into a Howard Hughes-like caricature, savings toenail clippings in a jar and growing a long beard.

I was watching a National Geographic program about Solitary Confinement (in prison) and the inmates were describing what happens to them after too much time alone.  They talked about the need for human contact, and the paranoid thoughts that start to overcome them.  Psychiatrists chimed in: solitary makes you start to feel aggressive toward your jailers, even if you weren’t violent before.  That must explain why I forgot to water the citrus before Eleanor arrived; I was lashing out at the greenery.

I now pity the telephone company guy who is scheduled to come here to look at my DSL line.  If I don’t get out to the mall to walk around and see some humans (OK, mostly teenagers, but that’s as close to humans as I can find in a mall environment), the telephone guy’s life could be in danger.  And he’s a nice guy, “Tom,” who has visited here often because every summer my DSL starts getting wonky.  (I’m on my third replacement DSL modem and I have all the Qwest service guys mobile phone numbers now.)

Of course, my jail cell is not enforced by the penal system, it’s self-imposed.  It’s another darned Puritanical leftover, the moral imperative to do work.  Once in a while I break free of that social boundary and play hooky around town, but it’s difficult for me.  No kidding.  I’ve been self-employed for 18 years and wound so tight about getting the job done that it’s hard to let go even when there’s really not much work to be done.  Today is a good example: the Fall issue is in the hands of the printer.  This post-production period is a classic “quiet time” for the magazine, or rather a “calm before the storm,” because until the issue hits the mail the phone will hardly ring, my email Inbox will be oddly empty, and I won’t be under major pressure to work on the next issue for a few weeks.  So by all rights I should be having fun.

I learned this lesson a long time ago.  I used to be a “consultant,” which meant nobody was looking over my shoulder and I didn’t get a regular paycheck.  So  I worked really hard when there was work to be done, and when there wasn’t I was usually trying to play rainmaker so that there would be work again soon.  On those occasions when I felt like I had done all I could do for a while, I blew off to do something, anything, absolutely guilt-free because I’d earned it.

When I was publishing the magazine and working (2005-2008) the Airstream made it easy.  We’d park it in a place where Internet and phone worked well, until the work was done, then relocate to some nearby National Park and go hiking for a few days in a cellular “cone of silence.”  Usually that meant a short drive, and there we’d be, all together with our home and ready to go exploring.

It’s a bit harder now, with the Airstream up in Vermont, me in Arizona, my other Airstream stranded in Texas, and no tow vehicle handy.  I am quite tempted to pack up the tent this weekend and go somewhere in the cool mountains where the forest hasn’t been scorched in this summer’s fires.  What I’d really like to do is get some Airstream friends to drop in for a few days, but nobody wants to come to the desert in the summertime.  (Wimps.)  Hey, I’ve got 30-amp power in the carport to run air conditioners, so what’s there to be afraid of?

Now you know why I was so desperate to find a backup tow vehicle earlier this summer.  The idea was to launch out to Texas and recover the Caravel, and make a big trip out of it, complete with the comfort of air conditioning.  Alas, now I’m short on time.  I did finally find the car I wanted — it’s the car I sold, the Mercedes 300D.  I should have kept it and put a hitch on it.  Another one in even better condition has popped up locally and I could buy it, but I’d really like to get that Miata sold first.  Any 1980s-era Mercedes, no matter how nice, is going to suck up a bit of money before it’s fully sorted out and ready for long trips.

So I’m sitting tight for now, and looking at the tent… and my laptop.  Sooner or later either the Puritans will win out, or the Airstream-inspired wanderlust will.

 

 

TBM returns!

After a pleasant few days in Vermont, I hopped a plane and headed back to Tucson for some summer heat.  It was cool and rainy in Vermont most of the time, so cool that we had to run the furnace in the trailer during the day sometimes, and I realized that once again I had not packed enough warm clothes to survive a Vermont June. I had to borrow a sweat jacket from my mother just to survive the evenings.

The Airstream is parked in its summer holding pen, beneath the cedar trees on the gravel driveway next to the garage.  It will rest there for a couple of months before I fly back up and collect it, along with the members of my immediate family who are spending the summer in Vermont.  (You know who they are.)  I am hoping that the bits of white filiform corrosion that started along the edges and trim on the Airstream a few years ago won’t greatly accelerate in the damp environment up there.  Each year the tiny white spider-webs of corrosion seem to spread another 1/8″ of an inch or so.  Once returned to dry conditions, it stops spreading but the damage is irreversible.  Parking by the oceanside really kicks it into high gear too, but I’m not prepared to give up camping by the beach for anything.

I flew back to Arizona, which means I once again am stuck without a tow vehicle.  The Caravel, you might recall, was left in Texas a couple of months ago, after I attended the LBJ Grasslands Vintage Rally in Decatur.  Fellow Airstreamer Paul Mayeux has been holding it at his shop ever since.  He did a few repairs and tweaks for me in the meantime.  Now I’ve got to figure out how to get it back, because I’d like to use it sometime this summer, which means I’m going to have to find a tow vehicle.  All I have is a Honda Fit, which (despite being a very useful and versatile car) can only move itself.

But first, the urgent stuff.  Temporary Bachelor Man (TBM) is BACK!  Armed with his cunning, a credit card, and a freezer full of food left by Temporary Bachelorette Woman (TBW), he will somehow navigate urban Tucson in the blazing heat of summer and survive to tell the tale.  And you’ll be the witnesses.

First mission: re-boot the house.  Although preparing a house in Tucson for vacation is not very difficult, there were still a number of things to get back in shape once I arrived.  Light the water heater, turn the air conditioning on (it was 92 in the house and took seven hours to cool down thanks to massive thermal mass in the adobe blocks), sweep up the dead bugs (few), add water to all the dried-up drains, check on the plants, plug in the essential bachelor electronics, check the car tires, wash the dust off the car, and go to fetch the nutritional food pyramid of TBM (frozen desserts are at the top).

OK, that’s all done.  Now to fill the long quiet days of a man left to his own devices.  Without a definite plan of things to do outside the house, there’s too much risk that I’ll spend all day inside working, and that’s the kind of routine that turns TBM into Temporarily Psycho Man.  There are several good events calendars for Tucson online, plus favorite haunts like The Loft Cinema, Mt Lemmon, and Saguaro National Park that all have regular events.  (Mt Lemmon seems to be off-limits at the moment due to the danger of wildfires, but with the start of monsoon season approximately July 4, that ban should be lifted.  There are no fires up there and no smoke of any of the Arizona fires can be seen from Tucson at this point.)  Browsing the events calendars gives me a few ideas of TBM-worthy events to visit and possibly photograph.  Events featuring food usually rise to the top of the list.

I have three weeks in my present guise, and then TBW arrives and we change identities again, this time into the “Kid — What Kid?” couple.  We did this last year and it was amazing.  For three weeks in July we will be utterly childless, while Emma is engaged in summer camps and grandparent-spoiling up in Vermont.  We’ll go roam around Arizona with a very loose plan, and if I’m able to get it worked out, we’ll even have the Caravel to do some of it in.  So really I’ll be spending a fair bit of my TBM time planning for the next phase, but that’s OK.  I see adventure ahead, and that’s what really makes it work for me.  Let the first phase of summer begin!

 

 

Post-Alumapalooza chill-out

The delay in posting these past few days has been the result of post-Alumapalooza recovery.  Not only am I a little behind in other work, but we have had a busy travel schedule. The Monday after the event we hitched up and headed to Lou & Larry’s home near Cleveland for a quick overnight.

Their friends of “Team Doxie” fame were there (winners of the Rivet Masters Competition a few days before), as well as sKY and slADE.  We took a short ride around the rural countryside in the “Team Doxie” 1948 Cadillac Fleetwood on that beautiful Ohio summer evening.

The next morning we got pelted by heavy thunderstorms and a little pea-sized hail, which is just a reminder that the weather in this area swings from one extreme to another pretty quickly.  I got a few hours of work done in the morning and then we hitched up and headed to the Buffalo NY area.

We’ve placed the Airstream in protective custody near Buffalo for a few days, while are up in Toronto, Ontario, to visit with John & Helena.  It’s only about a two hour drive from Buffalo, and there was really no place to put the Airstream while we were visiting, since they live in the center of the city.

Helena had previously arranged for the Airstream to stay in the Toronto Metro Police impound lot, where we could access it (but not sleep in it).  This seemed like a potentially interesting blog entry until I realized that we didn’t need to take the Airstream at all.  We’d be heading back to the Buffalo area immediately after the visit anyway.

I mentioned this to Helena and she responded by asking if I was concerned about leaving the Airstream and all of our possessions in police impound in a foreign country.  Well, when you put it that way … So we missed the opportunity for a good blog photo (at least) but saved some fuel money and hassle by leaving the trailer back in the USA.

On Wednesday afternoon Eleanor and I took a long walk down Toronto’s Yonge Street all the way to downtown, and with a few side streets we managed to get about four miles of street hiking in before 10 p.m.  We love doing that, with absolutely no schedule and tremendous urban possibilities in all directions.  Toronto is a very livable, walkable, and vibrant city.

After a couple of hours out, a huge thunderstorm loomed over us and seemed to be about to strike the downtown with a vengeance, so we ducked into a local sushi place (“Sushi Tower”).  We weren’t concerned about where to eat, so it seemed as good a choice as any, and it did in fact turn out to be great.  The thunderstorm never arrived.  An hour or so later we were back on the street, and walked the city streets until well past dark, making our last stop in a convenience store for a big pralines-and-cream ice cream cone.

John hauled me out on Thursday to show me a few of his cars (fantastic examples of design: Citroens and Czech-made Tatras), and we re-visited his 1935 Bowlus as well.  Eleanor made dinner for all four of us tonight, which we ate out on the patio by the pool in the cool evening.  It has all been really relaxing.  Our two days in Toronto have flown by.

I think at this point we are fully decompressed and ready to get to the next phase.  We’ll get up early on Friday to avoid the worst of Toronto traffic and head back to Buffalo, pick up the Airstream, and head east from here.  Most likely we’ll land in central NY state somewhere for a night, then Vermont on Saturday, and then we’ll be re-united with Emma.

Sunday in JC

Things are heating up for us in all sorts of ways.  We were blessed with a sunny day, temperatures in the upper 80s, and a nice breeze all day to dry things out.  With more sunshine forecast today it looks like we’ll have no trouble using the grass to park trailers on Tuesday.

Our major task for the day was to stuff 275 goody bags.  Dave Schumann of Airstream’s Service Center arranged for us to have access to the service bays, so I pulled the U-Haul full of stuff (that Brett brought from Florida) into the relatively cool and wind-free space.  We swiped a few tables from the breakroom and set up an assembly line, with Brett, Lisa, Alice, Tim and myself working on the project.  (Eleanor was off doing laundry.  She cut her finger rather badly on Saturday night and can’t do much with her left hand now.  She is going to be wrapped up in bandages for the week.)

We finished the bags in about three hours, including a post-project celebration with guacamole & chips that E&E brought over.  It’s sort of cool to be working next to an unrestored 1935 Bowlus and the Jesse James Airstream Chopper.  Strangely, “Schu” showed up to see how we were doing, at exactly the moment we finished.  I think he was watching through the windows…

Eleanor and I took a trip down to Dayton airport to meet my mother and hand off Emma.  She’ll be winging it back to Vermont today, and we’ll see her again in about ten days.

On the way back, the Mercedes was running very low on fuel, so of course I stopped to buy diesel.  The combination of a nearly-empty tank and high Memorial Day fuel prices set a record (for us) for most expensive fill-up ever: $108.  I know for a lot of folks with big truck tanks a three-digit fill-up is commonplace, but this is the first time I’ve ever spent that much for a single fill-up on any vehicle I’ve ever owned.  It’s a psychological shock, that’s for sure, but I’m reminded of what people told me when we first started full-timing in 2005.  Back then gas was running about $2.80 per gallon and I heard, “Boy did you decide to go traveling at the wrong time.  Wait a while until prices drop again.”  I’m glad we didn’t wait.  It always seems expensive at the time, but having been to Europe and paid $7 a gallon I know that we still have a cheap deal here.

Another pair of key Alumapalooza volunteers, Lou & Larry, showed up last night.  They are our dear friends from eastern Ohio, with whom we’ve courtesy parked many times.  This week they are also the Vice-Presidents Of Parking, or whatever title they care to give themselves.  Parking is the toughest job at Alumapalooza, and with the tricky logistics caused by all the rain recently, we are going to spend a lot of time today wandering the fields so we can finalize our strategy and be ready for the onslaught of 100 Airstreams that is coming tomorrow.

 

Arrived @ Airstream

We’ve landed in Jackson Center, OH, home of Airstream since the 1950s.  There’s a sort of reliability about coming here, because not much changes between visits in a village this small.  Because it is so small we tend to notice the little things, like the fact that one restaurant has closed and another has opened, or that the BBQ place has a new sign.  In Tucson they could demolish an entire city block and we might not notice for a week, but here we can notice a new crack in the pavement as we stroll through the four-block downtown.

On this visit my primary interest is getting prepped for Alumapalooza, so I’m more interested in the grass fields and parking lots around Airstream than anything else.  After incredible and constant rains, it appears the weather pattern has finally broken and we are expecting a mostly sunny week.  That’s good, because the local farmers haven’t been able to plant (costing an estimated $904 million in lost farming revenue in this state alone!) and they need some drying weather soon.  Of course, we do too, but I walked the Airstream fields yesterday and could see that with just a couple of days of no rain we’d have no problem using 80-90% of the available space.  So by Tuesday, when 100 trailers are scheduled to arrive, we should be fine.

At the moment hardly anyone is here, which is ideal.  The factory is, of course, closed for the weekend.  Last year the Airstream “Terra Port” filled up with early arrivals, which is something we try to discourage since the Terra Port is for Service Center customers.  It was a bit of a madhouse, especially by Monday when the last space was taken.  This year something has kept people away — maybe the weather?  In any case, it’s quiet and that will be great for us since we’ve got a lot of things to do.

Tim & Alice came here on Friday, Brett & Lisa arrived yesterday morning, and we arrived yesterday afternoon.  Today our jobs are to pick up some boxes of donated materials, stuff goody bags, and strategize parking scenarios, plus make a run to the Dayton airport.  Not bad, so I’ll also have some time to get work done before the real madhouse begins.  It’s a weird way to spend Memorial Day weekend, but all for a good cause.