Aug 14 2009

Vintage Trailer Jam 2009

So what was it like at the Vintage Trailer Jam this week?

Yep, hot and humid. We moved the dates from July to August in the hope of escaping the sweaty weather we experienced last year, but it didn’t help. This has been the hottest week of the summer. But that hasn’t stopped everyone from having a really great time.

I wish I was one of the participants of this event, instead of a sponsor/organizer. It’s the participants who have the most fun. In contrast, the past two days have been a frenzied time for the organizers and volunteers. We seem to be constantly troubleshooting problems, and dealing with either setting up or tearing down for the events of the day. With parking, registration, seminars, electrical and water connections, troubleshooting, answering questions, giving away door prizes, and even making popcorn, there’s little time to enjoy the really cool collection of trailers we have on site.

And we do have some very interesting rigs here. I’ll post an online album later. We have some rare trailers, including a Winnebago, two Frolics, a KomPac boat camper, plus some more common (but still cool) campers like a fiberglass Trillium, a couple of Shastas, two Serro Scottys, and a bunch of other unusual “canned ham” trailers. That’s in addition to the many Airstreams, including three Airstream 345 motorhomes, and a GMC motorhome.

The seminars have been a big hit. I presented twice, on “Camping in National Parks,” and “Boondocking & Courtesy Parking.” Both drew some sizeable and appreciative crowds. Eleanor presented today on the subject of “Tools and Ingredients For Your Trailer Kitchen,” and she was marvelous. We also did a short joint seminar on “Backing Up Your Trailer Without Getting Divorced,” which was a lot of fun.

Colin has also been presenting seminars on restoration topics, while Brett contributed a seminar on vintage motorhomes and co-presented with Colin on the subject of riveting. Other friends have pitched in with seminars, too. Vic Smith gave a polishing demo this morning, and our friends Charon and Alex talked brilliantly about “Working and Living On The Road.” They’ve all been winners, so I’m really pleased with the quality of content we’ve been able to offer this year. We’ve also had fun alternatives, like the bike ride I led today past six of the park’s springs.

The big thing I like about the event is its diversity. Not only do we have a lot of different trailers, but we have a lot of different people. Every age from toddler to (nearly) geriatric is represented. We have 15 kids here this year, and they’ve been out playing soccer and riding bicycles all day. Some participants come from buttoned-down backgrounds, and others live a somewhat more casual lifestyle. Charon has even been able to do a little tattoo work here. The Trailer Jam is a melting pot of people and lifestyles brought together by a common love of vintage trailers.

Since the Jam is a day longer than last year, I have been careful to pace myself and not face the burnout that happened last year. The workload has been high but by planning carefully (and avoiding the temptation to stay up too late), I’ve been able to carve out an hour or so each day for work or private time with Eleanor. On Thursday morning we were even able to sneak in 90 minutes to go into downtown Saratoga Springs for a leisurely coffee/tea and pastry breakfast at Mrs. London’s. That won’t be happening again, but wow, did it feel nice to stretch out and relax for a little while, just the two of us.

The one big bug of the week has been that our refrigerator is acting glitchy. We have been operating it on electric power for over a month, and when we switched to propane during our first 36 hours here, it stopped cooling. We didn’t realize this until the wireless thermostat reported 55 degrees inside, and by then the freezer had defrosted. We’ve since switched it back to electric, and made an appointment for next Thursday at an RV service center. The good news is that since the fridge still cools, so the expensive part of it still works. The frustrating news is that this refrigerator is only 13 months old. I have not been impressed with the quality of RV refrigerators made in the past decade. I’m surrounded by trailers with refrigerators made 40 to 50 years ago, all of which work perfectly and yet very few modern ones seem to survive even eight years.

Tomorrow is the biggest day of all, with the vintage parts flea market, Open House, kids’ program (run by Eleanor), evening entertainment, barbecue dinner and the “big” door prizes. So we’ve got a lot to look forward to, before we strike the set on Sunday morning.

Aug 13 2009

Rally fun

It’s amazing the impact something like a wedding has on things, even after it is over. Eleanor spent a week recovering from her massive one-woman catering effort, I spent hours sorting photos and burning DVDs for people, and there were random days of cleanup and other tasks sprinkled in as well.

Steve and Carolyn took a very interesting trip down Lake Champlain in their little Boston Whaler, all the way through the locks and canals to Troy NY, and then back. This took four days and struck me as the kind of honeymoon I’d like, because unusual trips interest me. Then they came back to base and sorted through the wedding garbage, looking for recyclables. Somewhat anti-climactic, but typical of them: right back at the hard work, persistently motivated. It’s not every new married couple that starts off their new life with a hunt through maggot-covered trash.

Last Thursday Brett flew in from Florida and we retrieved his motorhome from Colin’s shop in Plattsburgh. Friday we visited the WBCCI Region 1 Rally up at the Champlain Valley Fairgrounds in Essex Jct VT. I was the after-dinner entertainment, speaking about “Camping in National Parks,” which was well-received by a crowd of about 70 people. We ran a little contest as I talked and showed slides of some of the 130+ national parks we’ve visited. The people who could identify the most parks in the slides won prizes, like Airstream Life t-shirts.

I’ll be presenting the same talk this week at the Vintage Trailer Jam, in Saratoga Springs NY. We arrived here on Tuesday, and by then Brett, Colin, and a couple of others had already set up. Tuesday was “early bird” arrival day, with about 8 trailers ultimately showing up. Yesterday was the arrival day for the all other registrants, and we saw about 30 more trailers pull in. Today we are expecting another 25 or so, plus on-site registrations.

It looks like we are in for a great week. The weather has been humid and warm, but thankfully mostly sunny and mostly we’ve avoided the thunderstorms. The trailers and tow vehicles coming in are very cool to see. I would guess that about 60% of them are repeats from last year, and that means plenty of new people and trailers to check out. We’ve got really cool door prizes to give away every day, including items from Thetford, Worthington (aluminum propane tanks!), a Cyclo polisher, a complete set of Airstream Life back issues, and tons of other items.

This year Eleanor is joining the panel of invited speakers. She will be co-presenting a short seminar about “Backing up your trailer without getting divorced,” with me today. On Friday she will give a talk on how to set up your traveling kitchen to do anything you want, and on Saturday she’s giving a kids program about bats, where the kids will all get to make bat t-shirts. We’re expecting 15 kids this year, which is really great. Emma will come down on Friday with Steve and Carolyn to join us.

It’s go-go-go all day every day, so I’ve got to rush off this blog and head into town to drop off a FedEx package and make some photocopies. While we’re here at the rally I hope to post daily, so there will be more photos and details coming …

Aug 03 2009

Wedding by the lake

The past week has been entirely focused on the Big Event of the year: my oldest brother Steve, at the ripe age of 50, has finally gotten married. The shock notwithstanding, our energies have been directed to doing what we can to make sure the wedding came off as well as it possibly could.

This was a small, very personal, and low-budget event, so we all had a role to play. My job was as wedding photographer. My qualifications for this were ownership of two Nikon cameras and a willingness to take the blame if the pictures were awful. This was a bigger risk that you might think, since I’m accustomed to shooting Airstreams and having time to pose people inside them. A wedding is a dynamic and challenging event, and the lighting was difficult to say the least. We had a big bright lake in the background, harsh sun & sharp shadows, and the sun was setting right behind the ceremony site (backlighting the couple terribly). I compensated for my inexperience by shooting madly, taking about 100 photos of the preparations and 700 photos of the wedding day. I think about 200 are worth keeping.

Three different women told me that I wouldn’t get good photos of them because they weren’t photogenic. I’ve found that as a photographer, the best response to this comment is that “I make everyone look great — don’t worry.” Then they relax when you come by with the camera later. Of course, all three women turned up in shot after shot looking absolutely perfect.

Eleanor had the bigger job, however. She volunteered as caterer. For months she and Carolyn have been going over menu ideas, and as they did so, the guest list grew from 20 to 25 to 33 “plus leftovers.” She cooked for “40”, just to be safe, but you need to understand that Eleanor’s portioning usually allows for 2-3 times the actual guest count. Nobody goes hungry at one of her events. Thus, we had food for about 80 people. Two days later, we’re all still eating it, which is not a bad thing since it was all terrific.

I’d post the menu but it’s almost too long. One person could never even sample all the stuff on the buffet table, much less eat a full portion. There were sandwiches, cheese platters, hummus with pine nuts, skewers of marinated chicken and spiced shrimp, champagne grapes and raspberries, compound salads of wild rice and barley, and tons of other stuff. In the photo you can see her preparing fresh figs with a vinaigrette sauce and goat cheese — always a crowd-pleaser.

Because the bride requested a “fresh” menu, all cold dishes and predominantly vegetarian, Eleanor and I spent about 10 hours preparing vegetables and meats on Friday, and then Eleanor spent another four hours or so making sauces and handling details. She got up again at 7 a.m. on Saturday to spend another eight or nine hours at it before the guests arrived. I was on hand to wash dishes, carry things up and down to the basement refrigerator, chop things, and generally lend a hand where I could, but she did the really heavy work. It was an enormous job, and yet it was great for Eleanor to have the chance to flex her culinary muscles and make a lot of people happy.

Emma’s job was ring-bearer, and to deliver a short reading during the ceremony. She read a selection from A.A. Milne’s “Now We Are Six” about Winnie-the-Pooh, and did a great job. The book she practiced on was mine when I was her age. I wonder if, now that she’s been introduced to Milne’s poetry, she will read the rest of the book?

Of course, the Airstream had a role as well. We had volunteered to get it out of the driveway before the wedding, to free up parking space, but Carolyn wouldn’t hear of it. She arrived after having her hair done and used the Airstream as her dressing room. So the picture at right is the first moment when anyone saw her, ready to get married. Now our Airstream has a small piece in family history too.

I like small, personal weddings. There are more decisions to make when you act non-traditionally, but the result is very gratifying. Everything suited everyone there: the comfortable clothing, the music (as the bride walked across the lawn, we heard Iz’s version of Somewhere Over The Rainbow,”) the food, the ceremony, and the lakeside setting. There’s also a lot of risk in trying to hold an event on the shores of Lake Champlain because of the changeable weather, but as you can tell from the photos it was perfect for a memorable day.

The best part of a good party is when it doesn’t end. About half the guests pitched tents on the lawn and spent the night. It was sort of like having an Airstream rally. One of the friends fired up a grill and made egg & cheese muffins for everyone in the morning (flavored with maple syrup, of course, since this is Vermont), and then we sat around in the Adirondack chairs while a few gifts were opened. I don’t think anyone left before noon, even though it started to rain. You know you’ve done it right when people don’t want to leave.

Now the wedding is behind us, and the leftovers are nearly eaten, and I’ve culled down the 700 photos to fit on CD’s for people who couldn’t be here. We’ve got to start thinking about the next events coming up. The Addison County Fair and the WBCCI Region 1 Rally will both start this week. Next week is the Vintage Trailer Jam. We are going to all three events. August has started with a bang and it looks like it will continue in the same festive vein for quite a while.

Jul 13 2009

GL320 Report

OK, since things have settled down and we’re in relaxation mode, I can give the vehicle report for the gearheads. As you’ll recall, we switched from a Nissan Armada to a Mercedes GL320 a couple of months ago. This trip from Arizona to Vermont was the first big trip with the combination.

The trip was an ideal test for the new vehicle, since it encompassed virtually every condition we expect to tow in routinely: mountains, windy plains, cities, curvy back roads, and deadly boring Interstate. It also included a mix of towing and non-towing use. That’s important because we chose the GL320 partially for its non-towing driveability. In other words, I wanted all the performance we’d get from a bigger vehicle, but didn’t want to be saddled with an unwieldy truck when not towing. We use our tow vehicle as our primary transportation for months, when we are on extended trips.

Anyone reading this for advice should first read my initial report on the GL320, since I’m not going to repeat all the things I said there. There are significant caveats for anyone who might be considering this particular vehicle, or the essentially similar (but smaller) ML320. I am NOT writing this to convince anyone that they should buy this (or any) vehicle. I’m only documenting my experience. The right vehicle for you may be completely different.

Our trip was about 4,000 miles, mostly highway. The GL320 turned in about 12.5 MPG in the first 2,000 miles while towing, then the fuel economy improved markedly, between 14.0 to 15.2 while towing at 60 MPH. Going 65 MPH costs us about 1 MPG. Non-towing fuel economy has been superb for a vehicle of this size: 22 MPG in mixed driving, and 25-27 MPG on the highway at virtually any speed up to 75 MPH.

At this point the odometer shows 5,400 miles total. We have not had to add oil or AdBlue to date, despite the fact that most of our mileage has been towing and the engine is probably still breaking in. The AdBlue tank is scheduled to be refilled by the dealer at the 10,000 mile scheduled service interval, and I am interested to see if it gets low before then. AdBlue consumption is related to fuel consumption and of course we use more fuel when towing. The Bluetec system is a relatively new technology and there are reasonable questions about how whether the standard AdBlue tank is large enough to accommodate lots of towing. Mercedes says it is.

Performance has been spectacular. You would never know that this is a 3.0 liter V-6. We have more pulling power (torque) than even the big 5.6 liter V-8 in our Armada. Up hills, it blows the Armada away, and despite having 7 gears in the transmission, it needs to shift less on hills because of the impressive torque. Most of the time we are towing in 7th, with occasional shifts down to 6th and rarely 5th on moderate hills. That’s with the full 7500# load that the car is rated for. I am sure the engine is capable of much more. We have yet to find the top speed (and probably never will), but in west Texas on I-10 where the speed limit is 85 MPH, it felt capable of every bit of that. I personally never tow over 65 MPH for sustained periods, and usually keep the cruise control set around 60-62 MPH for best economy.

I am very interested to see the high-altitude performance, since that’s where we always struggled with the Armada. The normally aspirated gas engine lost a lot of power at altitude (like in Colorado and Utah), where the turbodiesel should do much better. But the performance of the turbodiesel is apparent even on flat plains because a headwind on the Interstate can be just as tough to deal with as an 8% grade in the mountains.

The brakes are also impressive. The GL320 has 14 inch vented discs front and rear, again bigger than the Armada’s, and there’s no doubt in my mind that the brakes are up to the task of stopping both truck and trailer if they have to (in the event of trailer brake failure).

I know a lot of people get freaked out by the word “unibody,” but it’s not true that unibodies are always weaker or less capable of towing compared to traditional body-on-frame trucks. In any frame, there are weak designs and there are strong ones. The GL320 has an extremely strong unibody structure with lots of high-strength steel. During the trip we never heard so much as a creak from the body, nor any indication of unusual flexing. Tire wear has been normal thus far. Every engineer I talk to says the same thing, “Unibodies are often stronger than ladder frames.” I’m very comfortable with the vehicle structure but of course the proof will be a few years down the road.

My major beef with the car has been the completely hopeless hitch receiver that Mercedes put on it. We reinforced ours in Tucson, which probably would have been enough, but then for added long-term durability I let Can-Am RV do their preferred reinforcement on it as well. It is now very strong and distributes the stress of the hitch weight over much more area.

The Can-Am RV crew also changed the Hensley shank from a 2″ drop to a straight shank. For our combination the 2″ drop bar was better for keeping the trailer level, but the straight one was recommended for slightly more weight distribution to the front axle. I don’t if it was the new shank or the stiffer receiver, but when we weighed after the modifications, we had an additional 200 lbs on the front axle (and the same amount less on the rear axle). This improved the ride slightly, and handling remained about the same (which is to say, very good).

The only problem with going to the straight shank is that the back of the trailer now rides about 1″ lower. We already had problems with the back occasionally scraping the road when we entered gas stations, and this makes it slightly worse. I may switch back to the 2″ drop this fall if my experience is not good.

Handling-wise, there is still the usual SUV “squishiness” in the tires. I felt this in the Armada as well. The recommendation I’ve gotten is to change to a tire that more closely matches the width of the rim. The rims are 8″ wide and the tires (275mm wide, or about 10.8 inches) overhang them by quite a bit. I may try this when the stock tires are worn out.

I’m also still unimpressed by the lack of a spare tire. It may be possible to shoe-horn a spare into the usual trunk space, but in any case I’m carrying a tire plug kit and a CO2 tire inflator. I love this combination — it will fix 90% of flats and it all fits in hardly any space at all. If you are interested in buying a CO2 inflator from Power Tank, type “AirstreamLife.com promotion” in the Comments box on their order form and you’ll get a free tire plug kit worth $40 with your purchase. I’m also doing a review of their product, which will appear in the Fall 2009 Airstream Life Online Edition.

It should be apparent by now that I like the turbodiesel. As I’ve said, the engine is most of the reason I bought this vehicle. It is astoundingly quiet, well-mannered, and the exhaust is so clean you can only tell it’s there by the warm steamy air. Can’t smell it, can’t see it. None of the diesel traits of the bad old days are present. Most people can’t tell it isn’t a gas engine, until they stomp on the accelerator and it leaps forward with a different (but quiet) sort of engine rumble.

I wish there were more options to get these engines. In Europe they’re everywhere, but in the US/Canada there are few available. As a result, today’s options for V-6 diesels mostly come from the European manufacturers: Land Rover, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi, BMW. (If it bothers you to buy a “foreign car,” keep in mind that the “made in America” thing is a red herring at least in the case of the GL320 because the Mercedes GL-class is built in Alabama. I still get grief about this. But I know people still believe that a Dodge now owned by Fiat, or a Suburban built in Mexico, is more patriotic than a Mercedes made in Alabama, so that particular issue will probably dog me for years.) In any case, there should be more of these diesels from the big truck manufacturers, because they offer an excellent compromise between power and economy. Why should the only option for American diesel truck buyers be a 6.7 liter Cummins engine that makes enough noise to wake the dead, and only on the 2500-series trucks?

The best thing about the GL320 is driving it while it’s not towing. I’ve never been a luxury car buyer before. I’m still not, really. If we had a shorter Airstream, I probably would have bought the VW Touareg 2 (now with 3.0 liter V-6 turbodiesel) instead. But since we needed the extra space and the third row seating, I can admit that the GL320 is a pleasure to drive when not towing. It is no sports car but just constantly reminds you that it is competent and safe. It is much nicer to drive and park than the Armada. Eleanor even likes to drive it, and she always hated driving the Armada. The safety features are extensive, so much that I can’t even get into them all here, but suffice to say it is in every way a safer vehicle for us to be driving. Finally, I love the fact that I’m getting nearly 600 miles from a $60 tank of fuel, versus 345 miles in the Armada, while putting out much less exhaust emissions.

The worst thing about driving it is that it is so quiet and competent, highway drives are rather boring. I have discovered that I tend to get drowsy, which is definitely not a good thing with three and a half tons of RV behind you. I never had a tendency to fall asleep with the Armada. The solution has been to play music from the iPod. I guess in the big scheme of things, that’s not such a bad solution.

I will tell you one last thing. A big part of my reasoning for buying this non-traditional tow vehicle is that I believe tow vehicles are headed in this technological direction. Rising CAFE (fuel economy) standards and rising emissions requirements will put huge pressure on traditional tow vehicle designs. Simply making trucks lighter won’t address the challenge — manufacturers have to make their vehicles smarter. I don’t think diesel is the whole solution either, but I do believe that a combination of technological advances (in body design, electronics, engines, transmissions, emissions controls, etc.) will lead us to the next generation of tow vehicles. I bought this vehicle partly because I think it represents the first wave of where we are headed as an industry (I’m speaking of the RV industry), and I wanted to get some experience with it to understand the future. If you wish to do the same, just remember that the leading edge is always sharp, so you need to be smart about your choices and do your research.

Jul 11 2009

Taking a turn for the better

We are back in Vermont, parked once again at our summer home base. Our odyssey from Tucson has encompassed over 3,000 miles, 11 states, and one Canadian province. The Airstream is squeezed into its designated spot in the driveway, Emma is busy visiting with her grandparents, and we are all breathing a sigh of relief that we don’t have any more driving to do for a while.

Normally when we pull into Vermont I don’t have that feeling of “too much driving.” But normally we take couple of months to cross the country, and this time our departure was seriously delayed by the car and hitch problems I described earlier. Our ideal schedule is to drive 150 miles or less, stay for 2-4 days, and then drive no more than 150 miles again. This time we had many 300+ mile days, and even one of 650 miles.

Somewhere along the way, probably in Wisconsin when I was foolishly lifting my 9-year-old, I strained some back muscles and the resulting pain has afflicted me while driving for the past week. We’ve resorted to stopping along the road so that Eleanor can massage my back. This may sound blissful — pausing in the afternoon for a delightful massage in the Airstream bedroom — but trust me, you don’t want this experience. Eleanor’s massage was therapeutic and extremely painful. My friend Bill Reilly, who is a professional masseuse, says he can make any grown man “cry like a little girl,” and after having Eleanor treat my back I know exactly what he’s talking about. But for all the pain, her technique worked and kept me on the road long enough to get here.

Our last day in Cazenovia NY was fine for Eleanor, Emma, and Brett, but lousy for me. Brett got a ride in the Piper Cub, including some wingovers, Eleanor and Emma walked trails on all 50 acres of the property where we were parked. At night our host cranked up his 1917 Calliaphone on the front porch and blasted carnival theme songs across the countryside. It was eery to hear the music late at night, but also sort of magical. Unfortunately, I had one of those overly-busy-and-filled-with-annoyance sort of day at the “office” and couldn’t really enjoy any of it. At the end of the day I was inclined to just hole up in the Airstream and watch a movie, while the rest of the group had dinner with our host. I probably shouldn’t have chosen the dystopian theme of “Children of Men” for that evening’s movie, but in a sense it was nice to see how much worse things could be.

Things went a lot better on Friday, when we towed the Airstream across the beautiful Adirondack Park region and stopped in the small town of Speculator for lunch by the lake. The weather has, amazingly, improved to sheer perfection: sunny, 70s, dry and breezy. I say “amazingly” because the entire month of June in the northeast has been wet, wet, wet. The ground is still squishy in most places. Perhaps summer will officially start now that we are here.

At least, that’s what my brother Steve suggested. He recently finished the restoration of a Glastron GT150, and he hasn’t been able to use it much with the crummy weather. But last night the conditions on Lake Champlain were very good and so he plopped the GT150 down in the water and we took it for a spin. It’s a tiny thing, and it skips over the water like a flat stone while going at speeds up to 50 MPH. Great fun.

I have some more things to say about the trip in retrospect, including a report on the success of the GL320, but I’ll save it for future blogs. Now that we are at summer home base, I’ll be posting less than daily until Region 1 Rally (Aug 5-9, and I’ll be giving a presentation there on Aug 7), and the Vintage Trailer Jam (August 12-16).