May 30 2013

Life at Alumapalooza 4

Everyone here keeps asking me how things are going for us, since we are now entering our third day of Alumapalooza. I have been replying that his has been the easiest and best year yet. Many of the troublesome issues from years past have been worked out, and we have an absolutely awesome team of “orange shirts” who have just nailed every problem that crops up, even before I know about them. As a result, we’re having a pretty good time.

This is good because we are already thinking hard about the challenges of next February’s Alumaflamingo, to be held in Sarasota FL. We’re going to be have to be at the top of our game to make that event meet our standards the first year out, especially with (likely) 200-300 trailers on the field. Normally it takes about 12-18 months to plan a new event, and at this point we have just nine months left, so it’s definitely on my mind, and Brett’s.

But we’ll talk about that later. You want to read about Alumapalooza, right? What can I say—it has been great. The weather has been excellent since the early sprinkles ended mid-day Tuesday. We’re expecting lots of sunshine and temps in 70s and 80s through Friday, then probably a few thunderstorms will roll through. That’s typical.

The events have been well-received. I’m not going to go through a list of everything we’ve held, because it’s all in the online schedule, but suffice to say the attendees have been kept completely occupied, from Yoga at 7:30 through the Roving Happy Hours in the evening. Yesterday a lot of people missed half of Marty’s talk about “Running a Business On The Road” because they were trying to chow down a little lunch between activities. We may have programmed the day a little too tight because we had so many things we wanted to present.

Well, that’s just a warm-up because today’s schedule has a lot more on it. We’ve got seven seminars and activities for today, plus towing “test drives”, plus the Aluminum Gong Show (Eleanor and I will be doing an act in it), plus a Pool Party, two factory tours, door prizes, Open Grill, and this evening’s Jam Session. Eleanor and I went through today’s schedule at 6:30 just to plan what we were going to do. She and Emma are starting their day with Yoga at 7:30.

We are taking care to pace ourselves so that we aren’t burnt out by Saturday. I’m trying to get to sleep around 10 p.m. but it doesn’t always work out. Regardless, I have to be up at 6:30 or so to get ahead of the day, take care of email, slather up on sunscreen, and check in with everyone. (By the way, “Sammy The Solar Squirrel” gets on the staff radio channel every day to remind the staff to take care. Today he is going to be joined by “Harry The Hydrated Hippo,” to remind them to drink the cold water we keep in a cooler by the main stage. We have fun with our radios …)

The new Internet system is working very well. Instead of the marginal and occasionally slow Internet I normally get while at Airstream, my system is flying along at good 4G speeds all the time. I’m getting a consistent -73 dBm. Brett has a similar system with a different antenna and he’s also getting awesome performance and a better dBm rating (-59 dBM) so I think his antenna is a better one. I may switch later. Colin Hyde has one too, and he’s very happy. Alex is next door to Colin and finding poor reception so I suspect he’s the next one to upgrade.

Gotta go — the day has already started! For more about what’s coming, check the Alumapalooza Facebook page.

May 28 2013

Pre- Alumapalooza 4

The blog has been quiet the past couple of days because we’ve been deep into the Alumapalooza pre-event routine. We’ve settled into a pattern for the set-up of these events, which started before we arrived. This year we have a slightly larger staff than before, and they are all really excellent, so the workload for us has gotten much lighter. When we pulled in to Airstream’s Terra Port on Saturday, everything was so well under control that there was little to do but get updated, and on Sunday instead of joining the goody-bag assembly line, I was able to spend the day with Super Terry doing some maintenance to our Airstream.

The maintenance was primarily about inspecting our tires and wheel bearings. It has been over three years since the bearings were re-packed, and many miles, which is far beyond the usual RV industry recommendation. Paradoxically, our heavy and regular use of the trailer is one of the reasons we’ve gotten away with it. Sitting still isn’t great for the bearings, as it offers an opportunity for condensation to get in. I’ve also periodically checked the bearings to ensure they are running cool, and whenever a wheel is up in the air I check for smoothness & quietness of rotation.

Still, it has been nearly two years and probably over 12,000 miles since the last time Super Terry and I took the wheels off to check things out, so it was definitely overdue. We found that the Michelin tires are still doing well, but wearing more on the outer edge of the tire tread, so we took them over to the Wal-Mart Super Center in a nearby town to get them flipped.

Now the white-letter side of each tire is facing out, and the tires have been swapped from side to side so that they will have the same direction of rotation. This should even out the wear a little. Based on the wear I saw, I’d guess we could get about 50k miles out of them. They’ve already gone over 30,000 miles, and the date code says they are five years old so they are probably going to “age out” before they wear out.

Our inspection revealed that the brake pads were fine except on one wheel, where the disc caliper sliders had gotten dry. When that happens, only one brake pad gets all the wear, so we replaced that set of brake pads and re-lubricated the caliper sliders. Otherwise all was good. Super Terry re-packed the wheel bearings, and re-applied gray Parbond (a sort of thin caulk used for small seams on the exterior) to a few spots that needed it, and that completed our day of maintenance.

Over the weekend I had a few minutes to look around Jackson Center to see what has changed. We knew that the Cafe Veranda, the best restaurant in town, had closed. The building is still for sale. I hope someone buys it and turns it back into a B&B. It’s a gorgeous house and has some interesting history. I’ve heard that Wally Byam used to stay there many decades ago.

The one-screen downtown movie house, the Elder Theatre, is in danger of closing for the same reason as many other old independent screens across the country. The mandatory change to digital projection is too expensive for this little Mom & Pop operation, and so they’ve launched a Kickstarter effort to raise $25,000 to save the theater. Check it out and pledge if you love the little village of Jackson Center, OH. This country is going to lose hundreds of little downtown theaters if they can’t make the digital conversion this year.

Phil’s Cardinal Market, the old grocery store, has been replaced by a spankin’ new Family Dollar store. It’s nice to see some investment in the downtown. It just opened last week and seems very fine. This week the Alumapalooza-goers will flood it and probably clear it out of milk and bread, as they usually do.

On Monday the big deal of the day was the arrival of the tent. Normally the tent crew arrives in the late morning and has it up by 2 or 3 in the afternoon, but this year things ran late, so we didn’t have a chance to get in there and set up our stuff (lights, sound, kitchen, Internet, refrigerators, etc) until after 6 p.m. This was an inconvenience but really not much more than that, so overall I would say setup went extremely well this year.

All weekend we’ve had early arrivals showing up and parking in the Service Center parking lot. At this point I think we have about 25 Airstreams there, plus another ten or so staff trailers in the Terra Port, and probably 6-10 more service customers. Everyone gathered on the grass for the Memorial Day cookout, which was a huge success. The rain we had gotten in the morning cleared up for the afternoon and early evening. It rained again last night and there is still the occasional patter on the roof as I type this (at 6 a.m. Tuesday) but the forecast is calling for improving conditions all day and fabulous conditions through Friday. Only a little rain and not too much heat is a pretty good week in JC this time of year.

Yesterday Dave Schumann showed up and took a few of us into his office to show off a new Airstream guitar. So far only two have been made, but Airstream will get more and sell you one for $2,250 if you are interested. One of our attendees is going to play this one on stage this week.

All week Eleanor and I have been practicing for the new Aluminum Gong Show, which is a featured part of Alumapalooza this week. We’ve got a little routine which involves both of us and a ukulele. If the performance is not great, at least it will be entertaining. I am hoping a few more people sign up to be in the show. Any act is welcome, even pet tricks. It just has to be a minimum of 90 seconds long and a maximum of four minutes. If you are attending Alumapalooza you really don’t want to miss this show, trust me …

It’s time to get moving now. This is going to be one of those days where we do more before 9 a.m. than most people do all day. By 8 we will have a caravan of staff trailers heading out to the field, and by 9 parking of the general attendees will begin. Alumapalooza begins now!

May 24 2013

Arrived at Airstream!

We’ve completed the final leg of our long long trip to Airstream headquarters in Jackson Center, Ohio, at last. Yesterday we towed 330 miles from the Great Smoky Mtns to a spot somewhere between Dayton and Cincinnati to crash for the night, then the final 100 miles or so this morning.

I was pleased to see that even though our battery was severely depleted after three days of shaded camping, we managed to pick up 47.5 amp hours through the solar panels while we were towing. It was a beautiful day, and with the battery back up to about 76% it was no problem to spend another night without plugging in.

We’ve been lucky to avoid a lot of weather trouble along our route this year. Normally we’d follow a route across I-40 or I-70 to get to Ohio, and if we had, we’d have risked tornadoes and nasty thunderstorms. This year we opted for I-20 to I-30 only because we were heading for The Great Smoky Mtns National Park, and coincidentally lucked out on the weather. All we had to deal with was a lot of heat across Texas, and some humidity in Arkansas and Tennessee. Now it’s just about perfect in Jackson Center, OH, with days peaking around 70 degrees and dry air.

That won’t last, of course, because there’s nothing as changeable as Jackson Center weather. All I can hope is that the inevitable thunderstorms won’t be too severe, and right now the long range forecast seems to support that. We shall see, because even a 48-hour forecast really can’t be counted on for much. Every day’s a surprise.

The rest of the crew are here, and by the time we arrived they had the field all staked out. Tim & Alice were busy arranging the water system and checking on the power. Brett and a small crew were marking the tent locations (they’ll be put up on Monday). In other words, business as usual. Tomorrow we’ll stuff the goody bags and Terry & I have plans to do some service on our Airstream, but it’s generally light work. Nobody is too busy yet.

I see four Airstreams belonging to attendees who have arrived early; they’re all in the Service Center parking lot. Little impromptu Happy Hours and get-togethers seem to be forming, which is nice to see. Tomorrow it should pick up quite a bit, and by Monday we expect at least 25 Airstreams to be boondocked in the lot for the Memorial Day cookout.

It’s nice to see Jackson Center again. It’s always like a Homecoming. We have a lot of memories here and of course it’s the home of the company that my entire business is based upon. It’s a tiny village in the middle of a lot of corn & soybean fields, and I never would have come here if it weren’t for this amazing phenomenon called Airstream, but since I have it has become a place I think of fondly.

This afternoon has been spent settling in, and catching up with friends who we haven’t seen in months. There’s a lot more of that ahead, I’m sure. If Alumapalooza is anything, it’s a giant social occasion—and Airstreamers are very social people. This promises to be a very fun week.

Jan 15 2013

It’s as easy as bungee jumping

Quiet blog? Only above the surface. Back here at Airstream Life World Headquarters, things have been pleasantly busy.

These days my work as Editor of Airstream Life has been almost a backdrop to putting together events. Financially this makes no sense, as the magazine pays the bills and the events are more of a hobby business, but I can’t stop myself. Either Brett or I will come up with an idea for “something cool” and then suddenly we are spending far too many hours to make it come off. I think we are both just compulsive about building new things, and we enjoy that more than our day jobs.

Back in late October we flew out to Oregon to do a site visit to the Seven Feather Casino/Hotel/RV Resort, wondering if we could put on an event there. (By the way, I think that I spent more nights in hotel rooms last year with Brett than I did with my wife, and that’s slightly disturbing.) Once on-site, we found a charming and well designed campground and a staff of extremely nice people who convinced us that it was the place to go next, and that’s how Alumafandango Seven Feathers was born. We announced it a few weeks ago, for August 6-11, 2013, and now we are hustling to get seminars, entertainers, and tours put together so that everyone who comes will have a great time.

But before we can pull that off, we need to get Alumapalooza 4 on track. I got tired of some of the repeat seminars, so we’ve basically started over with a list of new ideas—which of course means a lot of work. Only a few favorites will repeat, and they will all have interesting twists. Alex & Charon are coming back but instead of vacuum-sealing Alex in a bag they are going to do something else horrible. We’ll do the Backup Derby again but this year I think the windows of the tow vehicle will be blacked out. We’ll have yoga again, but this time it will be in the nude.

Just kidding about that last item.

And before we can pull off Alumapalooza 4, we need to get past Alumafiesta in Tucson. That’s coming up in two weeks. Registration closes today, so soon I’ll be putting together all the attendee lists and various other things we need, and then Eleanor and I have to finalize our trailers. Yes, I said “trailers” plural. Because Brett & Lisa are flying in, we have to supply them with our 1968 Airstream Caravel for housing, completely furnished & equipped. We have never loaned out this trailer before so it has meant a lot of extra prep work to turn it into a “rental”: lots of cleaning, re-packing, testing, and counting the silverware… I may have to ask Brett for a security deposit.

Ah, kidding again. I’ll just replace the silver with flatware from Home Goods.

Things have been complicated lately by two factors: (1) This is the season for all good snowbirds to arrive in Tucson. A few friends have popped by already, and in a week or so we will be inundated. I wouldn’t dare complain about this, since we look forward to our friends coming to town, but it means that all our prep has to be done well in advance. (2) It has been unbelievably cold (for Tucson) lately. To put that into perspective, keep in mind that here we never have to winterize the trailers. We just leave them parked and turn on the furnace for a night or two.

Since New Year’s Eve we’ve had at least five freezing nights and more are forecast through Thursday (then we get back to the normal stuff for this time of year, 68 by day and 45 by night). Our propane ran low very quickly, so I popped an electric space heater in each trailer instead and went off to the local LP supplier to get four 30# LP tanks filled plus a 20# for the gas grill. This is what we call “winter” in Tucson.

In the process I discovered that one of the propane “pigtails” on the Safari was leaking. These are the flexible hoses that run from the propane tank to the regulator (see video explanation from last year). They’re stupidly unreliable lately. I don’t know if the quality of construction is dropping or I’m just buying the wrong brand, but lately it seems I can only get a year out of them before they start leaking at the crimped metal connections. The current pair date from last summer.

I called Super Terry for a consultation on this, and he recommended going from 12″ to 15″ lines so that there’d be less stress on them. I ordered four new ones (about $11 each), being quite sure not to get the same brand as before, and will just keep a pair in the Airstream from now on as spares, along with the wrenches needed to remove and install them, and my soapy-water spray bottle and plumber’s tape. You know yours have gone bad when you smell gas around the propane bottles, and your furnace quits. Usually this happens in the middle of the night. Once you have the pigtails in hand they take only a few minutes to swap, but sometimes finding the right type and length is harder than you’d think, so I’d recommend everyone carry at least one spare with them.

I had a nice meeting with the people at Lazydays last week to finalize details about our event and the food & beverage. They are really rolling out the red carpet for us, including an open bar & appetizers at our first Happy Hour, and generally first-class service all around. I had a pre-event dream last night, which always happens to me a few weeks before we do an event, and for the first time it wasn’t a nightmare.

We must be getting better at this event business. At least I should hope to have learned a few things, after all the ones we’ve done: Two Vintage Trailer Jams, two Modernism Weeks, three Alumapaloozas, one Alumafandango, and in 2013 three more events. That’s eight behind us and three ahead, plus two on the drawing board. I guess people are taking notice, because in the past month we’ve had two inquiries about running events for other people. Probably only one of those will actually pan out. It’s flattering to be asked in any case. I don’t know if it makes business sense since (like bungee-jumpers) we are mostly in it for the thrill, but you never know where an opportunity might lead. I’ve learned to check out every opportunity that pops up, as sometimes even things that look hopeless will take an unexpected turn for the better. Except at a Bourbon Street bar, looking is usually free.

Dec 24 2012

2013 travel plans

2013 is right around the corner, and as with every year I’m considering our options for travel. It’s looking like it will be a very interesting year.

Our first big trip will likely be in late March or April. Normally we take a week around New Year’s to go camping in southern California, but this year we are going to hang around Tucson over the holidays, and take a longer trip to California in the spring after we’re done with Alumafiesta in Tucson. The general idea is to meander up the California coast for a few weeks, stringing together a lot of visits along the way.

We haven’t made that trip since 2005, when we started at Florence OR in mid November and worked our way down the coast all the way for Christmas at the San Diego Zoo. It was a very memorable trip, and I can’t believe that it was seven years ago—until I look at the pictures of Emma, age 5.

This time we’ll do the trip heading north, starting in Anza-Borrego and then working up the coast. I don’t know how far north we’ll get, but at the very least we will see some redwood trees.

These days none of our travel is arbitrary. Time seems to be more scarce for us, so the multi-week trip that we would just throw together on a whim in the past now requires major planning sessions. I have to justify the time in the Airstream more carefully than ever before, because every departure from home base disrupts projects and goals for all three of us.

A good travel route comes together like a string of pearls, and right now I’m collecting those pearls along the 1,200 mile string between San Diego and Oregon. We’ll stop in to see friends in the major cities, visit Airstream Life clients and prospects, camp in a few beauty spots, and replenish our resources of Airstream stock photography and future contributors that we meet along the way. So far I’ve got about eight or nine stops in mind, and by the time the trip dates come we’ll probably have a dozen or more things that we need/want to do. The real trick will be getting it all done in three to five weeks, before we’re required to come back to Tucson for something.

This summer looks even more challenging, in the sense that we have to figure out some complicated travel. As with the previous three years, everything starts with Alumapalooza in Jackson Center OH. I love doing Alumapalooza but it forces us into more or less the same travel pattern every year, which is boring. Once again we will hit the road some time in May and work northeast toward Ohio, then continue east to Vermont. Fortunately, after that the program will likely change, and I can’t say how much until we get further along our planning cycle. Most likely the Airstream will stay in Vermont most of the summer, but Eleanor and I may fly off a couple of times to attend events far away.

I’d really like to make this the year of our long-awaited Airstream trip to Newfoundland. It’s a tough trip to make, because the miles are long, the costs are high, and connectivity (for a working person) is difficult. Even from Vermont it’s a long trip, over 1,500 miles to St. John’s NFL, which is like driving from New York City to Dallas TX. Diesel in Newfoundland today is the equivalent of $5.19 per gallon (US), and the ferry for all three of us plus the Airstream would run about $830 round-trip. Still cheaper than Alaska, which is sort of the “white whale” of RV’ing in North America, but Newfoundland is definitely not easy.

Eleanor and I went there in 1995 via car, tent camping and staying in local inns across Maine, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, and Prince Edward Island, traveling 2,000 miles, and all in nine days. It was beautiful, memorable, and exciting. This time we’d like to go more slowly and explore more. Each year I look at it and wonder if this will be the optimal year to go. The only thing that has improved over the past few years has been Internet connectivity, and it’s still pretty spotty compared to US standards. So I’d have to disconnect for much of the trip, which is simultaneously a wonderful and horrifying thought.

Another “wish list” trip is Europe. For the past couple of years I’ve been investigating the realities of European travel by American Airstreamers, and unfortunately it’s pretty hard to do. You have two basic options: (1) ship your suitably small Airstream over and do a quickie conversion to make it legal and compatible with EU standards, then ship it back; or (2) buy an Airstream in Europe. Both options are expensive and would only worthwhile for an extended trip of several months, which is not possible for us right now. We’re looking at a third option for this summer, which is basically hanging out with European Airstreamers while we travel conventionally by car & hotel. Not ideal but at least feasible, and if the stars align it might yet happen.

Meanwhile back at in the states we have things to do too. The big one is Alumafandango, which is our August event. Last summer we held it in Denver. After much consideration, we have decided to hold it in central Oregon, so I’ve got to get there for that at a time when the Airstream is going to be almost as far away as it can be. The answer will be a plane ticket and a hotel room, unless I can borrow an Airstream in Oregon for a week. Still working on that.

Officially we haven’t announced Alumafandango 2013, so you’re the first to hear about it, but the registration form is open now if you want to check it out. Dates will be August 6-11, 2013, at the wonderful Seven Feathers RV Resort in Canyonville, OR. That’s right on I-5, about 200 miles south of Portland. Like Alumafiesta in Tucson, it will be a first-class event with all full hookups in a really nice campground, indoor displays of Airstreams, lots of activities, etc. Pricing is the same as Alumafiesta. There’s more updated info on the website, even though the graphics still show last year’s event.

After Alumafandango I’ll have to fly back to Vermont, retrieve the Airstream and family, and then begin the long trek back west to home base. All told, the Airstream will probably log about 9,000 miles this summer (plus 3,000 if we manage to get to Newfoundland), the Mercedes will probably cover more like 12,000 miles, and by September I’ll be really glad to just park myself back at the desk again … and think about 2014.