Nov 30 2010

New products

After seven years, I think we’ve finally got it. This trade show has always been a minor thorn in my side. I hate the weather up here this time of year, I hate the rush-rush schedule, and I hate the trade show food. Business events like trade shows are often formulated to cause attendees to burn the candle at both ends, staying up late at the hospitality events, eating too much, standing too much, getting up early and doing it all over again. Add in jet lag, heavy meals, cold rain and the ever-present possibility of a virus, and you can see why it can be too much.

But we’ve got it down now. I mean, we have beaten the system. Every year it has been a slightly better trip, and now I think we’ve nearly perfected it. Brett and I actually had a pretty decent time. With some maturity to Airstream Life and our approach, we’ve had to chase fewer people. With better planning, we’ve been able to accomplish all of our goals in a day and a half, rather than two days. A little knowledge of Louisville has yielded better places to eat and quieter hotels (not under the approach path to the airport). We even had time to take in a movie on Monday night. For the first time, I’m leaving Louisville without feeling breathless.

Focusing our efforts more efficiently did come with a small price, however. We didn’t roam the convention floor as much as we have in the past. Rather than dropping in on dozens of manufacturer displays and browsing the products, we spent 100% of our time talking to prospects and partners. That’s what we needed to do, but I’m afraid it also means no photos or reports of non-Airstream products.

Beyond the Eddie Bauer edition Airstream, the other news from Airstream is the Avenue, a B-van based on a Chevy gas engine platform. It’s a bit cheaper than the popular Airstream Interstate (which is based on the Mercedes-Benz Sprinter diesel engine platform), at about $95k versus $125k. I was told that it has 24 distinct advantages over the competitive B-vans from Roadtrek and Pleasureway, although I don’t know what they are. It will eventually be sold by Chevrolet dealers in addition to Airstream dealers, just as the Interstate is sold by half a dozen Mercedes-Benz dealers. I hope to get my hands on a demo unit this winter and take it out for a weekend.

Otherwise, Airstream was mostly showing some decor updates to existing floor plans. We saw a 16-foot Airstream in the Sport lineup, and some interior variations on the International and Flying Cloud lines. The popularity of the B-van lineup was evident, as this is the first time I have ever seen equal numbers of vans and trailers in the Airstream display. But the Eddie Bauer model was the big attraction, and I predict it will be a popular trailer. People are already asking about getting the “sport hatch” feature in other trailer lengths. In my opinion it doesn’t make sense in anything much shorter than a 25-footer, but ultimately the market will decide, and I’m sure Airstream will build trailers to suit the demand they can identify.

Probably the most intriguing product we spotted was the fuel cell being demonstrated by SFC Energy. This is an entirely new idea for the RV industry, but I think it has the potential to be revolutionary. The little silver box in the picture is a kind of electrical generator which runs off ultra-pure methanol fuel from the jug at its right. It’s called an EFOY (“Energy For You”). It very quietly produces about 90 watts of power (at 12 volts) to recharge the RV batteries.

When I say “quiet” I mean nearly silent. Running full-bore it comes in at about 23 decibels, or literally whisper quiet. You could sleep with it running underneath your bed. The reaction used to make electricity produces no harmful gases, just carbon dioxide and water vapor. One 2.6 gallon “fuel cartridge” can run the gizmo constantly for five days, and it can be programmed to automatically run only when your batteries need charging. You could literally camp for weeks with only this device to supply your power.

Now, you might be thinking, “My little gasoline generator produces 1,000 watts, so why would I want that thing that can only make 90 watts?” Well, first you should read my blog entry “A Short History Of The Sun,” to understand why slow charging is much better than fast charging. In short, generators are massively inefficient at recharging batteries.

Second, most of the time, you are probably very happily camping with only 12 volt power. (The major exception is running the air conditioning or the microwave oven.) Your major power draw will be in the evenings, when lights, water pump, and furnace are running. The EFOY can easily make up all of your day’s power needs by running for a few hours. Think of it as a solar panel that doesn’t require sun. Day and night, it produces 90 watts of power as needed, leaving no fumes and no noise. In 24 hours the EFOY 1600 can produce 130 amp-hours, which is far more than we could possibly use.

So what’s the catch? Cost. An EFOY 1600 will run about $4,500 right now, and the company has no distribution network in the US at present, for either the devices or the fuel. The cost will certainly turn off most RV’ers right now, but look to the future. Even today, a solar panel setup that can do half of what the EFOY can do will cost thousands of dollars. It may not be long before a fuel cell like the EFOY is the electrical power option of choice for RV’ers.

Nov 29 2010

New ideas in Louisville

As promised, I’m reporting from the annual industry trade show in Louisville.

We had a chance to check out the new Eddie Bauer edition Airstream. The official press conference is tomorrow, where we will learn more details, but here’s what I can tell you now. It’s basically a 25FB (Front Bedroom) floorplan with a “sport hatch” at the rear. The dinette seats and side couch fold up to go flat against the walls, and the table is easily removed, to allow full access through the hatch. You can store a kayak inside, although it will get in the way of foot traffic.

The hatch is similar to the one used on the Pan American trailer, but smaller. A sliding screen comes down from the top to “let the outside in”when the hatch is open. A patch no-skid material covers the standard bumper cover, since it acts as an entry step.

The trailer features Eddie Bauer branding, fabrics, and other details. Notably, it rides on a set of Michelin LTX Rib 16″ tires. There are lot of other small touches as well — all of which will be documented in an article in the Spring 2011 issue of Airstream Life.

Airstream is also showing a 16-foot Sport series trailer, which is basically identical to the other 16-footers in floorplan; a 30-foot Flying Cloud; the new Chevy-based “Avenue” Class B motorhome in three floorplans; and several new decors in various existing models. All of them look good. I’ll get a few more pics tomorrow.

We had a little break in the middle of the day, so we decided to skip the usual fare and head out to something local. We ended up at Mark’s Feed Store in their “old town” location. Despite the name that sounds like it oriented to feeding livestock, it’s actually a decent barbecue place. An IBC Root Beer in a frosty mug was the highlight for me, though. I’m often pleased by simple things.

The trade show really ramps up tomorrow, so I can’t say much about the product on display yet, except that I’m noticing a definite trend toward innovation. The manufacturers who are surviving the recession are also the ones thinking ahead and investing in new ideas. I’ll be prowling more carefully tomorrow to see what great new ideas have popped up, both in Airstream and other brands.

The show is still smaller than it was a few years ago, but I see plenty of strength and lots of optimism, which bodes well for the RV industry overall. And that [insert big sigh of relief] bodes well for those of us who depend on the health of the RV industry for our little businesses.

Nov 22 2010

Transitions

We succumbed to a little bit of “get-there-itis” on Sunday and drove 350 miles west from Corpus Christi to Sonora, TX. As I think about things I need to do at home base, the list gets longer and the vast spaces of west Texas and southern New Mexico start to appear further. It is hard to do much in west Texas with only four days — the distances are so huge that you spend a lot of time just driving from point to point. We have found ourselves in an odd position: four days remaining on our timeline, but just not enough to really do what we’d like to do.

All of the interesting parts of west Texas (the national parks, state parks, historical sites, hiking, etc.) are about 500 miles from home base. New Mexico, of course, is even closer. This means all of those things are within a reasonable distance if we decide to come back during the winter or spring. We’ll probably have less time pressure later, so our decision was to not try to rush through any of the possible western stops, in favor of spending more time on the eastern stops. Austin and Corpus Christi were the limit of our definition of “eastern” for this purpose.

So now we are just heading west at high speed and waiting for inspiration to strike us along the road. At least by covering a lot of miles on Sunday and Monday we will have a little extra time if we do see something that catches our interest on Tuesday or Wednesday: those interesting roadside stops that you see sometimes, the local cafe, the random desert art, or a photo opportunity. I’ll feel better about pausing once we are within 500 miles of Tucson.

Right around this time of year I always have the same revelation. This time it hit me on Friday, as I was walking to Malaquite campground’s cold water showers, wearing shorts and a t-shirt. A camper nearby was playing music outside, some woman crooning “White Christmas.” I had to do a double-take because it seemed so incongruous amidst the sandy dunes, blue skies, and breezy ocean air. Then I realized: Ah, yes, this is late November and Thanksgiving is just a few days away.

The revelation is that I don’t feel depressed. Like a lot of people, I have suffered from seasonal depression, and November has historically been a very tough month for me. Living in the northeast most of my life, suffering the sudden darkness of the annual Daylight Savings Time change and the traditionally grim weather of November has been something that I formerly accepted as normal, along with the feelings of unease and gloom. The recommended solution was anti-depressant pills, which I have never tried because I have found that a big silver twinkie works just fine for me. In other words, before the weather gets cold and the sun disappears, I head south and stay there. That has been my prescription since 2004: Take one Airstream, once daily.

I would not say this will work for everyone, in fact I’m quite sure it won’t. But I enjoy the sensation of the annual revelation in November: Hey, it’s almost Thanksgiving! Why doesn’t it feel like Thanksgiving? Oh yeah — I feel fine — how’d that happen? If you hate winter and you’ve got the flexibility, try chasing 72 degrees down south. I realized a long time ago that I’d rather live in a trailer park in Florida and subsist on a fraction of my salary than live in a mansion in the northeast and feel depressed.

I’m glad I’m feeling strong enough to roll with the punches, because not everything in life goes as you plan. In my case, the new magazine venture I have been working on for over a year is now officially dead. It won’t launch. A combination of bad economic timing (advertisers won’t support it), illness of the appointed Editor (not me), and a distinct lack of manufacturer support sealed the coffin. This little venture has cost me a considerable amount of money and time, so I have reasons to be depressed about it, but I’m really not. I went through so much heartache and angst over the first three years of Airstream Life that I’ve learned not to let setbacks get to me. There were many useful lessons learned, some great new contacts, and a few doors of opportunity remain open even if the primary concept has, as they say about Rolls-Royces, “failed to proceed.”

There are still some other interesting projects on the table — too many, in fact. Alumapalooza 2011 is trucking right along. We have 67 trailers signed up as of today and we expect it to be larger and more exciting than the first one. Brett and I are working on another Alumapalooza-type event for 2011, but it’s too early to release details of that yet. I’ve got a book project about half done that I’m very excited about — it should release in early 2011 if I buckle down in the next month. And I’m busy re-inventing Airstream Life in response to reader comments. We’re adding more photos, more Airstreams, and more brief articles to give a better picture of the Airstream world every issue.

Eleanor and I have been asked a few times recently if we are excited to get back home. We both have mixed feelings about it, really. Home base has its advantages (more space, opportunity to pursue projects, Tucson-area activities, settled lifestyle, Eleanor’s kitchen, etc.), while being in the Airstream of course offers a constantly changing environment, the excitement of exploring new places, and the freedom of a lightweight lifestyle. Both are great. There is a transition period between the two that is always a little awkward, but it gets to be less of a factor each time.

I think we are particularly comfortable with the end of our long voyage because we know we’ll get out again — soon. We already have reservations for a New Year’s trip, and are talking about possible trips in the spring as the southwestern weather warms up. There’s no feeling of being trapped in the house when we can see our escape pod in the carport every day. So the drive we are doing now back to Tucson is not really an “ending” to be upset about, but simply another transition in our long voyage through The Maze.

Sep 27 2010

StarFest 2010

It has been cars, cars, cars all weekend. We’ve been attending StarFest 2010 in Winchester VA, which is the annual national event of the Mercedes Benz Club of America.

It’s quite different from the Airstream events we normally attend. Obviously the attendees stay in a hotel rather than in their vehicles. But beyond that, the emphasis is different. Airstreamers tend to focus more on the community of people than the trailers. This crowd is interested in the cars more than anything else: driving them, maintaining them, showing them, and talking about them — especially the exotic, rare, or old models, like the award-winning red 300SL pictured at right.

There was some passing interest in the Airstream, but mostly it was regarded as an amusing curiosity, and again the attention was mostly paid to the GL320 that towed it. At the Concours Award Banquet on Saturday night, I was interrogated by my fellow table-mates about its performance. They appeared to be suitably impressed.

As with the Airstreamers, the crowd was mostly older, but there was a small contingent of young guys who all operated independent shops specializing in 1960-1993 (approx). Mercedes cars — the “affordable classics.” You can still easily find a lot of great old Mercedes cars in good operating condition (cosmetically imperfect) for very reasonable prices, and guys like these will help you keep them on the road forever. I went to a talk given by representatives of the MB Classic Center, and they emphasized that Mercedes intends to keep producing parts to keep old cars on the road, safe and reliable, for decades to come.

There were other interesting talks that I attended (and I got a few ideas for next year’s Alumapalooza, too!) But the big event of Saturday was the Concours show, where we had excellent examples of Mercedes vehicles from seven decades. On Sunday, we dropped in on the Autocross for the morning and watched some of the hotter cars zip around a complex and tight little course. We did the Defensive Driving course again, just for practice.

Wondering why there’s a Smart car in the picture at right? It’s a Daimler product and some Mercedes enthusiasts own them. It’s not for me, but they are awfully cute and I bet this one would have done well on the Autocross if the owner was willing to give it try.

I was pleasantly surprised by Winchester. The “historic downtown” (a phrase horribly abused by some local chambers of commerce) is truly historic. There’s a ton of great Colonial architecture remaining in town, centered on a handsome and vibrant brick pedestrian mall. The city reportedly changed hands 71 times during the Civil War, and the Court House held both northern and southern prisoners. You can still see their graffitti on the interior walls of the building, upstairs.

While a few buildings are in obvious distress, the majority of the downtown is well restored and housing robust businesses. Eleanor and Emma were intrigued by the bead shop, while I was astonished to find an independent old-fashioned third-generation clothing store, the kind you never see in downtowns anymore. The architecture is spectacular, with historic brick buildings, stone buildings, and even a log building. Winchester’s center has a lot going for it.

We have now relocated the Airstream to Falls Church VA, where E&E are courtesy parking with Bobby, Danine, and Elise. We first stayed with them in 2007, then they stayed with us in Tucson in February 2008, and now it’s our turn again in 2010. But I am up in northern New Jersey for an overnight, doing some business, so I’m once again in a hotel. I’ll rejoin the group on Tuesday night and we’ll get back to the serious business of Airstreaming.

Sep 23 2010

From the Moon to Winchester

We had intended our courtesy parking stop in Columbia MD to be a very relaxing time. An old friend and co-worker let us block most of her driveway with the Airstream, so we had a nice spot in a suburban neighborhood with an electric cord running into the garage for three nights.

But it wasn’t very relaxing after the first night, when Eleanor made dinner for everyone. The next day things got away from me (work-wise) and I ended up running back and forth to the local Fedex Kinko’s and worrying about mail that was supposed to have arrived but didn’t. The next day we had a series of frustrations, culminating in a really terrible haircut for me (I now look as if I’ve recently had chemotherapy), my glasses spontaneously breaking, and Emma losing her beloved Kindle. So most of our visit was not particularly relaxing, but at least we were in a place where we could deal with it. Time will fix the bad hair, and large quantities of money will eventually fix the glasses and Kindle. We’ll live. Our hosts had their own hassles too, so there was plenty of commiserating going on.

On our last night Eleanor and Emma did their usual Moon Festival stuff, which includes making “moon water” and putting a tray of round things out under the full moon. Note the very bright planet of Jupiter shining just below the Harvest Moon, visible even near major urban lights.

On the short 95-mile trip from Columbia to Winchester, we paused at Harper’s Ferry National Historic Park just to check out the situation. We knew we didn’t have time for a proper visit, and once we got to the Visitor Center we realized that even a cursory visit would take hours. The park is gigantic, spread across nearby lands and towns. You take a shuttle bus from the Visitor Center to various locales, each of which takes anywhere from one to six hours to explore. This looks like a really great park for a fall visit some year, and I am sure we will eventually be back, but this just wasn’t our chance. Not only was the heat and humidity reaching oppressive levels (this late in September!) but we have — alas — a schedule to keep. At least our visit gave us the chance to replace our expired “America The Beautiful” Inter-agency Pass (good for national parks, forests, and other public lands).

There’s not a lot of camping in the area, except for the super-deluxe KOA that is conveniently next door. It’s not cheap but it does look very good. We dropped in to use the dump station ($5) and refill our water, then pressed on to Winchester VA, where we will spend the next three days attending the Mercedes-Benz Club of America’s “StarFest 2010”. It’s sort of like the WBCCI International Rally, but for Mercedes enthusiasts.

Of course, not having rolling homes with them, the Mercedes crowd books into a hotel. After pondering our options for a while, we have decided to join them for a change. So the Airstream is parked in the back of the hotel where we can see it from our room, taking up six parking spaces. We have converted the hotel room into a sort of quasi-Airstream by requesting a microwave and hauling in food, clothes, computers, etc. — in other words, we’re trying to make a hotel room as comfortable as our Airstream. It’s a tall order. There’s really nothing as convenient as having your home behind you, your own food in the fridge, complete cooking & bathing facilities, no need to pack and unpack, etc., but you knew that already.