Man In The Maze

by Rich Luhr, Editor of Airstream Life magazine

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Civilized life in aluminum

My plans for the past few days included a little more than just catching up on work and packing for our next trip.  But that’s all I can do, since the weather here has been pretty poor.  The northeast gets enough rain in June without the remnants of a tropical storm wafting up the coastline, and this time we got both, which translates to five or six days of rain.  That is enough to quash any hope of a nice motorcycle tour through the region.

VT Airstream rainy day-2So here I am, in the Airstream listening to the splatter of accumulated raindrops from the trees.  I can’t hear the actual rain.  It’s really more of a gentle mist that never stops.  It reminds me of the days we spent in the Olympic rain forest in Washington.  Emma is off having fun with her grandparents, and Eleanor is shopping, so I’m alone here and free to do whatever I want … as long as it doesn’t involve outside activities or using the car.

Ah well, I’m certainly not suffering, just a little bored.  On a day like this the Airstream is a pretty nice refuge.  The key, I’ve discovered, is warmth.  If it’s cold in the trailer, it just doesn’t feel like home.  The high temperature outside  will not break the upper 50s and it is chillingly damp. Even indoors with the furnace cycling occasionally, I worked rather uncomfortably for a few hours this morning, until I remembered that we have a catalytic heater.

That’s the ticket on a cold and rainy day.  The catalytic heater hisses quietly and produces a nice, bone-warming heat that gradually pervades every corner of the Airstream.  Somehow it feels much more even and comfortable than the furnace, which blows around hot air that quickly dissipates.  I cleared a few things away from the face of the catalytic heater and fired it up.  It was a little reluctant to start at first, or maybe I’m just out of practice.  We haven’t needed it since … uh … last June when we were in exactly the same spot in Vermont.

VT Airstream rainy day-1Before she headed out, Eleanor put a hot cup of decaf coffee with Torani hazelnut and cream by my computer (I don’t drink regular coffee, and I only like decaf when it’s abnormally sweet).  That was a bit of civilization, and it reminded me that I am, after all, in an Airstream.  I began rummaging through the DVDs for a good spy movie to watch.  If I’m going to make a rainy day into a nice day, I might as well go all the way.

I remember a day back in 2004, when we were still fairly new to Airstreaming but already completely under the magic spell of these trailers.  I was at a rally where someone was holding an open house of their 1968 Airstream Overlander.  The trailer was magnificent, all original, with cherry cabinetry that had mellowed over the decades to a rich brown.  At the time I was still reeling with the concept that it was a complete home that you could take anywhere.  Plop it down in the middle of a desert or a green rally field with 1,000 other trailers—it didn’t matter.  No matter where it was, you could open the kitchen faucet and water would run out.  You could cook dinner, take a shower, watch a movie, play games on the living room table, anywhere.  For some reason, this floored me, and the impression remains with me to this day, even after living in our Airstream for years.

In years past we tended to just drop the Airstream in the driveway with a basic 10-amp power cord and try to survive the summer without any real hookups.  This forced us into the house for the bathroom, showers, to escape very hot days, for cooking, and even to get decent Internet for work.  We basically just slept in the Airstream.  For a short visit this is fine, but during a month or two of visiting it felt very limiting.  Eventually I realized that without using the Airstream the way it was intended was only a little better than sleeping in a tent on the lawn, so we began to arrange things to be more comfortable.  Now we have a 30-amp power line that reaches the trailer so we can air condition when needed, and I’ve got cellular Internet that actually works, and a few other details have been arranged to make the Airstream the home that it should be.

On a day like today I really appreciate that.  There’s no need to be uncomfortable.  I can reach into my closet and pull out my warm socks and sweatshirt.  I can slowly toast the interior with heat, and mix up tasty beverages and snacks from the refrigerator.  I can stream a movie from Netflix or Hulu, communicate with the entire world, bake some cookies, or take a nap.  And at anytime I can hitch it up and do all this again anywhere that I can reach with a car.  It’s still amazing to me.

Thoughts like this make a dull day in the Airstream more appreciable.  Having time on my hands today turns out to be a nice thing.  I’ll plan future trips, write blog entries, talk to friends on the phone, watch movies … It sure isn’t “camping,” but today I make no apologies for that.  With rain in the forecast for another couple of days, camping isn’t really what feels best right now.  My Airstream life does.

Decompression session

With Alumapalooza behind us, we’re off on the next leg of our voyage.  This will be the fourth year we have spent the two days following Alumapalooza courtesy-parked at the home of Lou & Larry in the “premium spot” next to their house.  They provide a very comfortable place to decompress, with a full hookup and access to the house wifi, and they make no demands on us (quite the opposite in fact, since they feed us and help with minor trailer repairs), so it’s a wonderful first stop on the way east.Ohio courtesy parking

We had extra food from the catering on Saturday night that we couldn’t let go to waste.  On the four hour trip from Jackson Center to here (near Cleveland) a lot of aluminum trays of food rode in the shower.  When we arrived, Eleanor repacked it to fit in our refrigerator and freezer, but still there was so much that we were able to prepare a sizable gift for some neighbors here who need it, and give a bunch to our hosts as well.  Even giving away many pounds of food, we will have enough ribs, cornbread, and green beans to serve the whole gang of family & friends once we reach Vermont.

Being here for Monday has given me a chance to reflect on this year’s Alumapalooza. Overall it was highly successful, with few glitches and lots of positive feedback.  People have been writing in all day to say how much they liked it, and there were a lot of memorable moments.

APZ4-2Later this week I’ll have over 480 photos from our official photographers and will definitely post an album of them online. I think those pictures will tell the story better than I can.

The things that didn’t go well are also memorable, and I’m writing them up as notes for our team so we can find ways to improve them for Alumapalooza 5.  We’ve already got a lot of neat ideas for new activities, and I think some clever solutions to the few remaining problems.  All of this will be very helpful as we plan for the big Alumaflamingo event in Sarasota.

Airstream familyIn two days at our Ohio courtesy parking spot, a lot can get done.  I managed to get a good night’s sleep, get office work under control, have some time with our friends (including Lou, Larry, Dan, sKY, slaDE, Loren, Mike, Al & Shinim), and eat a lot of good stuff.  Eleanor took care of our shopping and did the laundry. I also noticed and replaced yet another bad propane pigtail (hopefully the last of the unreliable ones I bought last year).

So with all that done, it’s on to the next adventures.  I’m feeling ready for tomorrow’s drive.  It will likely be a long one across Ohio, Pennsylvania and much of New York, so we’ll be starting as early as possible.

Where’s there’s smoke … we aren’t

I do hate to go off on rants in the blog, but hey, if you don’t rant once in a while it’s not really a blog is it? I usually confine my moments of exuberance or frustration to relatively benign things like yogurt and recycling, but today’s events gave me the perfect opportunity to talk about something just slightly more controversial: camp fires.

I mentioned in yesterday’s blog that we were being bugged by the smoke from fires in the state park campground. Each of the two evenings we were there—as I was shutting the windows and turning on the air conditioner to escape smoke blowing in—I was thinking that it would be great to get back to the open desert where our nearest neighbor would be hundreds of feet away and we could leave the windows open all night to let in the fresh air of the desert.

Back at Clark Dry Lake, I set up the trailer almost gleefully on a flat spot near Brian and Leigh’s Airstream, and we had a very nice afternoon followed by a great little happy hour with B&L, Kyle and Mary, and some Canadians who were parked off in the distance in a fifth wheel. Bert Gildart dropped in for an hour or so, and it was fantastic to see him again. He and I talked about bicycle trips we would like to do next winter, and also the possibility of someday caravanning up to Alaska.

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Eleanor made dinner, or perhaps more properly re-made it from the numerous leftovers we had, and we ended up with a great smogasbord. We said goodbye to Bert (he left with a plate of food from Eleanor), and then … the folks about 200 feet to the east lit up a fire.

It was just bad luck that the wind was perfect to carry the fumes from their fire directly to our Airstream, where we were sitting with every window open and the fans running. I don’t blame the people who lit the fire; they were perfectly within their rights to do so, and it wasn’t their fault that the wind was aimed at us. But the smoke was unbearable, and here we had no option to close the windows and run the A/C.

After a few minutes of commiseration with Brian and Leigh (who apparently share our dislike of camp fires), we faced the only real choice we had. It was nearly dark. I had to move the trailer or spend the night sucking up the fumes. Already the inside of the Airstream was smelling like a Russian disco.

So we quickly threw everything into semi-towable mode, hitched back up, and gently towed the Airstream across the bumpy desert dirt roads a few hundred feet south to another open patch, safely out of the smoke path. It was almost embarrassing, skulking away in the dusk, even though we had not met the people with the fire. I didn’t want to explain that we were leaving because of them, but I could not escape the irony of our situation, and it made me think.

I have to admit that in the past few years we have stayed at State Parks less than we used to, specifically because of camp fires. Eleanor had a massive migraine triggered by camp fire smoke years ago, and we don’t want to repeat that again. I am not physically affected by it, but I hate smelling it too. It pervades the interior, leaves a scent on everything, and masks the more delicate smells of the desert that gently waft through the air in the night. Sleeping with smoke in the trailer is nearly impossible for me because I keep thinking of fire and feeling that I’m suffocating.

Many times we have come to a state park only to find neighbors who are obsessed with having fire 24 hours a day. They are always the worst at making fires, too. Day and night they dump green or wet wood in a hopeless pile, resulting in a constant stream of black smoke, no heat, and little flame. Sometimes they add to the fun by burning their garbage (thinking they are being ecologically responsible?), which of course releases many interesting toxins from plastics, foils, and metals into the atmosphere.

There is never any hope of negotiating, since for them the constant “fire” is paramount to their enjoyment, almost of religious significance, as if it was essential to life like it was for prehistoric man in that old movie “Quest For Fire.” Take away the fire, and you’ve ruined the experience for them. What’s the point of going “camping” if you can’t roast things on an open flame and come home reeking of wood smoke?

But as I talk to people along the way, I’m finding that our feelings are far from unique. I have never met a full-timer who made camp fires, and many RV’ers never want them. They are a symbol of camping for the weekend set, and I know particularly for tenters that fires provide useful light at night, a little warmth, and a means to cook. The conflict comes between those rugged traditionalists who love them and people like us who don’t need them and avoid them.

No, let me be honest: we hate them. I know it’s Scrooge-like to admit publicly that we dislike something as cheery as the open camp fire, but would a tenter be shy about admitting that they hate big RVs? (I know I certainly wasn’t when we were avid tenters—and then everything changed when we had a child and found that tenting with an infant wasn’t much fun. Opinions change with circumstances, and everyone’s entitled to an opinion.)

Even now, on those occasions about once a year when I break out the tent for a little “real camping” I never make a fire. I never did, having learned low-impact camping in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Camp fires are strongly discouraged, even illegal, out there in the wilderness, because they leave long-lasting scars on the landscape, encourage scrounging of deadwood that serves a useful purpose in the local ecosystem, risk forest fires— and yes, create smoke that is annoying or unhealthy for animals and people alike. Even when tenting, we have always used a portable stove that is much safer, more useful, and simpler than a camp fire. I wish more people would.

The terrible part of this is that our avoidance of camp fires inevitably means we must stay in commercial campgrounds more often, since they typically ban camp fires or don’t provide fire rings at the sites. I regret that. We’d rather be in the open as we are tonight, or in a beautiful and natural state park, if we can. I am not one to call for new rules to fit every circumstance so I stop at wishing for outright bans on camp fires, but it would be nice if there was at least an established etiquette about when and how to have them. In the meantime, we’ve got wheels and we’ll continue to use them.

Rumors and evolution

Alumaflamingo 2014For the past few weeks I’ve been working with Brett (and now Alice, the latest member of our team) to work out details for our new event, Alumaflamingo.  It’s the fourth major event in our program, to be held next February.

I talked about this a little before.  We were asked by the Director of the former Florida State Rally (FSR) to come up with something new, because the FSR was finally disbanding after four decades. We stepped into the breach, and now we’re committed.  It’s a little nerve-wracking because it’s a lot of work and we have no assurance at this point that we won’t lose our shirts financially. But if we hadn’t stepped up, there would be no major Airstream-oriented rally to replace FSR in 2014.  So it seems to be worth some extra effort and risk.

When you step in to replace something that’s been going on for decades and has lots of loyal customers, it’s inevitable that the rumor mill will start up, and there’s a tendency that many of the rumors will be unflattering.  We expected a certain amount of this, and it’s OK. We understand that people might feel threatened by change.

For example, people who had gotten comfortable with the super-cheap rally fee of FSR ($220 per couple) may be upset that Alumaflamingo will cost $335.  But if we ran the same event as FSR, we’d be facing the same slide in attendance that it suffered over the past several years. As they say, doing the same thing but expecting a different result is an exercise in futility.

So we are trying to upgrade the event to meet modern expectations, which means adding in more activities, better food, better informational seminars, more vendors, better entertainment, etc.  People who went to FSR primarily because it was cheap will probably be unhappy with any price increase, and choose to go elsewhere.  But on the other hand, people who stayed away because they didn’t think it offered enough fun & education will hopefully give Alumaflamingo a try.  Our past three years of experience at Alumapalooza seems to support this.

In the past few weeks I’ve heard some pretty wild rumors.  One guy was saying he wouldn’t go because we wouldn’t have liability insurance.  When asked why he believed this, he said he’d been told by “people.”  For the record, the Fairgrounds requires us to have a significant liability insurance policy, so that rumor was nonsense.

Another common rumor has been that our event will not be “an Airstream event” or somehow will be polluted because our policy is to allow non-Airstreams to attend. That one really kills me.  We allow non-owners to attend because we figure anyone wants to come to an Airstream-centric event must be considering buying an Airstream. These people are future members of our community, so we think it’s a good idea to let them know they are very welcome.

At Alumapalooza, we usually get about 4-5 “white boxes” attending, out of about 200 trailers. In Sarasota we expect about the same.  So 98% of the rigs on the field are Airstreams, there’s an Airstream dealer selling trailers, Airstream Inc. is present and providing service, we’ve got at least a dozen Airstream-specific seminars, and the event is sponsored by Airstream Life magazine.   Yeah, I’d say that qualifies as an Airstream event.

Another common rumor is that casual visitors to the event will have to pay to get in.  I don’t know why people think that.  I guess I’ll have to update our FAQ pages to specifically address this issue.  Of course friends can visit at no charge. There’s no gate at any of our events.  We only charge admission to people who want to camp, join the activities, eat the meals, or attend the programs & entertainment. Dropping in and taking a look, or visiting with friends, or shopping for an Airstream with the sponsoring dealer is always free.

(By the way, we always have a dealer sponsor showing trailers.  George M Sutton RV will be displaying trailers indoors at Alumafandango, Lazydays RV will be displaying at Alumafiesta, and Bates RV is expected at Alumaflamingo. )

Perhaps the most painful rumor we hear is that the demise of FSR (and decline in attendance for certain other club rallies) means that the WBCCI is doomed.  We don’t believe this.  We think the WBCCI will continue as a viable club even if some major events are organized by third parties. The club represents the history of Airstream, many of the most enthusiastic and supportive owners, and it remains an important means for Airstreamers to meet in person, travel together, and share experiences.

Sure, Alumaflamingo is not an official WBCCI event.  But why does that matter?  The club is more than welcome.  In fact, at Alumaflamingo we are giving the Region 3 officers meeting space so that they can conduct some of their official activities on site. They can even publish their own event schedule for members or officers, if they like.  They get all the benefits of the FSR, without all the work.  Makes sense to me.

This means that we regard WBCCI as a partner and are looking forward to working with our friends in the club for many years to come. By launching Alumaflamingo, we’re hoping to be part of the road forward.  It may not be a comfortable road for us until the dust settles, but it’s exciting to contribute to positive change.

Memories of a rainy morning

It rained last night.  We woke up to a steady pouring rain, the kind I associate with northeastern autumns, where calm windless showers wash the streets clean, gurgle in the gutters, and drag the yellow maple leaves off their branches to cover the lawn.

Here in southern Arizona that’s a much more rare occurrence.  This is a “winter storm,” in local parlance, but using the word storm seems far too harsh for what we experience.  It’s just a nice steady rain that rinses the dust off, not even enough to fill the dry washes with brown floods like the summer thunderstorms will do.

I laid in bed for a while because the sound of rain on the roof seemed so novel, and it took my mind back to many times in the Airstream when I lay in its bed and listened to the patter of rain on aluminum.  I remembered lovely quiet mornings in the Florida panhandle where the sand hisses as the rain hits it, cold deluges in June in Vermont, and days in the dark green rainforest of the Olympic peninsula. We’ve had great rainy days all over the country, everywhere except in the desert southwest.

The rainforest sticks with me the most. We visited the Hoh Valley five years ago in October, a particularly rainy month even by rainforest standards, when thirty inches of rain will settle on the moss and keep the wild-looking Salt Creek rushing gray and chilly.  I remember that it never stopped raining in the campground, not even for a second, over two days.  But strangely the rain was inoffensive; it was a constant “pink noise” that reminded me of a pleasant humming.  The air was still, the rain fell straight to the earth and dripped off the Airstream’s awning, and the sound of each little droplet splashing down was muted by the grass and the omnipresent thick moss.  The effect was to make the quiet campground into a sort of Zen Garden where you almost could not raise your voice or tread heavily or think angry thoughts.  It invited contemplation.

And it invited homey thoughts.  After hiking around the mossy trails and visiting the National Park rangers, we checked out the creek, hunted for animal signs, and eventually settled into the Airstream for Eleanor and Emma to bake apple pie.  We had apples that needing eating or cooking, but I believe that the steady cool rain had something to do with the inspiration too.

At the time I wrote in our blog about the events of the days, but when it rains now I think back to those places and times with a different perspective.  If I close my eyes and just listen to the light drumbeat of rain on the roof I can travel back to those places and experience them again.  It’s different, as if I have been able to actually go there and feel the same magic of the first discovery with our 7-year-old child, but reflect on things that didn’t occur to me the first time.

I find I am doing more of this lately, reliving the highlights of those three glorious years when we were free to travel North America as much as we wanted, and revisiting places with the perspective of today.  It’s a cheap way to travel.  But it also reminds me that we need to do a little more of that in the near future, just to build up the cask of memories and keep us from only reliving the past.  I don’t like the thought that our biggest and best life experience might be behind us, and I’ve got plenty of friends who are much older than us who are continuing to have spectacular adventures.  They prove that even though circumstances will change, you can get out there and experience the real world anytime you can hitch up the Airstream.

The rain has stopped now and puffy cumulus clouds are now drifting through a deep blue sky.  The breeze is up.  That’s Arizona for you.  It’s as if the rain never happened.  It’s time to go outside and check that the Caravel is still dry inside.  Perhaps we’ll go for a walk too.  But even though the storm is long gone, the memories of rain will stick with me for the rest of the day and give me ideas, and maybe even wish that tonight it rains a little again.