Jun 13 2013

Why Airstreaming beats air travel

I forget sometimes how nice we have it, traveling by Airstream all over North America. This week I have a trip designed to remind me, traveling to Europe by jet and staying in hotels like the 97.5% of Americans who don’t own some sort of recreational vehicle.

Eleanor and I finally got off the ground last night at 11:30 PM, launching in to the dark air above the Atlantic with a few hundred other souls in a vast Lufthansa 747, an hour late and already feeling a bit lagged by travel.

We had driven 300 miles from northern Vermont to get this direct flight to Frankfurt, and the last 50 miles were a nerve-jangling stress test of New Jersey and New York traffic. Then there was the drop-off of the car into the unfamiliar hands of a nearby hotel valet, the rattling shuttle ride to JFK, and the giant ongoing strip show orchestrated by the TSA. We had an unsatisfactory bite of airport food and then milled into a final processing line before struggling to fit our small carry-on bags aboard. So by the time we got flying we were already feeling the traditional stress of air travel. We took a picture of ourselves sitting in row 42 and hoped we’d survive until morning.

Lufthansa made sure that sleeping was difficult, with lots of announcements, dinner at midnight, and a sketchy breakfast at 4 a.m. We didn’t get much sleep, perhaps an hour total in the seven hours of flight time, but I had anticipated this and was mentally prepared for the next steps: Passport Control, Baggage Claim, Rental Car pickup, and finally navigating off the airport property and onward via the rather exciting Autobahn to nearby Mainz.

The fun wasn’t over yet. The hotel I chose is in the downtown area. Naturally, parking was another huge challenge, involving multiple trips around the block on narrow one-way streets, reading signs in German, and finally squeezing into an underground garage. Then we hauled our bags up two flights of stairs and two blocks to the hotel, where we finally, gratefully, stopped moving for a while.

It is a testament to both Eleanor’s and my self-control that we managed all this with virtually no sleep and did not at any point lose our cool. We changed clothes, took showers, had a snack of strawberries and pastries that we had picked up along the drive from Frankfurt, and then I slept for an hour. After all this, I felt groggy but functional, and Eleanor seemed to be in her very best “duck” mode, letting all of the stresses of the previous 24 hours slide off as if they never happened. I call that success.

I find it ironic that people who do this sort of traveling routinely will claim that towing a trailer, learning to back it into a campsite, and dumping the holding tanks is somehow too much work. If my Airstream could cross the Atlantic at 600 MPH I’d never step on a jet again.

Having whined all of that, I will now say that we are already having a good time. Sleep will be nice tonight, but even without much of that we had a pleasant walk across the historic district of Mainz, past the impressive cathedrals and the Gutenburg Museum, through the shopping district, and finally to a little restaurant for dinner outside and some people-watching. And the strawberries that Eleanor picked up at a roadside farm stand were spectacular.

I have been mildly zapped by technology issues. I bought two SIM cards for the iPhone 5, one for cheap voice calls to the USA, and the other for cheap Internet. The Internet card is defective and I can’t get a replacement quickly from the shmucks who sold it to me, so I am relying entirely on hotel wifi to post the blog and check in with the rest of the Airstream Life/R&B Events staff.

This is going to become a problem for the next three days, since we will be staying in a borrowed Airstream (hence no hotel wifi). I’m working on a solution for that, but the blog might get quiet for a day or two if I’m not successful tomorrow. But in any case I’ll write the entries and post them (backdated) when I can.

Jun 10 2013

A trip to Americade

With all the rainy weather up here in Vermont I had pretty much written off the possibility of taking a motorcycle trip before it was time to leave here. It’s always a rainy week when the Floridians ship their leftover hurricane or tropical storm remnants up the coast. We wish they would stop doing that.

But things cleared up just enough on Saturday that Steve and I were able to slip out this morning on the two BMWs. With temps in the upper 50s we had to layer up but I was actually glad of that. In September we hope to make a long trip up into Quebec, and the weather will probably be similar to today’s, so this day made a good test.

Traveling without Airstream? Yes, I like explorations and vehicles of almost every imaginable type, and once in a while it’s nice to do something a little different. Today’s trip was a quick run down to Lake George Village, NY, the epicenter of a week-long motorcycle gathering called Americade. It’s sort of an upstate NY version of Sturgis, with a big trade expo and lots of tours through the Adirondack region.

Ultimately it was really about the ride, not the event. Crowds and shopping aren’t my favorite things. We just wanted to get out on the bikes for a tour, even in misty cold weather (about 57-62 degrees during the day). Yes, the lure of the Adirondack roads, gently twisting through tall pine forests, is that strong. Or maybe I was just getting a little cabin fever after a few days of rain.

In the photo above you can see me taking a highly important phone call from Headquarters just after arriving in Lake George Village. Eleanor was telling me about her excursions and I was telling her about mine. Hopefully you can see past the fluorescent jacket that I wear when riding bikes.

Every small town in the Adirondacks for miles around was flooded with motorcyclists. Most of them were big heavy cruisers and touring bikes. Lightweight dual-sport bikes like the BMWs we were riding were pretty rare.

I was thinking about our Airstream events while touring around Americade, and wondering if we could take a few ideas from this to spice up our Aluma-events. The major draw seemed to be touring. Airstreamers like to tour, too, but they generally do it without the Airstreams in tow. We did a couple of short driving tours at Alumafiesta last February and they were very popular, so I think we’ll try to work up some more for future events. You see? I’m always researching to make things more fun for you. And no, I didn’t keep receipts to write this off as a business trip.

I learned a lot from this 180-mile roundtrip. First, my motorcycling apparel is pretty well suited to a trip up the Gaspe Peninsula in Quebec this September. Second, my butt is less enamored of the idea. The BMW F650GS is a great bike for all kinds of roads, but it’s no cruiser. Third, riding on a cold misty day has made me appreciate the interior of my car. If you are getting bored towing your Airstream with the cruise control set, music playing on the iPod, the digital climate control set just where you like it, and a cold drink in the cupholder, try this instead.

Jun 07 2013

No drama

I know I keep harping on about Alumapalooza even though it is over for this year, but the event gives me a lot to think about. Although we now run three events per year (and four are planned for 2014 so far), Alumapalooza has always been “the big one.” I meet a lot of people there who give new perspectives on what Airstreaming is all about, and also a lot of people who say they read this blog.

This year, I was particularly thrilled to hear from a couple of people who separately told me that they went full-time in their Airstream partly as a result of inspiration from this blog, or the previous “Tour of America”. Lots of others commented on Emma, saying that they’ve watched her grow from a little five-year-old tyke to a teenager. These friendly folks are like an extended family to us, even though we often don’t know they’re watching until years later when we meet at an event!

I kept hearing from people that one of the best parts about Alumapalooza was that there was “no drama,” meaning that there were no internal battles, no public embarrassments, no arguments, and no politics. Everyone just laid back and had a good time. It might seem that this should be the norm for rallies, but too often events (not ours) have been marred in the past by such things, and a lot of people are frustrated by that. The best rallies and events are the ones where everyone sets aside their politics and prejudices, and shares the good values that bring us together. We work hard at making sure that happens, by thoughtful programming of the activities, and selecting the volunteer staff very carefully. So I was glad to get the feedback that we’d succeeded.

We are now in Vermont, with the Airstream parked in its usual summer resting place in the shadow of a row of cedar trees near Lake Champlain. It won’t move again until late August or September, but despite that we have many travels ahead. Eleanor and I are focused on getting out the door next week for a long-anticipated trip to Europe. By Friday we expect to be attending a big (for Europe) Airstream rally in Weilburg, Germany. This is going to be a major experience for us, since we’ve never camped in Europe and we haven’t yet had the chance to meet many of our correspondents in Europe.

Our Airstream during the rally will be a brand-new Airstream 684, which is the largest Euro-spec model available. It is being provided courtesy of Airstream Germany. (Because it is new and unsold, we can’t use the bathroom or the galley, so it will be sort of an “aluminum tent” for us, but that should not be a problem since the campground is in town—see upper edge of photo.) CORRECTION: It turns out this is a PR and rental trailer for Airstream Germany and we will be able to use all the facilities —bonus!

We’ll be parked in a lot with about fifty other Airstreams for three nights. Quite a few of them will be caravanning down from the UK, as well as Belgium, The Netherlands, and other countries.

On Saturday night I’ll be giving a little talk at 9:00 pm, about Airstreaming in America’s National Parks. (While researching this presentation I did a quick count and found we’ve visited over 100 of them so far, which is only about one quarter of the entire NPS system.) Otherwise, there’s not much on the program other than a barbecue, so there should be plenty of time to explore the town of Weilburg and meet the European Airstreamers. I expect no drama.

This weekend Eleanor and I will be busy prepping for this trip. With about 10 days to play with, we are likely to visit Switzerland and a little of northern Italy in addition to Germany. I’m bringing only an iPad and an iPhone 5 (with a German SIM card) for technology, trying to keep it light. Also in keeping with our usual travel style, we are going mostly reservation-free. We don’t want the pressure of a fixed itinerary. We’ll have a car and some maps, and see what looks interesting along the way.

The trip starts on Wednesday. I’ll blog as much as I can.

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.

May 20 2013

Cumberland Mtn State Park, TN

It hasn’t been any joy spending day after day in the car, but at least at the end of each day we’ve found a nice spot to spend the night. Last night’s stay in Forrest City TN was surprisingly quiet considering that the little Delta Ridge RV Park was close to I-40. It was the first non-state park night we’ve spent on this trip so far. Normally we are reluctant to stay in the type of RV park that caters to overnighters because they tend to be scuzzy, but this one was just fine.

I particularly liked the check-in process last night. Too many RV parks make you wait in line, then hand over a dozen pieces of identifying information, then hand you a long list of Rules and an insincere wish that you’ll enjoy your stay. After eight or nine hours in the car, I don’t have much patience for people asking me for the age of my child and explaining the bathroom lock code. Last night’s park was more like it: slap a $20 bill on the counter and write down your name, then “go ahead and take any space you like.”

Today’s stop is really wonderful, in a different way. We are in central Tennessee, at the Cumberland Mountains State Park, about six miles south of I-40. This is a large, landscaped, historic, and quiet place with lots of old school amenities, like a restaurant and shady campsites among the trees.

As usual, we didn’t book in advance. It’s Monday and not a holiday weekend, so we know our chances of getting in are excellent. We arrived after 6 PM and the office was closed, but the campground host was happy to direct us to a primo space just vacated by his cousin, level, long, and with full hookups. We don’t really need full hookups but it will be nice to wash the reluctant teenager and get everything else cleaned up too. Tomorrow we move to a campsite with no hookups at all.

That’s Great Smoky Mountains National Park I’m talking about. I did go to the effort of reserving our site there, because the campground seems popular. We’re getting a zero-hookup site because that’s all they offer. That’s OK for three nights with careful conservation of water and electricity. Normally electricity wouldn’t be a concern at all but all of the sites are shady so we may not generate much power from the solar panels.

I have no idea what to expect for cellular connectivity, so if the blog suddenly goes quiet you can assume it’s a lack of signal rather than a sign we’ve been eaten by bears. It should be a good test of the new cellular booster and antenna, at least.

One other thing makes this stop wonderful. We are going to have a short drive tomorrow (about 120 miles) and then spend three nights just relaxing. It’s about time. We’ve covered about 1,800 miles so far, in a short period of time. Starting Tuesday afternoon we get to slow down and reinvigorate before plunging into the craziness that is Alumapalooza.