The long days of driving are already taking a toll on us. It’s not fun spending all day in the car, and as Emma grows into a teenager she is finding the car rides less agreeable. When she was younger we could drop her in the backseat with a few books and not hear a peep for hours. Now she has a Nintendo DS, several books, a bag of snacks, an iPod, and a slew of other distractions, and she’s bored.

I am thinking that we should make some effort to avoid having to do this rush-rush drive next year, by leaving earlier. It won’t be easy because of our schedules, but the alternative is slow torture by concrete Interstate.

Perhaps because of our lack of motivation to do the same thing today that we did yesterday,we got a late start this morning. I woke up at 4:00 for some reason, did a little bit of work on the computer, then went back to bed. We slept until nearly 9, and with a little puttering around and a walk around the campground loops, we managed to not depart Lake Bob Sandlin until noon. This meant a shorter drive day, which was fine with me.

The drive was just as tedious as the other days, with the same sorts of distractions, namely bad signage. There is a serious problem in America with basic punctuation, but anyone who frequents an Internet forum already knows that. I can’t even count the number of signs we’ve seen with superfluous apostrophes (“HOT DOG’S “) over the years, so I have stopped paying attention to those. But today we spotted a few cases where a little extra punctuation probably would have helped:

(at a truck stop) DIESEL FRIED CHICKEN
Mmmm-mmm good!

And in Pleasantville AR: ROMANS USED TIRES
Now, we have serious doubts about that. I’ve seen Ben Hur and I’m pretty sure the Romans used wooden wheels.

Eleanor also reflected on the sign we saw yesterday (“Hell is hot”), noting in the 88-degree temperatures of the morning, “at least it’s not humid!” The thermometer says it’s 10-15 degrees cooler than it was in west Texas, but it certainly feels worse. We have left the desert far behind and I miss it.

The highlight of the drive today was on I-40 somewhere east of Little Rock, where we encountered a 12 mile “construction zone” in which exactly 0.3 miles were actually under active construction. Traffic was weird; stopped dead for 10-15 minutes, then roaring ahead at highway speeds. We went through this for nearly an hour and then finally traffic broke free for a few miles.

But we weren’t out of it. I was about a tenth of a mile behind the next car, fortunately, because traffic suddenly came to a screeching halt just over the crest of a small bridge. I had to lock ‘em up, all four trailer tires smoking. With no breakdown lane at that point andthe left lane blocked off by large orange traffic barrels, my avoidance options were poor. For a few seconds it looked like we were going to plow into the back of the stopped Toyota Highlander in front of us.

At the last second I swerved between the orange barrels like a slalom course, as a gambit to buy a little more stopping room. That bought us a few feet only, because just ahead the construction crew had left a few Jersey barriers. But we stopped in time and all was well.

I was impressed that the Airstream handled so well. We’ve spent years tweaking it for just such a circumstance, with disc brakes, the Hensley hitch, and the Michelin tires, but still you never know until the pressure is on. It was nice to feel the rig perform exactly as it should have. It stopped quickly, there was no “Hensley bump” or push from the trailer (which is typically caused by having the brake controller set too low), and at no point did I lose control of the vehicle. It steered right where I wanted even under severe circumstances. So the incident turned out to be nothing but a little smoke.

This whole incident was a little ironic since you know I was bloviating a couple of weeks ago about the importance of having your weight distribution correct because “someday it will matter.” For us, “someday” turned out to be today. Of course, it’s really about more than just the weight. Brakes, tires, hitch, and tow vehicle all enter into the equation. For example, I am certain that without disc brakes on the Airstream and an excellent brake actuator we would have had a front-end collision today.

I stopped at the next exit and checked all the tires carefully, but there was no sign of damage. For the next 25 miles I was a little jumpy about the cars that cut in front of us (a frequent occurrence along I-40) and any hint of vibration from the tires. Even though I can’t see anything wrong with the tires, there may be hidden damage so I’ll be watching them carefully as we continue down the road.

We finally bailed out around 6:30 in Forrest City, AR at a little 18-site campground. Full hookups for $20, and it’s actually a decent spot for an overnight. It looks like we’ll get into Tennessee tomorrow and hit the Smokies sometime Tuesday. One last big push tomorrow and that should be the end of the big mileage days.

Last night as we walked through the Monahans Sand Hills State Park we found that after we arrived somebody had clipped one of the campsite utility pedestals and broken open the water line. Water was gushing from the ground. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to compute that soon the park staff would show up and turn off the water to the entire park. This turned out to be true, a couple of hours later, but fortunately Eleanor had already filled the fresh water tank, so we weren’t inconvenienced.

The folks who clipped the pedestal, on the other hand, had a large headache. Not only would the state parks department be communicating with their insurance company, but their motorhome had a nasty gash along the front driver’s side storage compartment and slide-out. That bit of inaccurate driving is going to cost a chunk. But at least they were responsible about it: they called the park staff to report the accident.

Despite working against time zones every day (causing us to lose an hour on Thursday from Mountain Standard Time to Daylight Savings Time, and then another hour on Friday to Central Time), we got an early enough start to log some serious miles across Texas. It ended up being a rather dull 500-mile day all the way through the Dallas/Ft Worth Metroplex and out the other side, with little to speak of other than a few interestingly misspelled or inappropriate signs. My favorites:

(an enormous banner seen on the side of a warehouse) CARPET OULET

(a sign tacked to a tree in rural Texas, seen on a 95 degree day) HELL IS HOT

Our original thought was to just drive 420 miles and crash for the night in a Cracker Barrel parking lot, but when we got there I was still feeling OK to drive further, and it was still 92 degrees. We decided we’d rather spend the night in a pleasant Texas state park with power to run the air conditioner, than boondocking in a parking lot by the highway. Lake Bob Sandlin State Park was 80 miles further down the road, and we made that our destination.

This turned out to be a great move. The state park is forested and green, with widely spaced campsites in three loops, and it feels very pleasant. I definitely can’t complain about the 30-amp power either, as it has already turned the Airstream from an Easy-Bake Oven into a comfortable hotel room.

But the big win was Vaughan’s. As we were driving in here I was thinking about another trip through East Texas along I-20, where we discovered a great catfish place. I was thinking, “This is catfish country,” and (note that here I’m giving you a fresh insight into my personal foibles) I really like catfish. As we pulled off I-30 and began the 12 mile drive to Lake Bob Sandlin, I mentioned to Eleanor that the one thing that could make the day end perfectly would be discovering a nice little catfish restaurant.

And just 0.2 miles from the entrance to the state park, there it was. If there was ever a sign from the heavens that I’ve done something right in my life, this was it. After nine hours of drive time, nothing could look better to me that that sign. We found a site in the campground quickly, unhitched in record time, and zipped over to Vaughan’s for what turned out to be a fun meal.

This place is one of those little “finds” that we like. Local, unique, and good. The restaurant is almost devoid of interior decor (think college cafeteria with two big screens showing Major League Baseball) but that just shows that the management knows they have good food. No pretense, just solid meals served family-style, friendly service, and a spectacular view of the sunset over Lake Bob Sandlin. We liked it. The catfish definitely hit the spot for me, with sides of beans, hush puppies, coleslaw, pickled green tomatoes, and a slice of coconut meringue pie for dessert. Now I don’t feel like I just towed a trailer 500 miles.

Our plan for tomorrow is pretty much the same as the plan for today. This is a slog right now. We’ll probably try to cover another 400 miles and get into Tennessee somewhere along I-40, then hit the Smokies by Monday afternoon. At that point we can slow down for a few days, to chill out a bit (and get some work done) before we launch into Ohio for the pre-Alumapalooza prep work.

Yep, amazingly we got out on time yesterday, after weeks of prep.  Well, almost.  We aimed for a late afternoon start, just to get a few miles in before the real push started on Friday, and we got out about 5:30 p.m., which was 90 minutes later than optimum.  But that required only an adjustment to plan, and as you’ll see, everything worked out better than expected.

The Airstream is looking happy to be back on the road. It’s been tweaked, cleaned, painted, washed, lubed, and tested.  It So it was no surprise that our first 150 miles were completely uneventful.  I was particularly happy with the new position of the backup cam. Now that it looks down on traffic, it’s useful after dusk (when previously lights from cars would blind it) and I am getting a much more better picture of the traffic situation behind us.

We weren’t out to accumulate a lot of miles given our late start.  The plan was just to make it to Deming NM and crash for a night at Rock Hound State Park.  Since we were late, we opted to stop in Lordsburg NM instead, which is a small blip along a very lonely stretch of I-10, known mostly for having truck stop and hotels.  There is one campground there.  When we arrived in the dark, the office was closed (no surprise) and there was an after-hours board telling us the usual procedure: pay here, pick out a site.

I looked at that board for a minute.  Three people for a night, $37.  Cash only.  I thought about our three years of full-timing.  And then I thought, “Nah.”  We had just left home 150 miles ago.  We had full fresh water, empty holding tanks, and solar panels.  At 4000 ft elevation the night was forecast to be deliciously comfortable for sleeping. Why did we need, or even want, a campground?

So we went back to a restaurant we had spotted on the way in, which advertised ” RV parking,” went in to ask about dinner (they had just closed) and asked if we could park … Before Eleanor could finish her question, we got a “No problem,” and from there we spent a pleasant night with the windows open and cool breezes floating in.  I slept extremely well and had magnificent dreams, and I awoke thinking, “Being here in this Airstream, in this bed, with this person, is absolutely perfect.” Although we had hundreds of miles to cover, I didn’t want to get out of bed.  That was a bit of roadtrip magic, the kind that I miss from the full-timing days.

We delayed probably more than was ideal, dawdling over (very good) breakfast in the restaurant, puttering a little in the Airstream, but finally got moving and pushed on through New Mexico and west Texas, with a brief stop to pick up barbecue in El Paso.  We ended up, 417 miles later, at Monahans Sand Hills State Park a couple of hours before sunset in 102-degree heat.

I’ve been here once before, with the Caravel, but for Eleanor and Emma it’s the first visit.  After dinner (the barbecue we picked up along the way), they discovered for themselves how beautiful this park gets when the sun is low on the horizon.  Although it was still well into the 90s at that time, we took a walk around the campground loop and everyone went a little nuts with their cameras.

We’re going to be in the “logging miles” mode for a few days, so our stop here will be just one night.  It would have been nice to make our usual leisurely plod across the country, but to do that would have required leaving at least a week ago, and that just wasn’t realistic.  So we’ll bolt across the vastness of Texas, and through Arkansas and beyond before pausing.  Still, a few moments like last night and this evening’s sunset will make the hours of driving feel a lot more worthwhile.

Our countdown to the summer-long trip is into the single digits now, and so it is time to run the “Airstream systems check.”  This is a routine that I started integrating to our pre-trip prep about a year ago, after we had to cancel a long-awaited trip because the brake actuator died while the Airstream was stored.

Although that situation was sort of a fluke (the actuator was part of a run of bad units that were later recalled), it demonstrated that we can’t take our Airstream for granted.  It is almost nine years old now, and has seen heavy use.  This spring I’ve been going through the areas of the rig that have shown wear.  Through a process of refurbishing, repairing, and updating it has been put back into good shape, better in some ways than it has ever been.

In addition to all the stuff I’ve blogged, a few smaller projects got done in the past week.  For example, I added LED light strips to the under-bed area.  These turn on automatically when the bed is lifted, thanks to a magnetic switch.  It was a surprisingly painful job, because I had to squeeze myself into the front storage compartment to connect wires, but worthwhile because before we never could see well when rummaging around in that storage area.

While moving the backup camera I discovered a second main ground wire, hidden inside the rear bumper compartment.  This one was also somewhat corroded, despite being a bit more protected, so for good measure I disconnected it and cleaned it up as I had the front one.  I also lubed all the locks and hinges with graphite, replaced the two big zerk fittings on the Hensley (they have special spring-loaded plungers that tend to wear off), replaced a bad cabinet spring latch, and other such simple stuff.

Since we’ve fiddled with the flooring, furniture, plumbing, windows, antennas, camera, hitch, belly pan, refrigerator, bathroom sink, and microwave in the past couple of months, it seemed especially important to do a good road test before we hitched up for the real thing.  I recruited Mike, and we towed the Airstream down to the local highway truck stop, the TTT.

A good local truck stop can be a boon.  At the TTT we were able to get months of desert dust and last summer’s bugs finally washed off the Airstream, then go around to the CAT scale to get weighed (and re-weighed after adjusting the weight distribution a little), and on the way there and back were had opportunities to check the brakes and dial in the hitch head adjustment on the Hensley.  (This latter adjustment is crucial, as an off-center hitch head will cause the trailer to push the tow vehicle off-course in a hard braking maneuver.  We only had to do this because we disassembled the hitch for painting, otherwise it’s a “set and forget” item.) If we’d been in the mood we could have topped up the diesel and had lunch at Omar’s Highway Chef, too.

Mike kept the ladies at the TTT front desk entertained while I went through the CAT scale.  The report told me that the Airstream was lighter than it has ever been when loaded for travel with full water, at about 7,260 pounds.  It has run as high as 7,800 pounds, but usually less.   We haven’t yet finished loading some of our stuff, so when we leave it will probably be right around 7400-7450, which is fine.

While we were at the TTT I had a chance to walk around and inspect the tires, see if anything came loose (especially things I fixed!), and adjust the strut jacks on the hitch to move a little more weight to the front axle.  I went around for a second weigh and verified that the tweak moved another 60 pounds forward. (By the way, our hitch weight came out to 660 pounds, or 9%.  People often assume it’s much higher because of the size of the trailer, but it has always been around 9-11%, verified over the years by truck scales.)

The road test to and from the TTT verified that the new position of the backup camera is awesome.  With the high mounted position I now have a clear birds-eye view of the traffic situation behind us—three lanes wide.  I’m going to really like that when we get into heavy traffic situations like Dallas/Ft Worth. It’s also more useful when backing into the carport.

The test tow was about 40 miles roundtrip and it verified that everything seems tight, right, and ready to go. No surprises.  Even the new cellular antenna clears the carport entry as planned.  And it’s shiny again.  So all systems are “go” for launch.  We just need to get the crew on board and that should happen by the end of the week.

I drilled a hole in my Airstream.

Of all the jobs to be done on the Airstream this spring, this one scared me the most.  Anticipating it was worse than building new cabinetry, worse than de-greasing the hitch & sanding off the rust, worse than laying inside the front compartment and re-wiring (I’ll tell you about that one later).

The backup camera I installed on the Airstream three years ago has been very useful, but I made a serious mistake when I put it on the rear bumper.  That location was easy to reach but far too low.

As a result, car lights and setting sun would create glare, making the camera useless at dusk or at night.  I found that I needed the camera much more while towing on the highway, for situational awareness (i.e., what’s happening behind me) than I needed it for actually backing up.  So losing the camera’s functionality because of glare was a real annoyance.

Also the low position gave me a great view of the stripes on the highway and the bumper grill of the car behind me, but not of cars further away.  Because it’s a “backup camera” the field of vision is very wide, like a fisheye lens, and so the useful distance range isn’t long.  To get any sort of overview of the traffic situation it needs to be mounted up above the roof of the average car.

I knew all this after the first season of towing, but I also knew that the only way to get the camera up where it belonged would require drilling a hole in the rear dome of the Airstream.  Not a small hole either, but a whopping 5/8″ hole to fit the cable connector through.  I have never drilled a hole in the body of the Airstream before.  It’s sort of a forbidden thing, in my book, because every hole is a new chance for a leak, a spot that must be maintained with caulk, and something you can never un-do.  Remember, I just had to deal with a 3/4″ hole that was drilled in the roof eight years ago for the original cell phone antenna.

At least that hole was up on the top where nobody can see it.  This particular hole was going to be right smack in the middle on a very expensive & very visible piece of shaped aluminum, where a virtual waterfall is created every time there’s rain.  If I screwed it up, I’d be looking at an ugly patch forever.

This may explain why I put up with the inadequacies of the camera mount for three years.

With all the other projects completed, and perhaps a bit of bravery inspired by their relative success, I had no excuse to avoid this one any longer.  The re-routing of the cable was easy: it was already in the bumper compartment, and from there it took only two holes inside the rear compartment to run it up into Emma’s bedroom.  A four-foot length of plastic wire chase from the hardware store hid the wire as it ran up Emma’s bedroom wall, and then … I had to face the final cut, right through two layers of aluminum, some fiberglass insulation, and out to the cold, cruel world.

In a previous blog I wrote that you should think several times before putting a hole in the Airstream’s skin.  I thought about it for weeks, running through all the possibilities in my head to ensure there was no other way, and that I had a plan for every possible screw-up.  I ran a piece of blue tape down the centerline of the trailer from the clearance light to the license plate, measured and measured again, then dusted off the dome, applied several layers of protective tape on the aluminum, and drilled a small “test hole” 3/16″ in diameter.  (If this hole had been wrong, it would have been relatively simple to plug it up with caulk.)

It was right on the money, so I continued through larger drill bits, eventually ending up with the monster 5/8″ drill.  Emma didn’t make me feel any better about this when the drill poked into her bedroom and she shouted (through the closed window), “Wow, that’s a big hole!”

The camera is now in place, secured by a very high-bond double-sided automotive tape, and sealed with Vulkem 116.  I wish I had gray or black Vulkem for this, because the white caulk smears look stupid on the black camera mount, but eventually I’ll get my hands on some and re-do it.  In the meantime, it works and the view from the camera is much better.

So I drilled the Airstream, and survived.  But I don’t want to do it again anytime soon.

It’s that time of year again, when I finally start writing about the trip plan for the summer.  Every winter I plot and obsess about where we’ll go in the summer, because (a) planning is a way to get through the boring parts of the winter; (b) summer is our big opportunity to go places, since we are “forced” to travel east for Alumapalooza anyway.

This year’s plan is especially exciting to us.  Late next week we’ll hit the road toward Alumapalooza.  This is a long slog, something north of 2,000 miles to Ohio, and lots of tedious Interstate travel, but we try to mix it up a little each year with new stops or routes.  After doing this trip from Tucson at least five?  six? times, I think we’ve exhausted every possible route so now we are going a little off the concrete path and adding unnecessary miles just to see something new.

The big goal for this leg is the Great Smokies National Park (“B” on the map).  We have never visited with the Airstream, and yet it’s reputedly the most visited National Park in the entire NPS system.  Eleanor and I went once, back in the 1990s, pre-child, pre-Airstream, and we didn’t get a chance to do any hiking, so this visit will probably be entirely different.  Should be a nice chance to chill out before we jump into the long days of running Alumapalooza.

To get there on our schedule, we must bear up to once again traversing the I-10 and I-20 route through Texas.  It’s not the most exciting drive, but I prefer it slightly to I-40 through Oklahoma, or I-70 through Kansas, or I-80 through Nebraska.  No matter which way you cross the Plains, you are going to see a lot of flatness and emptiness, so all you can do is pick the type of emptiness you prefer.  I like the kind with more desert in it than grass.

In Ohio we’ll be running Alumapalooza for a week (including prep time).  After that, and a mandatory decompression session with Airstream friends in eastern Ohio, we’ll head east along a well-trodden path of I-90 with only one or two quick stops in New York.

Why the rush?  Well, there are only ten days between Alumapalooza and our next major travel leg, and in that short time I’ve got to tow the Airstream 800 miles and catch up/get ahead on work.  I also have a quick overnight motorcycle tour to Americade planned with my brother and some of his friends.  It’s a lot to pack into a short time.

A few days later, Eleanor and I will head to New York City to catch a plan to Germany.  Eleanor and I are going to camp with the European Airstreamers at their annual gathering, just north of Frankfurt.  We’ll be staying for three nights in a new Euro-spec Airstream provided courtesy of Roka Werk AG, the German Airstream dealership.  Very cool, and I can’t wait.

Of course, I have to sing for my supper; in this case, doing a presentation about “America’s National Parks” for the assembled Europeans.  In the process of researching it I was amazed at what I didn’t know about the National Parks.  We’ve visited close to 200 of them now (Emma has over 60 Junior Ranger badges) and still there’s so much more to see and learn.  I’ve spent several nights picking out the best photos we have for the slide show, which has brought back a lot of great memories.

After the 3-day Gathering, we’re going to plan hookey for a while, touring around Europe in a rental car.  What will we do?  I’m not sure, but don’t expect me to return calls for a while.   I’m not even bringing my laptop, just an iPad.  It will be a wonderful opportunity to disconnect.

Then it’s back to Vermont for a week or so with family, and then I’ll fly back to Tucson for July, reverting into my alter-ego personality of Temporary Bachelor Man for four weeks.  I can’t tell you what to expect from that either. You never know what TBM will do.  Probably he’ll be buried in work from all the time I was offline in June, but I’m certain he’ll do his best to make a small roadtrip in the time available.

In August I’m flying up to Oregon to run Alumafandango.  Being the first time in that location, it should be a lot of fun with a lot of new faces.  We’re going to release the Preliminary Event Program in June (most likely), and it will be typically packed with stuff to do all day.  The setting up there in Canyonville is just beautiful, too.

Mid-August?  I dunno.  Probably a little more TBM, then flying to Vermont to retrieve the family (remember them?) and the Airstream.  After that we are kind of open on the plan, including the return timing.  We might leave in August and take a long trip across the northern tier before heading home, or we might hang in New England until early September and then bolt home (out of necessity due to appointments).

In prior years our annual round-robin has run anywhere from 8,000 to 14,000 miles total (including side trips not towing).  I’m expecting about the same this year.  Fuel prices are about the same as last year so I don’t expect a major change in the budget.  We’ll spend the same amount for the Airstream portion of the trip as we would have taking the family on a two week cruise.  Not cheap, but to my mind a bargain for an entire summer of fun.

After a good run of posting every two days for a while, I had to shut up and focus entirely on work.  I have been monumentally busy the past several weeks, but you don’t want to hear about that.  The most interesting part of it (Airstream-wise) has been finishing up the cabinetry project that I began before our last trip to California and Nevada.

If you haven’t read back that far, here’s a re-cap:  We wanted to get rid of the tired old laundry & microwave rack that we whipped up while full-timing, and make the area more functional.  I removed everything on the curbside of the trailer from the entry door to the refrigerator wall.  Originally this was a fold-out credenza with two huge chairs, as shown in the floorplan.

Those chairs took up too much space and we got rid of the first one before we had even towed a mile.  (As far as I know it is still serving as bachelor apartment furniture in Ohio.)  The second one exited while we were full-timing.  We stopped in Florida for a few days and a friend fabricated a counter extension to run along the curbside wall (atop a narrow shelf that isn’t depicted in the floor plan).  We bought a cheap wire rack at a housewares store and muddled the whole thing up into a storage space for a microwave and a small laundry bin.  This was a little crude but it worked for six years.

Eventually we started keeping our recycling in a little cardboard box behind this wire rack, and shoes began to collect beneath the rack.  Then we added a catalytic heater on the wall by the refrigerator.  Eleanor began storing water jugs on the floor behind the rack, too, and we noticed that the recycling bin was often too small.

The point of all this is that gradually we had modified the space to suit our style, and we had noted what didn’t work about it.  After eight years it was safe to conclude we had a clear pattern of use and our “wish list” was based on experience rather than infatuation.  So when Mike & I ripped up the old floor, rebuilding the curbside storage was part of the plan.

I finally finished it last Friday, and I’m very pleased with how it came out, considering that it was a mish-mash of old and new materials.  I tried to re-use as much as possible of the Airstream plywood because it’s very lightweight, and to keep the look somewhat reminiscent of the factory styling.  The fold-out credenza is still there, but it has been moved to a new location further forward and off the wheelwell.  (Kyle and I did that a few weeks ago, and you can see how it was done in the earlier blog entries.)

Added to it is a new microwave shelf suitable for a 1.2 cubic foot microwave, a shelf below the microwave for one of Eleanor’s large pans (probably a cast iron skillet), a black recycling bin that is twice as large as our old cardboard box, room for two 12-packs of canned drinks or four gallons of drinking water, space for the sink covers/cutting boards and a few paper bags, a much larger shoe cubby, the same laundry bin, and a semi-hidden storage shelf for small items like headlamps.

The big win of the whole thing is the huge new countertop, made of black walnut with four coats of polyurethane.  It measures 18″ x 71″ by itself (8.8 square feet), and gains another couple of square feet when the credenza is fully deployed.  With three people in an Airstream and lots of things going on simultaneously, you can never have enough tabletop space.

The only thing we lost in this conversion was a magazine rack, which I will replace later when we find a wall-mounted rack that we like.  No rush on that.

To build this thing took far longer than I had hoped.  That’s partly because I didn’t make it easy on myself.  I didn’t like the standard steel L-brackets that were available at the hardware store, so I bought lengths of 3/4″ aluminum L-channel and cut brackets from it on the table saw, then drilled four holes in each of them.  They aren’t as stiff as the steel brackets but they are a lot lighter and still strong enough.  Plus, they’re aluminum—need I say more?

The Airstream didn’t make things easy either.  You can’t count on square, level, flat, plumb or tight in a travel trailer.  Things move, and they need to flex during travel.  So every cut was “custom,” to accommodate gaps, unevenness, and just plain awkwardness resulting from the original construction.  Eleanor and I had to stop several time and ponder ways to cover up unexpected issues.  I also had to design the cabinet to be light, strong, and yet able to flex a little where needed.  Overall, I think the job probably took about 30-40 hours and at least a dozen hardware store runs.

So it feels great that it’s done, and I think it looks pretty good.  Sure, the black walnut doesn’t match the original furniture color, but I don’t care.  It looks much more sophisticated than the original stuff.  Because the shelves are black melamine, and the microwave and recycling bin are black, they all tend to visually disappear so cabinet doors are unnecessary.  Eleanor even found black no-skid material to line her pan shelf.

For those who are interested, here’s a bit more trivia:  We used the 3/4″ aluminum L-channel to make trim edges and lips for the shelves. It’s screwed to the melamine with 3/8″ stainless screws.  The microwave is attached to the shelf with self-adhesive Velcro and a security strap (made of aluminum) screwed to the side.  A low vertical divider holds the recycling bin in place.  We found the little organizer (pictured with the headlamp in it) at The Container Store.  The countertop, despite being solid wood, weighs only 19 pounds.  The entire structure weighs about 35 pounds, not including microwave, which is probably less than the original furniture and the two chairs we pitched out.

The key here is that this design suits our way of life when we are traveling.  We need convenient, reliable, practical, and durable stuff.  We aren’t glampers or weekenders, we’re long-distance travelers and we live in our Airstream for months at a time.  Your needs will probably be different.  Customizing your Airstream is just like customizing your fixed-base home: everyone has their own needs.

I have never met a full-timer or long-distance Airstream traveler who hasn’t modified their Airstream quite a bit.  Even people with brand-new trailers do it.  So if you haven’t yet, my advice would be to think about what you do, what you carry along with you, what you most feel is lacking in your interior, and starting planning a few small customizations of your own.  It’s easy to start with something as small as an organizer or a hat hook.  But beware—despite the many hours this latest project took, I can tell you that modding the Airstream is addictive.  There will be more in our future.

Today I’ve got to talk about towing.  I’m sorry if the mere thought causes your eyes to glaze over.  There’s just too much dangerous misinformation out on the Internet, even coming from RV salespeople and people who should know better, and it’s going to get people killed.

If you don’t read Airstream Life, you’ve missed out on a great series about towing issues that is authored by Andy Thomson of Can-Am RV.  Andy is a second-generation Airstream dealer who specializes in setting up trailer hitches for best performance, and he does a lot of testing with his own vehicles to figure out what works.  The series he’s writing for the magazine has gradually built up a case for optimal hitching, which involves a lot more than just “buy a bigger truck.”  He’s gotten into the details like the overhang and angle of the tow ball, sway control, aerodynamics, engine power, suspension components, steering, and much more.  Some of what he says is controversial but I think all of his points are very important to consider.

So if you really want to understand towing at the engineering level (and get past all the ridiculous pseudo-knowledge that you’ve probably heard), you should gather up as many of the back issues as you can find and read all the articles.  (The series started in the Summer 2010 issue.)

I can’t begin to reach Andy’s expertise level, but I can talk about one simple piece of the towing puzzle today: weight distribution.  Weight distribution is the idea that the tongue weight of the trailer should be evenly distributed across both axles of the tow vehicle.

It’s horrifying that so many people don’t understand this concept, because it’s absolutely crucial when towing a trailer with a heavy tongue weight. By “heavy” I mean any trailer with over 500 pounds or so on the tongue.  It doesn’t matter how big your truck is.  It doesn’t matter if you “can hardly feel the Airstream,” or if you “never had a problem.”  You need to get this right.

Why?  Because one day it will make a difference.  That will be the day that you have to do a panic stop, or a sudden avoidance maneuver on the highway, or when the wind is blowing 30 knots off your starboard bow, or when you accidentally let the trailer drop a wheel off the edge of the pavement … and I could go on further with reasons why.  One day, you’ll have to do ask your rig to do something extraordinary, and you’ll want it to behave.

Without proper weight distribution, that rig you thought was so great towing straight down the road might do something really unexpected.  Perhaps the rear brakes will lock up prematurely in a hard stop.  You might not be able to control a sway, or stay on the road in a turn.  You might feel the trailer “wag the dog.”  Quite likely you’ll have an accident and afterward only know that something bad happened and you’re not sure why.

The catch is that you can’t tell you’ve got a problem until one of three things happens:

1. You weigh the truck and trailer combination, and then the truck separately, to see how weight is being distributed across the axles.
2. You take the rig on a closed course and drive it to the limits.
3. You crash.

I prefer option #1.

The other day I saw some CAT scale readings from a fellow who was very confident about his truck and Airstream setup.  By common knowledge, he was all set: big truck, no problem.  But the CAT scale told a different story.  When he hitched up his trailer, the rear axle of his truck got 1,900 lbs heavier.  The front axle got 760 pounds lighter.  That’s very bad but not unexpected.  It means the weight of the trailer’s tongue, pushing down on the tow ball at the back of the truck, was actually lifting the front of the truck.

Imagine a teeter-totter.  The Airstream is pushing on one end, the rear axle of the truck is the center (fulcrum) of the teeter-totter, and the front axle is going up. When you lighten the front end that much, the steering geometry is affected.  Now you’ve got understeer.  You turn the steering wheel, but the truck doesn’t turn like it should.  It’s like driving on ice.  It’s insidious because you might not notice until you have to make an emergency maneuver at speed.

A light front axle also affects the braking adversely, giving the front tires less ability to grip the road and slow you down.  So bad steering, bad braking—you can see how this is really undesirable.

With weight distribution applied on the same truck and trailer, the problem appears to the casual observer to be corrected.  With the weight bars in place, the CAT scale shows that the rear axle is now only 1,000 pounds heavier than the axle was without the trailer (which is well under the manufacturer’s axle rating), and the front axle is now lightened by only 100 pounds.   Everything meets the manufacturer’s specifications.

That will work, but it’s far from optimal.  The truck started with a nice 49/51% front/rear weight distribution.  With the Airstream and weight distribution, the ratio has gone to 44/56%, which is not so great.  It will drive OK under un-challenging circumstances, but it’s not set up well to deal with a bad day.  Imagine a sports car with a huge lump of concrete in the trunk.  Go around a sharp corner, and what happens?  The sports car spins out.  The truck with poor weight distribution may be more prone to the same thing.  Unfortunately, as I mentioned above, the driver may not “feel” anything adverse until it’s too late.

So how do you fix this?  It’s actually quite easy to even out the load on the axles.  The exact mechanism depends on the hitch system you’re using, so it may be a matter of just going down a link on the weight bar chains (on a Reese), or tightening the strut jacks (on a Hensley), or angling the tow ball rearward, or shortening the receiver to get the ball closer to the rear axle, or any combination of these things.  The goal is the same: get those axles back to as close to 50/50 weight as you can, with the trailer hitched up.

If you find that you’ve tried everything and can’t get the weight distribution any better, don’t give up.  Hensleys are not great at weight distribution, but regardless of the type of hitch you use, check with someone who knows hitches.  Sometimes the hitch receiver on your truck will flex so much that it acts like a spring, bending rather than distributing the weight stress.  Reinforcement or repair may be necessary.

By the way, if you followed the manufacturer’s instructions when setting up your hitch, and used the old technique of measuring the corners of the truck to see how much each dropped, you still need to go to a truck scale.  That method is really obsolete today, with modern vehicles that have different suspensions front and rear, air bags, or even full air suspensions.  At best, it’s a rough estimate.  For about $10 at a CAT scale you can get the real story.

If you didn’t know any of this, don’t feel like a noob.  I’ve talked to RV salespeople who send people out the door every day with new rigs, who don’t understand the basic principles of weight distribution.  I just hope I’ve impressed upon you that most Airstream owners need to check their weight distribution on a truck scale, because what you don’t know can definitely hurt you.

I haven’t been looking forward to this most recent Airstream job.  For a couple of years the A-frame on the Airstream (the front part, for those of you who don’t have a trailer) has been looking pretty ratty.  Paint chips from rocks have turned into unsightly spots of surface rust, and the orange paint of the Hensley hitch has faded, then gradually fallen off, leaving large patches of rust.  The paint on the top of the power hitch jack has chipped off too.  It’s getting embarrassing, like the interior floor was before we replaced it last month.

The problem with the job of repainting the hitch and A-frame is that there’s a ton of prep work and it’s messy.  The Hensley is loaded with grease, which over the years has congealed with dirt and coated not only underside of the hitch itself but also the chains, coupler, and about a third of the A-frame.  After removing all the hitch parts with the assistance of Mike, we dumped them into a large tub and degreased everything with industrial-strength degreaser and heavy brushes, then washed everything.  This job took about an hour, and by the end of it much of the black grease was transferred to our bodies and clothes.

Then we scraped the loose paint off with metal scrapers, and got the surface rust off with a wire brush attached to the power drill, leaving a surface of remaining paint that resembled a cracked dry lake.  It was not pretty, but it was already an improvement over what was there.  It really needs a good sandblasting and powder coating, but I’ve decided I will do this quickie scrape and re-paint just to get another year or two, and then I’ll take the whole thing into a professional shop for a proper & smooth job.

The A-frame was less of a problem because Airstream used real paint (rather than that orange stuff that Hensley uses).  It held up very well over eight years of heavy use and many miles.  We only needed to touch up spots with the wire brush (after washing), and then wash again to remove all the dust.  It should paint up nicely.

After a lot of consideration, I’ve decided to paint the entire A-frame area in flat black.  The Hensley parts will also be black, except the part that was orange which is now a metallic pewter.  Black hides the grease a little better, and it’s an easy color to match for touchups.

Those of you who own Hensleys might be wondering if I’m going to put the stickers back on.  I have an entire set of replacement stickers, including the serial # label, but I’m going to keep them on hand and install them after the hitch is professionally stripped and coated.

You might recall that I complained of our LED lights flickering when the water pump was running.  I had considered several possible causes and solutions, including using heavier gauge wire to the pump, and adding a capacitor.  I realized that all the solutions were aimed at the same symptom: voltage drops when the 12 volt electrical system was heavily loaded.  And since nobody else with the LED lights seemed to be having the problem, it seemed most likely that I should try to find the cause of the problem rather than trying to patch it.

With that in mind, the most obvious place to look was the main trailer 12v ground, which is (on my trailers) is located under the main frame on the street side, just in front of the spare tire.  There’s a fat bare copper wire that runs to a little copper clamp that is in turn bolted to the frame. Since we were in that area with the wire brush, I disassembled the clamp and found quite a bit of corrosion on the copper and the steel frame.  I brushed everything back to shiny and reassembled, then tested, and voila!  no more flickering lights. I’ll coat the area with dielectric grease to reduce future corrosion.

We used to know when the main ground needed cleaning because the Actibrake disc brake actuator would suddenly stop working.  This happened a couple of times (Four Corners)  (FL panhandle) and I got used to doing roadside clean-ups of the ground wire.  The replacement Dexter brake actuator we have now doesn’t seem to be as sensitive to low voltage.  So now the LED lights are our warning signal. I think as warning signs go, flickering lights is far better than having no brakes.

The next job will be to paint everything.  This time of year we get a breeze almost every afternoon, so we’ll either paint this evening around 6 p.m. if things have calmed down, or early tomorrow morning.  Then, re-assembly, re-greasing, and adjusting of the Hensley.

In between major jobs like this I’m working on the cabinetry and other small tweaks too.  For example, yesterday I replaced four bellypan rivets with the big “buttonhead” ones because the pan was starting to come loose in the back. I also fabricated a small plumbing chase from leftover pieces of black walnut, to replace the factory one.  The list of Airstream jobs that was a page long is slowly shrinking, and two of the four “big” jobs are nearly complete, so although time is short I think we’ll be ready to go to Alumapalooza in three weeks.

In the Airstream universe you will find a curious phenomenon: passionate debates about caulk.  That’s because the constant movement of all parts on the road causes all travel trailers to leak eventually, and a good caulk is our first line of defense against rain penetration.  Rather unfairly, Airstreamers get more of this debate than owners of other brands, mostly because Airstreams have been around for so long, and so many of them remain on the roads after decades of use.

An Airstream might easily be re-caulked a dozen times over its lifetime.  In contrast, “disposable” cheap travel trailers tend to get chucked into a landfill when they start to leak because they’re starting to fall apart too. You don’t hear the owners of those talking quite so much about re-caulking. They’re busy re-financing.

Another reason Airstreamers love to talk caulk is the aluminum construction of an Airstream.  Silicone caulks don’t adhere as well to aluminum, so we tend to go for polyurethane caulks that are more expensive but stick like crazy and stay gooey for a long time. But what caulk is the “best”?

For decades, the gold standard of caulk for silver trailers was some gray stuff called Vulkem.  These days Vulkem is just a brand name, applied to various formulations of polyurethane caulk made by Tremco.  I use Vulkem 116 but you can also get TremPro 635 from the same manufacturer, and a few variants. Either way, it’s great stuff.  It’s sticky like hot salt-water taffy and adheres to aluminum like glue, once cured it flexes a lot without breaking its seal, and it’s designed for exterior use (only) so it’s UV-resistant and completely waterproof.

Finding the stuff is the problem.  Lots of online sellers offer it but since a tube is anywhere from $6-14 and shipping tends to add $7-9, you want to get it locally or combine it with another order to duck the shipping charge.  Locally it’s sometimes available through Home Depot or Fastenal, but here I couldn’t find it stocked anywhere so I had to order it.

OEM caulk starting to break down after 8 years?

You can always go to the local RV store and find products that claim to be roof caulk.  I’ve tried a few and had uniformly disappointing results, especially the “self-leveling” type.  Those RV-store caulks seem to be made for the disposable RV market, because they all break down in a few years under sunlight and start to crack, then leak.  You can go on the roof of my Airstream and see what things (vents, antennas, etc.) have been caulked with the standard products; they’re drying out and starting to crack around the edges.  I will have to go up on the roof sometime, scrape all that stuff off, and re-caulk.  It’s not a job I’m looking forward to.

You can also see the things that were caulked with Vulkem or TremPro.  They’re still soft and pliable, even sticky, after years of UV exposure.  When I removed the old cellular antenna a couple of weeks ago, the caulk exposed to the UV was hardened but intact, and still waterproof. Around the base of the antenna the caulk was still gooey.  Think about that: the antenna was installed in 2005 and the caulk on it stuck to my fingers like fresh glue after eight years!  I’ve got it sitting here on my desk, just because I like to pick it up and marvel at it once in a while.  (Yes, that’s super-geeky but hey, it inspired this blog you’re reading.)

And eight years is nothing.  I’ve taken apart sections of my 1968 Caravel and found Vulkem contained inside joints and seams that was still good.   That Vulkem was probably decades old.

So that explains why I was willing to wait a week to get a tube of Vulkem 116 from an online seller. I used it to seal up the antenna hole for the cellular Internet booster.  The hole was 3/4″ and the cable was only 1/4″ so I used a set of rubber grommets to fill in the gap, plus a 2″ tall rubber “boot” that I found at Ace Hardware.  This formed a small tower on the roof, from which the new antenna cable emerges. Then I caulked the beejeebers out of the whole thing, sealing it completely.

Two days later, the caulk still feels like it was fresh from the tube, and since it cures very slowly (just 1/16″ of an inch per day at 75 degrees F & 50% humidity) I expect it will take at least a week due to our low humidity.  Fortunately, the Airstream isn’t going anywhere for four weeks.  I’ll get back on the roof in late May to check on the antenna cable again, after having towed the Airstream 2,000 miles to Ohio, just to confirm that the seal is flexing appropriately at highway speed and not developing any gaps that could cause a leak. I’m pretty sure it will be fine.

There are a few challenges with using this stuff.  First off, the fumes are stinky and toxic, which may be why it’s not approved for indoor use.  I would not use this in a workshop without having windows open and a fan.  Second, it’s trickier to shape and smooth than silicone caulk, because it sticks to everything.  The old “wet finger” trick that you use with silicone won’t work—it’ll stick to your wet finger.  I strongly suggest wearing disposable vinyl gloves when you work with it, and bringing along a bunch of paper towels for cleanup.

Third, saving the leftover tube is a bit of a pain.  It’s hard enough to obtain that you don’t want to lose the leftovers between jobs.  Some people put it in the freezer, which I think is a bad idea because the smell of the caulk can ruin your food, even through a plastic bag.  I like my ice cream to taste like Oreo Mint, not vanilla Vulkem.

We’re trying an experiment instead.  We wrapped the nozzle in plastic kitchen wrap, and then vacuum sealed the entire tube with Eleanor’s Food Saver.  (Eleanor wants me to mention that this was her brilliant idea, and I’m glad to do so.  If I open the tube in a year and find it congealed then it will be Eleanor’s terrible idea.  But it should be fine.)