It’s game day.  We’ve been working toward this for almost a year.  It’s just dawn and I’m watching a dull orange glow creep up the eastern sky.  The 6 a.m. outdoor alarm just went off at the factory building, indicating that it is time for the workers to start their day.  They start early here because many of them are farmers as well, and will go home in the afternoon to work their second jobs.

Our job this morning starts with getting the staff, volunteers, and vendors parked in the main field.  Yesterday we carefully checked all of the parking fields with a heavy truck and a bunch of volunteers, to identify potential wet spots.  There’s a section in the northeast corner we call “Lake Bambi,” and there are two smaller spots we call the South and North China Seas.  They are pretty wet, so we have marked them off. There’s also a section we had coded-named “Cairo” that we won’t be able to use even though it is mostly dry, just because we can’t get to it.

But otherwise the field is drying out very nicely.  In the morning I estimated we could use about 80% of the available spaces, but at the rate things were drying we might be up to 90% this morning.  We had a nice hot breeze all day and lots of sunshine.  In any case, we’ll have no trouble parking everyone who is signed up for the event.

The tent went up yesterday, and it is just plain huge.  We’ve got room for 450 people in there, plus a large stage. It’s the first things you see as you arrive.  Looks like the circus has come to town. There are three smaller tents too, for registration, yoga classes, and vendors.

The Terra Port filled up yesterday, as we expected.  Adam and Susan are here in their unique Class C, Alex and Charon showed up with Laura (from our Anza-Borrego trip last December), Kirk the amazing sign guy showed up with his usual bag of swag plus this cool Happy Hour sign, plus Michael Depraida, Hunter Hampton, and many other well-known Airstream characters.

With all these people, it wasn’t surprising to see a couple of big chat circles set up under the shady trees every afternoon.  Eleanor and I had enough to do that we didn’t have time to join them for more than a few minutes.  She was off until mid-afternoon making an airport run again, and then we needed to go back to the tent area to drop off the registration trailer (a U-Haul) and set up some things in the main tent.  Then I had to go out with Brett & Adam to set up signs on the entry roads (which look awesome, by the way, thanks to Kirk).

We finally got a chance to clean up and break away around 6 p.m. in the Miata for a top-down cruise through the countryside — just us, away from the bustle and crowd for a few hours.  We zipped down to the old downtown of Sidney, checked out a few quiet spots in town, then had dinner and came back via the Interstate.  The convertible is surprisingly habitable at highway speeds, especially on a night like last night when the temps were still running about 88 as we cruised home.

So here we are, 6:25 a.m. now, and it’s time to get moving.  The sun has risen as I’ve typed this. I can hear a few people outside already.  They want to get going.  We’ll start parking the staff and vendors around 8 a.m., and the general public at 9 a.m.   I’ve got to get going now if I’m going to be hitched up and ready to lead the parade …

Things are heating up for us in all sorts of ways.  We were blessed with a sunny day, temperatures in the upper 80s, and a nice breeze all day to dry things out.  With more sunshine forecast today it looks like we’ll have no trouble using the grass to park trailers on Tuesday.

Our major task for the day was to stuff 275 goody bags.  Dave Schumann of Airstream’s Service Center arranged for us to have access to the service bays, so I pulled the U-Haul full of stuff (that Brett brought from Florida) into the relatively cool and wind-free space.  We swiped a few tables from the breakroom and set up an assembly line, with Brett, Lisa, Alice, Tim and myself working on the project.  (Eleanor was off doing laundry.  She cut her finger rather badly on Saturday night and can’t do much with her left hand now.  She is going to be wrapped up in bandages for the week.)

We finished the bags in about three hours, including a post-project celebration with guacamole & chips that E&E brought over.  It’s sort of cool to be working next to an unrestored 1935 Bowlus and the Jesse James Airstream Chopper.  Strangely, “Schu” showed up to see how we were doing, at exactly the moment we finished.  I think he was watching through the windows…

Eleanor and I took a trip down to Dayton airport to meet my mother and hand off Emma.  She’ll be winging it back to Vermont today, and we’ll see her again in about ten days.

On the way back, the Mercedes was running very low on fuel, so of course I stopped to buy diesel.  The combination of a nearly-empty tank and high Memorial Day fuel prices set a record (for us) for most expensive fill-up ever: $108.  I know for a lot of folks with big truck tanks a three-digit fill-up is commonplace, but this is the first time I’ve ever spent that much for a single fill-up on any vehicle I’ve ever owned.  It’s a psychological shock, that’s for sure, but I’m reminded of what people told me when we first started full-timing in 2005.  Back then gas was running about $2.80 per gallon and I heard, “Boy did you decide to go traveling at the wrong time.  Wait a while until prices drop again.”  I’m glad we didn’t wait.  It always seems expensive at the time, but having been to Europe and paid $7 a gallon I know that we still have a cheap deal here.

Another pair of key Alumapalooza volunteers, Lou & Larry, showed up last night.  They are our dear friends from eastern Ohio, with whom we’ve courtesy parked many times.  This week they are also the Vice-Presidents Of Parking, or whatever title they care to give themselves.  Parking is the toughest job at Alumapalooza, and with the tricky logistics caused by all the rain recently, we are going to spend a lot of time today wandering the fields so we can finalize our strategy and be ready for the onslaught of 100 Airstreams that is coming tomorrow.

I wish I could have managed to hold my camera while driving I-80 from Joliet IL to Gary IN yesterday, but I was too busy juggling the steering wheel and the walkie-talkie. The pictures I would have captured would show an uneven concrete jungle crowded with speeding 18-wheelers, bridge construction, sudden slowdowns, and in the midst of it all, an Airstream trying to avoid being smashed from three directions at once and a tiny Mazda Miata cowering in terror, dwarfed even by the wheels of the trucks.

It was a final test for Eleanor, who has borne up well despite 1,900 miles of bone-rattling driving across the country in a ragtop car that has no soundproofing.  The I-80 assault was noisy even in the pampered environment of the Mercedes.  (I almost had to increase the volume on my iPod, boo hoo.)  In the Miata it was a deafening rumble of tanks crossing the desert sands of Iraq, a bladder-loosening flyover of B-17s in diamond formation, and a 7.5 earthquake in Japan, all at once.  After nearly an hour of physical and mental abuse, we reached the relative peace of the Indiana Toll Road and pulled out to a rest area, where Eleanor collapsed for half an hour in bed.  But she survived, and recovered well enough to drive the last fifty miles.

And now we are here in South Bend, parked on carefully-laid pavers next to an antique farmhouse, surrounded by a few well-manicured acres of grass and horse pasture.  The contrast from the noisy, smelly, crowded, and cracked I-80 Death Race Challenge is so dramatic as to seem unreal.

The 34-foot Excella belonging to Charlie and Lynn is parked with us, stocked and nearly ready to go for their upcoming trip to Minnesota.  We have been here many times before, and it has always been an oasis for us at the intersection of Chicago, Michigan, and Airstream.  We’re ready to relax and catch up on things for a couple of days.

This is great, and crucial, because I am supposed to have the Fall 2011 Airstream Life magazine completed for layout by next Wednesday. That isn’t going to happen, because Alumapalooza makes it impossible for me, but I at least will get 3 or 4 articles in process so that the entire magazine isn’t held up until I return to it.  Today and Friday will be dedicated in part to getting a bunch of editorial work done.  Fortunately, I have been greatly assisted with this issue by Associate Editor Tom Bentley, and at this writing I am also working to bring another Associate Editor up to speed for Winter 2011.

You may have noticed that photos in the blog for the past week have been of lower quality than usual.  That’s because I have been experimenting with using my iPhone as my “point and shoot” camera.  It is highly convenient but the photos aren’t great.  In particular the iPhone is very contrasty and can’t handle low light at all.  It also lacks optical zoom, and any sort of manual control over the image.  So when I get to Jackson Center I’ll switch back to the Nikon D90 for Alumapalooza pictures.

We have been granted a huge boon.  Five months of awful weather in Ohio have  finally broken, just in time for our event.  It has rained almost continually and will do so again today, but as of Saturday the sun is forecast to shine — and keep on shining — with very little prospect for rain next week!

Of course, the ground is wet and may not dry out entirely by Tuesday, but we have contingency plans to temporarily park arriving trailers on pavement if needed.  Personally, I think we’ll be fine to start using the field by Tuesday or Wednesday.  The ace Alumapalooza parking team of Lou, Larry, Terry, Brett, myself, Alex, Charon, Laura, Alice and Tim will all be on site in advance to finalize our parking and utility strategy.  Plus we’ve got support from Lisa, Eleanor, Kirk, and several other folks if we need it.  So when 100 trailers arrive on Tuesday, we’ll be ready for ‘em.  Look for us in the orange t-shirts, bearing walkie-talkies and trying to look competent.

The forecast suggests the usual JC weather pattern next week.  It will be damp and cool in the mornings, so you’ll come out of the trailer dressed in long pants and a jacket.  Shortly after, the fog will burn off and you’ll be roasting hot in the sun, so you’ll have to change clothes and find some sunscreen.  That evening, the temperature will drop suddenly after sunset.  At least once during the week a shower will pop up with little warning, too.  It definitely is a place where the old adage is true,  “If you don’t like the weather, just wait a while and it will change.”  Keeps things interesting, I say.

You really can’t travel through the central states this time of year without encountering some thunderstorms, and this year they are popping up like spring mushrooms.  Last night was our first encounter, starting with an enormous BANG at 3:25 a.m. that woke us all up. It was one of those “way too close for comfort” sort of lightning strikes, and I won’t be surprised if later this morning I discover a shattered tree in the campground.

In these situations an Airstream is a great shelter, being an aluminum shell, so unless there is an imminent threat of tornadoes, we just unplug the laptops from the local power grid and check the Doppler radar to get an idea of the severity of things.  Last night’s line of storms was pretty active and some tornado damage was reported, but from the radar view I could see that we were getting just the southeastern end of the line.  By the time we were awoken by the Big Bang, the worse was over.

We’ll see more rain today on the highway toward South Bend — it’s virtually unavoidable.  Once we are moving I’ll be watching for high winds and suspicious cloud formations.  If it gets funky out there, we’ll pull over and try to park the Airstream in the lee of a large building or under an overpass.  Hail is the most typical cause of severe damage, but you can never find a shelter when you need one, so the primary consideration is just staying alive if the weather really turns nasty.

We’ve had a few close calls in the past.  I remember caravanning north on I-75 through Michigan after Airstream’s Homecoming 2005, and Eleanor watching the weather radar on the laptop as we rolled north.  Ten minutes before a major line of storms blew through, we exited the highway and found a relatively sheltered spot for the Caravel, then watched the drama unfold from the safety of a nearby restaurant, complete with flying tree limbs.  In 2008, we had a tornado blow right past us and had to take shelter in a Wal-Mart.  A Class A motorhome in the same parking lot as our Airstream blew over onto its side in that episode.  We were also threatened by tornadoes at a rally in Myrtle Beach SC once, and spotted a nice little tornado spinning by at Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument in Colorado. Hail has hit us in at least three different states, but never large enough hail to dent the trailer fortunately.

OK, so let’s look on the bright side.  Today will hopefully be much less eventful.  The Airstream has now had the last of the Arizona dust washed off of it, including the solar panels, so I don’t have to climb on the roof to clean them.  We have no leaks, unlike last year at this time.  And the weather forecast in Jackson Center seems to be FINALLY turning to sunshine for all of next week, which will be great for Alumapalooza.  A dry week in Jackson Center would be a very welcome miracle.

Many people wrote and called us yesterday to ask if we were OK, so let me get that out of the way first:  We’re fine.  The devastating tornado in Joplin MO and the other thunderstorms were so far east of us that we never even saw a cloud.  It was smooth sailing and clear skies all day as we cruised across Kansas, continuing on Rt 54, and eventually to Kansas City.

But our free pass has ended.  We’re now on the edge of the turbulent weather that is causing the thunderstorms and rain that have plagued the central states for months. There’s no doubt we are going to get the bugs washed off the car soon.

We spent the night in a parking lot in Independence MO last night, so that we could take the Miata in for a check early this morning.  At 7:30 I dropped it off at a local automotive shop for diagnosis of the “Check Engine” light, and it turned out to be a warning that the front catalytic converter wasn’t performing to spec.  Rather than drop $700-900 on a new converter, we reset the code and are waiting to see if it was just a fluke (the washboard road or a tank of funky gas).  Probably the light will come back one, but it won’t hurt the car to fix it later.

We’ve moved about 35 mile north to Wallace State Park in Cameron MO.  It’s a beautiful spot with a little lake and lots of deciduous trees for shade.  We’re nearly alone here, except for one tenter and the landscape staff who are rushing around to get the park ready for Memorial Day weekend.  Peace and quiet, no annoying smoky fires, no mosquitoes (how is that possible?) and Verizon Wireless is pretty solid here.  It’s gotten a bit hotter and more humid, so we sprang for an electric site at $21, and are now set up for work and homeschooling for the day.

We’ll move onward Tuesday, rather cautiously because of the constant threat of severe thunderstorms.  Fortunately, we only need to cover about 540 miles by Thursday, so we can afford to have a slow day or two, and park as needed to avoid heavy weather.  I’ve been using the iPhone and various apps to see the weather as we go, just for geek points.

The constant rain up in the Ohio Valley has been the inspiration for many conferences in the past couple of weeks with the Alumapalooza team.  It’s no surprise that conditions are wet up there, and the weather forecast says we can’t expect much drying before the event date, so we are making alternate plans to ensure that Alumapalooza comes off successfully no matter what.  We’ve secured dozens of parking sites on asphalt both at Airstream and the former Henschen plant, plus we’ve coordinated with Airstream to electrify several dozen alternate sites behind the manufacturing building.  That way we’ll be able to park trailers where conditions are most acceptable, and avoid the really wet spots.  The tent is bigger than last year too — big enough to house all 440 attendees with seating and room for the stage.  So no matter what the weather is doing, we’ll be dry and having fun.

It seems that every year about this time I end up writing the same “gearing up” sort of blog entry.  It’s a little disconcerting to me that we are becoming predictable, but here we are in May once again packing up the Airstream for the summer of travel, exactly as we have done for the past two or three years.  Of course, it’s wonderful that we are about to launch the Airstream again, and our summer plans look very exciting, so I shouldn’t complain.

Even though the general goal is the same, our process and specific tasks are always a little different.  With a growing kid and growing businesses, we have to re-pack and re-think almost every choice as we gradually stock the Airstream.  We have very detailed “pre-departure” checklists that we carry over from year to year, which cover the basics, and we modify those lists as circumstances change.  The lists cover everything:  what we need to pack, preparing the house and cars for storage, notifications, medical reminders, Airstream maintenance, etc., but they can’t account for the changes that happen in our lives over the course of a year, so the lists are constantly mutating.

Eleanor admires the view from 7,000 feet

This year we have several factors adding complexity to the process.  For example, we bought a car to take with us to Vermont, a 1999 Mazda Miata.  Eleanor will follow the Airstream all the way to Vermont in the Miata (stopping every 200 miles to refill the tiny gas tank).  The plan is that she will have the car to use while she is in Vermont for most of three months, and then she’ll sell it as an “Arizona rust-free car” to a northerner who is desperate for an older sports car not riddled with rust.

This of course means that we’ve had to get a 12-year-old car in shape for a cross-country trip. The last few weeks I’ve been sorting it out, and I think I’ve just about got it ready now.  We’ve been driving the Miata daily for purposes of “debugging” it, which has been fun.  A couple of weekends ago Eleanor and I zipped up the curvy Catalina Highway to about 7,000 feet elevation to escape the Tucson heat.  We just talked in the shade of the tall trees for an hour or so, feeling the blissful cool pine-scented air blowing up the mountainside.  There’s nothing like a convertible for moments like that.

Chef Eleanor will make a gourmet dinner while you watch!

Another major factor in our trip prep has been Alumapalooza.  We have so much gear to bring on site that Brett will be towing a filled U-Haul trailer behind his motorhome from Tampa.  Even with that, I’ve got a bunch of stuff to wedge into the my Airstream for Alumapalooza, including Wally Byam books, Newbies Guides, leftover Alumapalooza t-shirts, and literally dozens of door prizes.

Add to that a bit of extra cooking gear, this year.  Eleanor will be doing a cooking demo at Alumapalooza on Saturday, using an actual Airstream galley (stove/oven/sink) on stage.  Her menu will feature pork medallions in a cherry port sauce, along with sides and dessert.   The interesting part is that she’ll prove that anyone can make such a meal, by producing everything right in front of you and explaining how it’s done.

Alumapalooza is as “locked down” as we can make it right now.  Registration is closed, and the schedule is finalized, but of course little surprises keep popping up to keep our lives interesting.  We did have the usual cluster of last-minute cancellations, but mostly for medical reasons rather than high fuel prices.  While nobody is happy about the current fuel prices, it doesn’t seem to be keeping Alumapalooza attendees away.  We will still have about 200 trailers on the field at Airstream during the event.

Also, Airstream came to us at the last minute with a request for a “Product Feedback Session.”  You won’t see this on the schedule posted online, but it will appear in the final printed program that we’ll hand out at the event.  It should be interesting.  They will run two separate sessions for men and women, one hour each, to hear what people think about the current products.

Of course over the past few weeks we’ve been doing the usual trip prep stuff: mapping out possible routes, looking for interesting stops, contacting friends and acquaintances who might be along the way, and dreaming up crazy ideas of things we might want to do.  Most of the good stuff will have to happen after Alumapalooza, since the initial legs of our trip will be rather rushed.  We should have left a week ago, to allow a really nice meander through Utah and Colorado, but there were just too many things to do here in Tucson first.  So we’ll make a beeline — or at least, what passes for a beeline in our world — to Ohio, with relatively few chances to stop and browse.  We’ll make up for that later.

One of my pre-trip projects has been to upgrade the software that runs all of the Airstream Life websites.  We just completed that task this weekend.  Although not much is different from your perspective, I now have the ability to post and edit blogs from my iPhone (among other improvements) which I hope will make it easier for me to blog daily during the busy times.  As you know, I’ve also set up Twitter so that you can follow quick updates from the road and from Alumapalooza, and if you use Foursquare on a mobile phone you might even find me there, too.

We’ve got three days to go before launch and many things yet to accomplish … but I’ll post again this week as the process continues.

I’m deep into the Summer 2011 magazine, as is normal for this time of year, but between editing articles my mind is straying to Alumapalooza.  It’s coming up in two months.

We’ve sold out of trailer spaces on the field (the limit was 200) and the schedule is about 95% solidified, so at this point you’d think the major work would be done. But in fact there’s much more to do.  We are still registering “walk-in” attendees, and there are a thousand small details to finalize. Brett and I will be very busy in the two months between now and May 31, 2011 when it all officially begins.

The last couple of weeks before the event, we’ll head out from our respective locations (me in Arizona and Brett in Florida) heading for Ohio, like 200 other trailers that are coming from all corners of the country. I’ve been toying with the idea of organizing a caravan as many other people are doing, but because of the way we are going to travel I’ve conceded that it won’t work.

Instead, I’m working on a concept of “virtual caravanning.”  The idea is that many people who are traveling to Alumapalooza via differing routes can share their experiences through the Internet, both with fellow virtual caravanners and people who are unable to attend. As a small first step, I’ve set up a Twitter account called “airstreamlife” which I’ll use to post quick notes and photos from the road as we go.  Fellow travelers can follow airstreamlife and we’ll follow you as you travel as well.

Now, long-time readers of this blog will remember my rant some time back when I explained in excruciating detail why I have — to this point– avoided using Twitter and Facebook.  But I’m not a total Luddite, just a highly critical adopter, and my perspective has changed.  The iPhone has now given me a very useful mobile tool that integrates with Twitter. Now I can easily post photos with short notes from the road as we go.  That’s a much more interesting form and reason for communication, to me, and so I’ll explore it a little.  It’s an experiment.  Still, this blog will remain the primary outlet for all things related to Airstream Life and our restless travels.

In the next few days, we will be occupied with a few spring visitors.  Erica is coming back today from Texas, with a Globe Trotter that she is delivering to a mutual acquaintance, and we are going to have a little driveway camping session to get the new owner up to speed.  On Friday we are expecting another guest, and next week a third, so life is going to be more exciting than it has been thanks to the folks who are swinging through. More on that later.

 I’m starting to appreciate the feelings of people who have read my blogs for years, living vicariously through us and thinking about the next time they will get to break away for a road trip — because now I’m one of those people. Except for our trip at New Year’s to Anza-Borrego, we haven’t moved the Airstream since October.

It’s not for lack of ideas.  This was a planned pause, specifically so we could take care of things that could best be done while we were parked, but it is mostly behind us now.  All of the routine medical exams are done, Emma’s orthodontics are on auto-pilot, Modernism Week 2011 is done, the Newbies book is done, Alumapalooza is about 90% set, and I can always work on the magazine from the road.  So at this point we are under very little obligation to stay put in Tucson.

It is springtime here, which means lots of days in the 70s and 80s, and believe it or not, plenty of pollen.  I notice it somewhat, but Eleanor is virtually incapacitated, which is a drag anytime but especially tragic in the stunningly beautiful weather we get this time of year. We can’t go hiking up in the mountains to take in the spectacular views and desert blooms. Naturally, the idea has struck us to escape to some part of the country where pollen is less of an issue, and that has led to temptation of the sort that causes us to spend hours browsing maps and weather reports, and reading blogs of fellow travelers who are currently exploring.

All kinds of places are suddenly appealing to me.  It was about this time three years ago that we went to Bahia Kino in Sonora, MX and lazed around on the beach for four days.  If things were a little quieter in Sonora right now I’d be inclined to revisit that trip, just for the chance to stroll a quiet sandy beach and listen to the waves at night.  Or perhaps we could dash off to the foggy Redwood National Park in northern California, where the humpback whales are passing by in their annual migration.

But really, we probably will stay put, with the exception of a quickie weekend here or there.  It is not as interesting as traveling but I feel like we are earning credit somehow.  There’s something to be said for maintaining continuity at least.  This is the longest period we’ve been out of the Airstream since 2004, and I suppose it indicates that we are gradually learning how to be “normal” people.  So far I’m not impressed with the perks of normalcy, but nonetheless we will stay and get our work done, save our pennies, and plan & dream.  When we do finally get back on the road, it will feel like we’ve earned it.

Once we do venture out, the trick will be making the planned trip — a long Interstate slog on roads we’ve seen several times before — into something more than just a 1,900 mile death march. Our primary purpose in May will be to get to Ohio for Alumapalooza 2011.  That’s something we can do in four days if we press hard, seven days if we travel half-days, and two weeks if we do it in our classic “stop and smell the roses” style.  I was initially not feeling very good about being on the road for a long period of time because I was concerned about work I needed to do, but that’s crazy.  Since when is work the most important thing?  I can clear the decks before we go and deal with the little things that pop up as needed, and maybe even take a few days off.  Let’s make it a two week trip and really enjoy it.  I might even use the “v-word” (vacation) but not too loudly because this is supposed to be a business trip.

Speaking of which, I’ve been having some conversations with Marty Shenkman, a tax lawyer who is also behind RV4theCause.org.  Marty uses his Airstream as a business tool, as I do, and both of us have some concerns about the correct way to deduct, document, and depreciate our travel trailers. We’re having a rather spirited debate, since he does it one way and I do it another way, and Marty’s CPA has joined in with his own thoughts on the subject.  The key, of course, is finding a way to bulletproof ourselves against audit challenges, since an Airstream can be viewed both as a home and a business vehicle, and each can be handled differently from a tax standpoint.

The outcome of this has been that Marty will be researching the subject further and presenting at Alumapalooza.  His topic is going to be something like, “Making Your Airstream A Deductible Business Asset,” which I bet will appeal to all the folks who would like to work from the road.  You can bet that I’ll be in the front row to hear what he has to say (and heckle him if needed).

But I’m not mentioning this to push Alumapalooza.  We’re basically sold out — just five spaces left as of today — and as far as I’m concerned, 195 trailers is plenty!  My only wish at this point is that we don’t have the usual Jackson Center summer weather pattern, which includes chilly fog, rain, sun, intense heat, humidity, thunderstorms, and a chance of tornadoes all in the same day.  Given the dramatic mood swings of the local weather, I suppose I should be impressed that 380 people are going to join us in that field next to the manufacturing plant.  Brave souls, every one.

So we are in the same boat as all the frozen northerners now.  We’re at home, waiting for the moment when we can hitch up and head out, and in the meantime we are dreaming of what’s to come. For those of you in the north, hang in there–spring is coming.  For those of you who are on the road right now, take a picture and update your blog for me.

 I like caravanning.  In our full-time travels we occasionally would link up with another Airstreamer and travel with them for a while.  Our buddy Rich C was with us on and off for about four months.  We also had a very memorable impromptu caravan from the International Rally in Salem OR, across Washington and Idaho to Montana with three other Airstreams, and a couple of years ago we organized a group of three Airstreams down to Bahia Honda in Sonora MX.

My style of caravanning is pretty casual.  Point to the destination, agree on a rough routing, and let everyone go at their own pace.  On our northwestern caravan we found that everyone spread out quite a lot, so the only practical way to stay in touch was with cell phones. If someone wanted to meet up for lunch, they’d call and we’d compare notes on possible stopping points.  There was never any obligation to stay with the group, because we wanted everyone to feel free and unencumbered.

Whoever got to the destination first typically assumed responsibility for checking out a good campground and telling the rest of the group where to go.  We agreed that if anyone got sidetracked or delayed, we wouldn’t hold up the group  — they could just catch up later. In other words, not much structure and no rules other than the common conventions of good behavior.  It worked, probably because of the sort of people we invited along: independent and confident Airstreamers with plenty of travel experience.

Having done this a few times, I have been curious to see if the system would work for a larger group that wasn’t just friends who were well-known to us.  We’re going to be heading out of Arizona sometime in mid-May to work our way up to Alumapalooza, and that trip seemed to present a fine opportunity to collect a bunch of hardy Airstreamers for an experimental caravan/adventure.

But after considering everything, I think we are going to have to pass on that idea this time.  The weeks leading up to Alumapalooza are going to be very busy for me, and it is quite possible that at some point on the way up we may have to unexpectedly stop somewhere for a day or two just so I can work.  That wouldn’t be terribly fun for a group of people who were expecting to have regular progress. “Hey everyone, let’s all enjoy this parking lot RV park near the highway, because it’s the only place that my cell phone works.”

Still, we might cross paths with a friend or two along the route.  We don’t usually nail down our exact route in advance, preferring to leave some room for spontaneity, so I think the best way to manage this is to try a real-time Internet solution.  I’m considering various methods to post our current location and immediate next destination in a semi-private location, so that a group of friends who we’ve already organized can be updated on a daily basis and share their plans with us at the same time.

I noticed at the Modernism Week show that virtually everyone was sporting an iPhone.  I am a relative Luddite in that regard, having held onto the philosophy that phones are meant to be phones.  I like them to be small, durable, easy to use, and long-lasting, a test which most more “advanced” devices have failed miserably since the first so-called smartphones were introduced in the 1990s.  But I could no longer deny that the iPhone (and probably a few other similar phones) has finally achieved at least a halfway decent compromise.  Instead of just packing stupid & gratuitous features onto a phone, it represents a decent advance in technology with a feature set that actually adds value to the basic audio-only phone.  It only took about fifteen years from the first tentative steps that I watched as a wireless industry analyst in the mid-1990s.

I actually don’t care about most of the things that an iPhone can do, but I do see where instant and easy communications via an Internet-capable phone and some sort of coordinating service “in the cloud” (meaning on the Internet) could be a really useful way to coordinate a group of roaming travelers.  We could post our route maps, share real-time updates from the road including photos, coordinate meeting points, ask for help, and generally just play the social-network game to while away the miles.  So perhaps I’ll finally break down and get an iPhone next month.  Verizon owes me one more “New every two” upgrade anyway, for whatever that’s worth.

The real problem with better communication technology is reining it in.  Only the social mores and respectfulness of people hold back what often becomes a deluge of useless information.  I am already reachable by email, phone, voicemail, website contact form, fax, Google Buzz, and AOL Instant Messenger.  I have steered clear of Twitter & Facebook in part because I can’t handle any more.  A smart phone means the darned thing knows how to bug me with information I’d often rather not have, in places I’d rather not receive it.  I’m not a believer that having more tech on your hip automatically makes you more productive. So I’m going to program it to be rather selective about what it tells me.  But having said that, there might be a fun road-geek experience coming up.

The other issue with caravanning to Alumapalooza is simply that I have to get there a few days early for setup, and I can’t bring a group of people with me — there’s no place for them to stay!  That’s easily resolved by having the group break off to some attraction in the area.  There are many things to do near Jackson Center, as well in nearby Indiana, Michigan, and Kentucky.   I’ll be envious of them, while we are stuffing goody bags in the humidity, staking out campsites, etc.

Perhaps caravanning will evolve to an entirely different sort of experience in the future.  The social and safety aspects of traveling in a group can stay, using modern communications to allow people to share their experiences and collective knowledge while maintaining their independence.  The new generation of Airstreamers seems to want that.  Already I’ve seen groups traveling like that, not calling themselves “caravans,” but instead inventing a new set of guidelines and tools to enable a vibrant and social experience nonetheless.  Hmmm…I’ll keep thinking about it.

When you ask, “How are things?” some people respond after measuring how much stability they’ve had in their lives lately.  If things have been predictable, safe, and settled, they say, “Not bad” or something to that effect.

Another group of people disregard the predictable and measure the “delta” — in other words, how much things have changed in their lives lately.  They say, “Not bad” if life has been interesting, challenging, or if they have some sort of new & different project going on. My friends tend to be mostly this type.  It’s not because of any conscious choice, it’s just that I like things to change and there is often a mutual attraction between people who like to mix it up a little from time to time.

When things are happening, I’ve got stuff to blog about, and when things are not happening I start thinking about going somewhere to find something new.  The recent dry spell in this blog tells you that either (a) not much is happening in my life, or (b) things are happening that I just can’t talk about.  I’ll give you a hint: it’s not (a).  Life continues to be interesting, but in a sort of home-bound soap opera way instead of fun travel stories that make readable public blog fodder.  I have often thought that I should offer a “subscription” blog with the really juicy stuff, but upon reflection I’ve decided you probably don’t want to read it.  Whatever you are imagining right now is probably about as interesting as the reality anyway.

What’s left after the  X-, R-, and even PG-13 stuff is removed is fairly safe, so you can continue to read this blog without concern for your innocent children.

The biggest news is that as of today my new book, “The Newbies Guide to Airstreaming” is officially complete and off to the printer.  Wow, that was a lot of work.  It should be ready for distribution sometime in April, but if you have a Kindle you should be able to download and read it by Monday, March 21.  I’m also working on an edition for iPad, iPhone, and iPod Touch and hope to have that ready in a week or two, if Apple cooperates.

The folks at Airstream have read preview copies and they seem to like it.  They tell me they will include a copy with every new Airstream, which I hope helps smooth the way into our community for lots of people. Getting feedback from reader for a revised second edition should be interesting, but I’m looking forward more to the chance to start work on the next book, which will be completely different.  I don’t know for sure what I’m going to say, but I do have a general idea of the theme, and I’ll talk about that more in a future blog. Getting going on that project is something I’m looking forward to doing this summer.

Lately I find myself in the role of Airstream advisor to many people.  I don’t know how I got this job, but I’m a sucker for it.  I never seem to be able to say No, even when things are fantastically busy.  It’s probably because I meet the most interesting people this way.  In the past few weeks I have been approached by a well-known author, and a semi-famous soap opera actor, both of whom have found themselves needing an Airstream for very specific purposes.  There have been several other folks as well.  I wish I had a fleet of Airstream to sell and/or lend out, but I don’t have the time or space, so instead I’ve been just offering advice and directing them to people who can help.  Finding “just the right one” is a time-consuming process, like finding the ideal mate.  Ye gods, I’ve become a matchmaker.  Call me Shadchen.

The other major activity in life has been to finalize Alumapalooza.  There’s another labor of love.  I am truly glad that we are approaching our limit of 200 trailers (we have just 8 spaces left as of today).  It has been a fun process to try to make APZ 2011 better than the original, but also a bit exhausting.  At this point I’m not even trying to sell the last few spaces — I’m sure they will sell themselves soon enough.  The entertainment is arranged, the speakers are about 80% set, we’ve got the tents, catering, signs, t-shirts, A/V setup, tiki torches, door prizes, mud boots (whoops, forget I mentioned that last one) … you name it, we’ve got it. There are only about two dozen things left to do before I can comfortably say that the job is done … and by then I’m sure it will be time to head off to Ohio.

A lot of people have asked me what we plan to do to deal with higher fuel prices this summer.  I tend to just shrug.  We can’t make our rig significantly more fuel efficient than already is, and we already tow at a fairly moderate 62 MPH (except in west Texas).  If I need to spend less on fuel, we delete miles — simple as that. Two years ago, when we were facing $5/gallon gasoline in remote parts of Utah, we simply spent more time at each stop and towed no more than 70 miles per travel day.  This year we have to go to Vermont and I can’t make Vermont come any closer, so the only fix is to optimize the routing as best we can.

If things work out well, we’ll be traveling with or meeting friends at various points of the trip, and that will probably make the fuel prices seem less painful, as the bigger significance of having fun and adventures becomes apparent.  As I’ve said many times, it’s not about the towing — it’s about the stopping.  A trip to the northeast will cost about $700-800 in fuel each way, but it’s still a bargain.  We’ll be out for nearly a month, visiting at least ten states. I’m not going to complain about the extra $300 or so it costs for an experience like that.  It’s “delta-making” stuff; the stuff I thrive on, and the reason we own that big shiny thing in the carport.  They’ll have to raise the price quite a lot before I decide to stay home.