If you’re not already sweating with anticipation, just from the title of this blog post, you may wish to tune out.  This is a geek session.

I got my IngoVision backup camera installed yesterday, along with the Mid-City Engineering interface module for the Mercedes COMAND unit (that’s the factory-supplied “all in one” box for the radio/CD/DVD/nav/Bluetooth/iPod etc.).  The result has been exactly what I was hoping for — a good, clear, full-color rear view while towing.

Here’s how it attaches to the car.  The Ingo “PremiumCam” kit includes a very tough external connector which we mounted on a gusset attached to the receiver hitch. It looks just like a miniature version of the 7-way connector for the Airstream.

The rest of the kit (left, click for larger view) includes a coiled cable that runs between the Airstream and the Mercedes, a second plug to mount on the tongue of the Airstream, and a long run of cable that will go to the back of the Airstream.  The camera will mount on the bumper compartment lid at the back of the Airstream.

Inside the car, the Mid-City VIM164p interface box was attached to the back of the COMAND unit, and the camera cable was connected to the COMAND’s backup camera input.  That part of the installation is completely invisible, since it is all hidden inside the dashboard.

In the picture above at left, you can see all the cables and camera plugged into the Mercedes for a test, since I haven’t yet put it on the Airstream.  Ingo mounted the Airstream plug on his propane tank cover, which is very slick and looks like a factory design.  I’m mounting mine on the flagpole holder, which is bolted to the electric jack.  The cable will run in a protected loom under the bellypan, so it should be a quick installation with some ties and rivets.

Up front, the interface module allows the camera to be tied into the COMAND system as if it were OEM equipment.  I just press one button on the steering wheel and there’s the picture from behind the Airstream.  It’s a little stretched, probably due to the difference in aspect ratio between the Ingo-supplied screen and the Mercedes screen, but it looks good.

The camera also automatically activates when in reverse.  The nagging text you see at the top of the screen is superimposed by the Mercedes COMAND unit, not the Ingo system.

If you have a truck or SUV with more interior space, and don’t go for the fancy integrated nav screen deal that I did, you can get the same camera system for a pretty reasonable price.  The IngoVision PremiumCam (two-camera) system runs $599.  The BaseCam (one camera) system is $399. That gets you everything you need including the screen.  Installation can be DIY, or you can bring it to a local automotive electronics store and have them do it in a couple of hours.

I think this will qualify as a legitimate safety improvement.  I’ve seen a lot of Airstreams with backup cameras (usually older models and Classic motorhomes), which suggests to me that at one time it was probably a factory option.  Well, those cameras have come a long way since then — they’re smaller, cheaper, and have color, “night vision,” and better resolution.  I think it’s time Airstream consider bringing back this option as a way to improve safety for owners.

I can’t wait to get try this out on the road.  My first chance will probably be in May when we shove off for the big summer/fall trip. I’ll report on our experiences with it once we get moving.

As always, we are looking six to eight months into the future to plan our travels this season.  This year the plan is fairly ambitious for a family that is supposedly not full-timing anymore.  We will leave Tucson in early May and likely not return until mid-November.

I’m not entirely sure about this amount of time on the road this year.  Life in Arizona has been pleasant and easy, and I like to be here for at least a little of the hot weather.  Last year we stayed until mid-June and got a solid month of 100-degree days, which I actually like except for the air conditioning bill.  And usually we get back in October, just in time to catch the last week or two of hot days and warm nights.  So I find myself reviewing the tentative travel plan and wondering, “Do we really need to be out that long?”

But when I flip over my Magic 8-Ball, the answer keeps coming up “Yes.” We have a lot to do this year.  I am launching a new magazine (first issue due out in October 2010, topic to be announced later) and that means double-duty on the road.  We’ll be doing both Airstream stuff, like Alumapalooza, and prep work for the new magazine all over the country.  Plus, we are expecting to attend a wedding on the east coast, and visit family.  So Eleanor and I have been playing “connect the dots” with the US map, and we’ve strung together a route that basically goes like this: AZ-CO-OH-NY-VT-MA-CT-VA-NC-GA-FL-LA-TX-NM-AZ.  I figure we’ll log about 14,000 miles all inclusive, over six months.

(Flags on the map are only the stops we know of at this time.  We’ll make others …)

This may be the last year we can pull off this sort of mega-trip.  Our daughter is reaching an age where she has responsibilities and long-term projects that can only be completed at home base.  I am gradually accumulating projects that may require a little more air travel, too. We’re going to have to face some tough decisions in 2011.  So as always, we need to look at this trip as if it might be our last, and try to make the most of it.

Part of our pre-expedition prep is to get the tow vehicle and Airstream in shape.  The Airstream is already set to go, in fine running condition thanks to work done on our California trip in January.  (I can’t wait to log some real miles on those new Michelin LTX tires and see if they live up to the promise!  Finally, a trip without multiple tire failures?  Wouldn’t that be nice?)

The Mercedes is also set to go, but I’m going to make a few improvements.  One item to be installed will be a clear paint protector on the hood, mirrors, and forward part of the fenders.  Here in Arizona you can tell the mileage of a car just by counting the chips in the hood and grill paint, thanks to our sandy/gravelly environment.  The Mercedes is less than a year old, but already has two chips in the paint on the hood and a few more on the mirrors.  Since I plan to keep it for a long time, I guess I’ll spend the money on the paint shield.  Bah.  We didn’t have to do this on the Armada, because its hood was much higher off the ground. I’ve noticed that the lower the hood on a car, the more quickly it gets dinged.

Another upgrade will be to install Ingo’s camera.  Last January when we were camping in Anza Borrego Desert State Park, a fellow named Ingo Werk happened to be camping nearby.  Ingo and I “knew” each other only via the Internet (a couple of years ago he contributed a small article to Airstream Life magazine), so it was nice to finally meet in person.  He’s an Airstream owner of course, but it turns out that he also has a company that makes automotive upgrades — and his latest product is “INGO VISION,” a very cool backup camera system with “night vision” and two cameras.  One camera goes on your tow vehicle, and the other goes on your Airstream.

I saw this in operation on Ingo’s rig and was very impressed.  There’s a 7-inch LCD screen that mounts in your truck and operates the cameras.  At the push of a button you can see the view from either camera.  The system is wired rather than wireless (so you can get a reliable and extremely clear view in color).  With his “premium cam” Ingo supplies wiring and connectors so you can hook up the Airstream camera from the truck using a quick-disconnect plug.  When you are towing, you can constantly monitor the traffic behind your Airstream on the LCD screen.  When you’re not towing, the backup cam on the truck still works, which is handy for hitching up.

There was only one problem for us.  The interior space of the GL320 is pretty limited, and I could not find a place to mount the 7″ screen where it would not crowd us.  In a typical truck or larger SUV there would be no problem, but we are already struggling with a GPS and tire pressure monitor in a fairly tight cockpit.  Fortunately, I discovered the wizards at Mid-City Engineering, who make OEM-quality upgrade modules for various cars.  They have a little magic interface box that will make the Ingo Vision camera image appear right on the built-in nav screen in the car.  Very cool.

So I’ve gotten that box and arranged for the local car electronics place to install it tomorrow, along with the plug on the back of the Merc for the Airstream’s camera.  I’ll still need to mount the Ingo Vision camera on the back of the Airstream, and string the camera wire from front to back of the Airstream, but that should be a reasonable DIY job.  Once it is all running, I’ll be able to watch the view behind the Airstream while towing, which should be a huge help to my overall situation awareness.  (Normally I’m all about looking forward and not backward, but in this case I’ll make an exception.)  I’ll post pictures of the setup in a separate blog post, later.

Finishing up house projects is the other major task before we go.  We have begun to take our house a little more seriously, so we are very slowly fixing the things that we have ignored over the past three years.  None of the projects are huge, but it’s important to tie up all the loose ends before we take off. Mostly that means planting a few trees and getting them established, fixing some drainage issues, finalizing some painting projects, zapping the weeds, and other such homebody tasks.

Doing these things helps motivate me to leave.  I don’t like doing house maintenance.  Once we are on the road, we can forget we have a house and just live in the moment. It’s always briefly disorienting, then freeing, and finally comforting to know that don’t need to a house and all the stuff that goes with it.  When we are in the house, that perspective is hard to maintain.

We’ve got one more camping trip planned locally before we take off.  Sometime in the next two weeks we’ll go to southeastern Arizona to explore the wonderful Chiricahua National Monument and some great national forest campsites nearby. This will be a Caravel trip, since the big Safari won’t fit in those campsites.  The mountains run about 5,000-7,000 feet, which is why we’ve waited as late as possible in the season to visit them.  Even in mid-April we’ll probably have freezing nights.  But this area has been on our “to do” list for three years and if we don’t go in April we won’t be able to go again until sometime in 2011.   There won’t be nightly blog reports since I don’t expect any cellular service, but I’ll post a full report upon our return.

Towing a big trailer intimidates a lot of people when they try it for the first time.  It should, because you can very quickly get into trouble when towing. It requires drivers to learn a new set of skills, and apply good driving practices at all times.  I think it is particularly intimidating when you’ve just signed a loan agreement obligating you to 10 years of monthly payments, and you realize that a considerable portion of your net worth is now rolling along with you, presenting a large and shiny target for every nutcase driver on the road.  A new truck/Airstream combination can easily come in at $80-100k.  Atop that, there’s the knowledge that you, your family, and your dog are all going to be involved in any accident you get into.

So suddenly those “defensive driving” tips you have taken not-so-seriously rise to an unprecedented level of importance.  Suddenly you’re the one cursing that guy who cut in between you and the car in front of you, using up all the distance and reducing your time to react.  Now you’re paying attention to the rollover warning sign on the Interstate exit ramp, and the 25-MPH speed limit on the big cloverleaf intersection.  You realize, “Hey, they mean me” when you are towing two or three tons of expensive housing behind you.

In late 2000, Eleanor had a rollover accident with baby Emma in the car, and ever since I’ve been interested in getting both of us some advanced driver training.  We know how to drive, but do we really have the instincts to react properly when it all suddenly goes very wrong at 60 MPH?  I’d like us both to have some more confidence about our abilities in adverse situations, and the trained reactions to avoid a crash.

Now, after years of Airstream ownership and years of full-time travel, I am pretty sure I know how to handle my Airstream. The number one rule is simple: SLOW DOWN.  There are many other practical rules as well, involving getting in and out of tight spots, evaluating situations before getting trapped in them, backing up, passing, rough roads, etc.  I’ve got all those pretty well figured out by now, mostly as a result of painful experience.

The thing that concerns me about towing is not the trailer, but the tow vehicle.  Most tow vehicles have a high center of gravity and are more prone to rollover than the average car.  Adding an Airstream actually tends to help with this, by putting weight down low and stabilizing the vehicle — if properly hitched.  But adding people, fuel, and cargo usually raises the center of gravity in an SUV, and most drivers aren’t aware of this until they notice adverse handling.

Moreover, pickup trucks and SUVs are generally lousy at high-speed maneuvers.  They aren’t designed for that.  You’ve got a narrow maneuverability envelope to work in at highway speeds.  Exceed the envelope, and the tow vehicle will go out of control, often without much advance warning. That’s further reason to understand the limits of your vehicle, and to train yourself how to react properly.

Last weekend a local car club was holding a “Defensive Driving” course up in Phoenix, and we signed up.  The instructors recommended showing up in the vehicle you drive the most, so we brought our Airstream’s tow vehicle, the Mercedes GL320.  At 6,000+  pounds, it was by far the largest and heaviest car on the track. Most people were in small sedans or sportscars.

The course included about half an hour of “chalk talk” followed by individual instruction on a course set out in the parking lot of a former Wal-Mart.  We took turns driving through the course with an instructor in the right seat.  The tasks included an emergency lane-change maneuver, a slalom, an emergency brake followed by immediate lane change, and a panic stop strong enough to engage the anti-lock brakes.

I thought all of this would be routine, but I was surprised.  Each task had an unexpected element to it.  In the emergency lane change, I discovered how easy it is to go the wrong way when you’ve got to make a snap decision.  In the slalom, I was frankly amazed at the handling of the GL320 — it went through much faster than I had expected.

The panic stop was a particular challenge for me.  I thought I was pressing pretty hard on the brakes, but I had to try three times before getting the ABS to kick in.  Once I did, the GL320 came a stop really fast.  Turns out that I’ve been holding back on the brakes, probably as a result of learning to drive up in Vermont without ABS, in the snow, where you’ve got to keep a light foot on the brake to avoid skidding.  Old habits die hard, but that one needs to go.  The ABS computer can do a better job of modulating the brake pressure than I can.

After lunch, the course was re-set as an autocross.   Racing your “daily driver” through the course is the icing on the cake at these events.  We walked the course twice, then Eleanor and I each took a couple of tries at it.  On our second try, we were timed.  You can see me driving the autocross course at our Airstream Life photo/video community.  My time was 49 seconds, Eleanor’s was 51.  Not bad actually, considering the vehicle we were in.  (Our past tow vehicle, a much larger and taller Nissan Armada, probably would have skidded excessively or tipped over if I’d driven it that hard.)  The best time of the day was set by a past national autocross winner, at 38 seconds (in a Mercedes E300), and I think the highest time was 55 seconds.

Sure enough, leaving the event I had a sense of much greater confidence in the vehicle, knowing much more accurately how far I could push it in a turning or braking maneuver.  We’re far from professional drivers at this point, but the day was well spent and I hope we’ll advance our skills later in another similar event.

I woke up at 4 a.m.  Without looking at a clock I knew it was far too early to be getting up for the big drive today.  The Great Horned Owl was still shrieking in the back yard, warning off his potential rivals in between soft hoots.  His warning call is like the screech of a frightened small child, and it always wakes us up.  But he never does it in the morning, so I knew I had to get back to sleep if I was to be ready for ten hours of driving.  I rolled over and tried not to think about what lay ahead.

The strange thing is that we go on roadtrips all the time, and I don’t have this sort of nervous anticipation normally.  Something felt different about this one, but why should I be surprised?  Traveling without E&E, hotels instead of Airstream, and a rigid 600-mile per day schedule.  Everything was different.

Well, I did get a few hours more sleep, and was finally rolling away at 7:50 a.m.  The trip started off with a bad omen: the GPS would not power on.  It worked fine just two days ago.  Why should it suddenly die?  I took it along anyway, thinking that by wiggling some cords or perhaps applying some other form of persuasion I would get it working again along the way. The day’s route was as simple as could be.  Get on I-10, and stay there for 600 miles.  I didn’t think I’d need it for a while.

I did stop at The Thing in Arizona, but the sky was gloomy and my photographer alter ego said to try again on the way back, when I have the Airstream in tow.  I took a few half-hearted snapshots of the exterior and continued on.

Along the road I counted five Airstreams, all headed west.  One of them was a Caravel, just like the one I’m going to pick up, which gave me a pang of wistfulness.  I wished I had it in tow already, and I was heading for Big Bend National Park instead of Louisville.

But for today there was the compensation of just driving the heck out of the car without anything in tow. Mercedes enthusiasts says it is “autobahn ready,” which means theoretically I should be able to go 150 MPH with no trouble.  In reality the car is electronically limited to 130 MPH, and even in Texas that’s a big ticket.  The speed limit was 75 through Arizona and New Mexico, and once I was about 30 miles past El Paso things opened up to a neat 80 MPH, which meant I could at least flirt with what the car could do in those big empty spaces between El Paso and Van Horn.

By the numbers:  622 miles total driving, average speed 73, fuel economy a startling 26.7 miles per gallon!  I hadn’t expected such good fuel economy at 80 MPH, but speed doesn’t seem to affect the fuel economy on this car very much.  After 622 miles the computer said I could go another 59 miles, but when the orange “low fuel” indicator went on I decided to call it quits.  I was in Midland, where I had planned to stop anyway.  It was just a matter of finding the hotel I had reserved.  And then I remembered: no GPS.

The dead Garmin is still a week inside it’s one-year warranty period, so tomorrow I’ll call for a return authorization, and when it comes back we’ll have a GPS for each car.  In the meantime, I need a functioning one to navigate my way around half a dozen cities on this trip.  Fortunately, all along America’s highways one can find handy superstores, so I stopped at the first one I saw and bought a replacement GPS.

And with that, I found my hotel, grabbed some takeout dinner, unloaded my valuables into the room, and settled in to update you with the millionth re-run of “Caddyshack” playing on the TV in the background.  I think the presence of a cheap room, cheap takeout, and a brainless old movie at the end of the day completes the requirements for this to be an official roadtrip. It has been a long day, and tomorrow another long day lies ahead.

For us, Thanksgiving was last weekend.  We’re splitting off into different directions tomorrow, and Eleanor wisely did not want to make a her normal “ginormous” meal and then have nobody around to eat the leftovers, so we did the big feast last Sunday.  Three of us and two guests cut into the delicious goodies Eleanor made, and we barely made a dent.

We’ve been eating leftovers since.  Twice a day, every day, it’s turkey, gravy, roasted vegetables, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry relish, pumpkin soup — probably the same sort of thing that you are salivating over today.  Well, let me tell you, enjoy it while it’s still a novel experience.  Because I’m your future, and I can tell you that in three days, you’ll be begging to be released from leftover jail.

(Image credit: Brad Cornelius)

Emma mutinied this morning.  I was prepared to surrender on Tuesday but after seeing how much was remaining of that 23-lb bird I felt it was my husband-ly duty to persevere, even though my mouth was craving something — anything — different. We managed to wipe out the soup, 90% of the vegetables, the cranberries, 80% of the stuffing, and the gravy, but that darned fowl is still sitting in the refrigerator, taunting us from under a tent of aluminum foil.  When Emma cracked, I lost my willpower as well and we declared the season of Thanksgiving leftovers officially over.

Tonight I want Chinese food with lots of unidentifiable MSG-laden sauce.  Or maybe spaghetti with spicy meatballs and lots of chopped garlic.  Anything that has pungent odors for the palate and alternate textures for the tongue will do.  Just please, no more “white meat or dark meat?” this week.

So without traditional Thanksgiving things to do, we are spending the day packing.  E&E are flying up to Vermont for a visit to the seasonal gloom and wet (just kidding, they’re really going to see family), and that is an adventure that requires much packing, analysis, unpacking and repacking (repeat ad infinitum).  I am leaving for a major roadtrip to Louisville KY and Grand Rapids MI, among other spots.

The roadtrip will be a screamer compared to the way we usually travel.  Being solo, I can roll out of bed, jump in the car, and knock off 800 miles before dinner.  Bathroom stops will be brief & infrequent, lunches can be eaten with one hand at 75 MPH (or during a very short rest area stop), and the route will be 100% high-speed Interstate highway.  My route is easy to remember — I-10, I-20, I-30, and I-40 — but being Interstates, the drive itself should be pretty forgettable.  Thanks to the wide-open spaces of the west, in my entire first day I will pass through only one major metro that could slow me down (El Paso).  The rest of the time the speed limit is 75-80 MPH and there’s not a whole lot to bother stopping for.

Actually, I might detour very slightly in Arizona to drop in on “The Thing.”   I know what The Thing is (but I’m not telling!)  My reason for stopping is to get a few photos for an upcoming article in Airstream Life (Spring 2010) about “America’s Favorite Tourist Traps.”  But other than that, I don’t plan to stop for much until at least Odessa, TX.  That’s 600+ miles from Tucson.   I don’t even expect to stop for fuel, ’cause like the other Mercedes Bluetec diesels, the GL320 can get up to 700 miles out of a tank when there’s no Airstream dragging it down.  That’s a feature I haven’t had a chance to test out yet.  So with a few distractions like these I’ll try to make the trip more interesting for myself.

In case you are wondering, the thing pictured above isn’t The Thing.  But it’s a Thing anyway.  I don’t know what the heck it is, really.  It seems to be the result of Brad working out a nightmare he had.  He’s a brilliant illustrator and that means sometimes odd things come out of his head.  He’s the guy responsible for the Alumapalooza poster design, as well as all the Tin Hut illustrations that have appeared in Airstream Life, and if you come to Alumapalooza next summer you can meet him.

One last thing to do tonight: cut up the remaining turkey and freeze it.  Eleanor says there’s enough left that we can have it for Christmas, and the carcass will become soup.  It seems the ghost of this turkey will be haunting us for some time to come.

Staying a third night at Horsethief campground turned out to be a good move.  Eleanor’s  back was not ready for backpacking, but just a short distance from the campground was a 12.9 mile dirt road (Mineral Road) that led through BLM land to Green River just west of where it enters Canyonlands National Park.  This road is favored by mountain bike touring groups.  They start at the Rt 313 end (8 miles from the Visitor Center of the park) and cycle to the edge of the canyon, then get a ride back.

The sad thing is that they see the least interesting part of this long dusty road. It rolls up and down across a fairly featureless scrub plain with almost no canyon views until the very end.  But just a few feet further, the road becomes an adventure, zig-zagging down into the river canyon to the banks of the Green River.  In the photo above, you can see us starting the trip down.

This road is much easier and more civilized than the Shafer Trail, and easily twice as wide in most places, but there are still a few tight and “interesting” spots to keep you awake.  It might look smooth and easy from the picture, but that’s deceiving — 4WD is a very good idea and don’t expect to go more than about 8 MPH at any point.  Still, it’s a drive almost anyone who is not terrified of heights can make.

At the bottom you have a choice: left to follow the river, eventually to enter Canyonlands and the White Rim 4WD road; or right one mile to the Mineral Bottom boat launch.  We tried left and explored along the river for a while, then turned around after a few miles and went to the boat launch for a picnic. Rafters launch here for multi-day trips.  A few miles from this point, the Green and Colorado Rivers meet in a confluence and then begins some of North America’s greatest whitewater rafting, so I’m told.  The group we saw departing was off for a week, heading all the way to Lake Powell.

Once back, we decided to check out the Gemini Bridges, also near the Horsethief campground.  No 4WD needed for this trip, since it’s just a typical dirt road most of the way.  The Gemini Bridges are a pair of natural sand stone bridges that you can walk over (or beneath if you approach by a different route) — well worth the trip off pavement to explore. The hike from parking lot to the bridges is only a quarter-mile or so.

We left the Canyonlands early this morning, spurred on by the need to get to Cortez CO (150 miles away) before the post office closed.  Before departing Cortez I felt the need to pick up some diesel and ventured into a Shell station that I shouldn’t have.  Normally I check carefully before turning into a station but in this case the sun was right in my eyes and I couldn’t determine the situation clearly until we were committed.   Of course, it was one of those impossible arrangements for trailers, and we got wedged in between some pumps and the building.

What to do?  Well, first, may as well fill up.  So we did that, and evaluated the situation while the pump was running.  There was no chance of proceeding forward, and no room to back up.  We’ve been in tight spots before, and one thing I’ve learned is that you never panic, and always remember that other cars can be moved.   Eleanor got out and started negotiating with a guy parked behind us so that we could carefully back up into his space.  Then another parked car moved and we were able to start see-sawing back and forth to straighten the trailer a little.

To escape, we needed the cars in the middle pump aisle to clear out entirely.  This was tricky because the gas station was very busy, and clueless people in little cars kept zipping in and out.  Meanwhile, the owner of a Porsche Cayenne seemed intent on not merely washing his windshield, but detailing his car right there at the pump.  Once he finally cleared the aisle, Eleanor stood blocking the entry.  I maneuvered the trailer a little more — veeeeery carefully — to both get a better starting position and to intimidate anyone foolish enough to try to slip past me.  A little more negotiation ensued, and soon the next car left. Vroom!  We were outta there.

And of course as we drove through Moab, we passed at least three other stations with wide open spaces for big trailers and diesel fuel for five cents less per gallon…

We decided to skip Dinosaur National Monument this time around and head straight to Canyonlands.  Dino is operating under some restrictions due to the visitor center being closed, and the fact that it is off-season.  We’ll visit that park on another trip.  So our route took us down from Blue Mesa reservoir along Rt 50/285 to Montrose, and then northwest to Grand Junction CO, where we picked up I-70 to Utah.

As I’ve mentioned before, the drive along Rt 50 across Colorado is a fantastic and worthy roadtrip.  I-70 from Denver to Grand Junction is pretty good (for an Interstate highway) as well, but given the choice  I’d pick Rt 50 except in winter.  I can’t say the same for I-70 west of Grand Junction, because as soon as you cross into Utah it becomes a pretty featureless and dull road.  The compensation is that you’re out of the mountains and on the straightaways, and so you can go fast.

I upped the rig to 65 MPH just so I wouldn’t get blown away by cars and trucks going the legal limit of 75 MPH.   The increase in speed dings our fuel economy but we still got an overall 13.5 MPG for the segment, which isn’t bad for towing.  We could have gone the speed limit with no problem, but as a general rule I don’t tow that fast.  The trailer’s tires are rated for only 65 MPH and the fuel cost would have been high.  As another GL320/Airstream owner once told me, “The GL will tow at any speed you care to pay for.”

The entrance we used to Canyonlands National Park is  just north of Moab UT.  The park is divided into four districts, each separately accessible: Islands In The Sky (where we are), Needles, The Maze, and Horseshoe Canyon.  The districts have completely different routes leading in, and this makes it virtually impossible to visit all of the districts in less than a week.  The distance from one entrance to another can be several hours.  We chose Islands In The Sky for its accessibility and features — it should be a good orientation to the park overall.  We’ll have to visit the other districts in future trips.

You have to come prepared to visit this place.  Visually, it is like a mashup of Bryce Canyon and Grand Canyon.  The views are stunning.  But there is no lodging, no water, no fuel, and no services (restaurant, repair, or otherwise).  The only campground in this district is called Willow Flat and it has just 12 sites.  It fills every day this time of year.  It has no dump station or water either.   For just about anything, you have to drive 25-30 miles to Moab along a circuitous (paved) road, which means a minimum 45 minute trip one-way.

We arrived at 3 p.m., far too late to get a campsite in either Willow Flat or the nearby Dead Horse State Park (just outside the park boundary).  We ended up at a Bureau of Land Management campground called Horsethief, about 5 miles from the park.  No water, no dump, no hookups, but nice scenery and well-spaced dirt sites in the boonies ($12 per night).  Amazingly, my cell phone and Internet work just fine both here and at the Canyonlands visitor center, so I’m able to keep up on work and post the blog. That means we’ll stay at least two nights and perhaps three.

Our usual program when arriving at a national park is to drop the trailer and immediately hit the visitor center for orientation.  The rangers are always happy to meet someone who is going to stay a few days (rather than the usual, “We’ve got two hours — where are the good views?”) and they will provide insider tips on where to go.
With only a couple of hours of daylight left (after Emma finished browsing the visitor center for clues for her Junior Ranger program), we decided to drive down into the canyon on a four-wheel drive road called Shafer Trail.  Now, you might be thinking, “Hey, that’s a Mercedes — it doesn’t go off-road,” and I’ll admit I was thinking the same thing.  But Mercedes says that this SUV has parentage from their famed off-road beast the G-wagon.  The GL comes standard with all-wheel drive and an air suspension that can be lifted two inches at the touch of a button. (In the photo at right, you can see the suspension in the “raised” mode.)  I wouldn’t take it on major 4WD roads that require very high clearance because our hitch reinforcement would probably scrape, but the Shafer Trail looked like a good bet — and if it wasn’t, I was prepared to turn around or back up, and go home.

Well.  I was pretty busy trying to observe the incredible, occasionally terrifying, view while driving the car around steep hairpin turns over loose rocks … so I did not get any photos of us coming down the road.  However, you can get a good idea of what it is like to drive the Shafer Trail from videos taken by other visitors. The photo at left (click to enlarge) shows part of the descent we did.  The car did just fine, had no clearance problems, and handled as well or better than the Nissan Armada we used to do these sorts of things with.  So I’m amazed that Mercedes managed to engineer a car that can go 150 MPH all day on the Autobahn in comfort, tow a heavy Airstream with good fuel economy, and still be a capable rough-road vehicle too.

The trip down Shafer Trail takes a while.  We put the car in “Downhill Speed Regulation” mode, set the limit to 6 MPH, and it crept down the hairpins while I tried to avoid sharp rocks and major potholes. In about 40 minutes we were down to the Gooseneck hiking trail, parked the car, and hiked 0.3 miles to a stupendous overlook of the mighty Colorado River grinding its way through the sandstone canyon.

Yes, it was worth the trip.  I would have liked to have gone farther, but the setting sun dictated that we head back up.  I could not imagine driving the Shafer Trail in the dark.

At Gooseneck, the road we were on was part of the White Rim Trail, which is a backcountry 4WD adventure of over 100 miles.  It takes at least two days to traverse completely.  I am sure there are parts of that road I wouldn’t have taken our car on, but the rangers indicated that if we had time we could have gone at least to Musselman Arch.

Today we are going hiking. I have the Winter 2009 magazine 95% wrapped up, and my major task in the next few days is to review layouts and resolve last-minute problems before we go to press.  This is work that can be done at any hour of the day, which means we can play in the sunshine and I can work in the early morning and at night. It makes for a long and peculiar day, but it works for me.  I see the kid is waking up now, and that means it is time for me to wrap up the morning’s work and start preparing for a day in Canyonlands.

We spent last night parked near a Mercedes dealer, Feldmann Imports, in Bloomington.  One parking lot is pretty much like another, but we were in this particular one because we were the guests of honor at an informal gathering of Mercedes owners from the Twin Cities area.  There is a Mercedes Club of America (MBCA) with local units all over the country, and the leadership of this particular unit got wind that we would be in the area.  So they invited us to join their members to talk about towing with a Mercedes — a rarely discussed subject indeed.

At this point we have 10,000 miles on the GL320 and it was time for the first scheduled maintenance interval, during which the dealer basically does an oil change with a lot of inspections, and refills the AdBlue (urea) tank which for the Bluetec emission system.  This made it convenient to stop at Feldmann’s in the morning, unhitch the trailer in the overflow parking lot, and get serviced while working comfortably in the Airstream.

For those interested, the AdBlue tank required 4.5 gallons of fluid, which is about half the capacity of the tank.  This is despite about 7,000 miles of towing and 3,000 miles of general purpose travel.  So we have proven that even with a high percentage of towing, I don’t need to be carrying spare bottles of urea around between service intervals.  We’ll have another service at 20,000 miles and the AdBlue tank will be flushed and refilled at that time.

In the afternoon we had a couple of hours to zip over to the famous Mall of America (just a few miles down the road), just to say we’d done it.  If you like malls, this is heaven, and if you hate malls, well … it’s hell on earth.  Like most things, it is what you make of it.  One nice perk is that you can buy a Caribou Coffee and then walk around the mall getting free refills at any of the other Caribou Coffee outlets, which are everywhere.  That, of course, was all Eleanor needed to know for her bliss.

We didn’t have time for shopping and we didn’t really need anything, even from the “Barbie Store”, but we walked all three circular levels of the mall just for the exercise.  Then we ruined any possible benefit of that exercise by pigging out at Dave’s Famous Barbecue.  Overall, I think that’s a net win.

The MBCA meeting was held in the parking lot beside the Airstream. Imagine about a dozen people milling around in a parking lot with a few distance sodium lamps providing dim light, all excitedly talking about Airstreams, travel, and Mercedes cars. Beside us the representative from Feldmann’s set up a table with desserts and drinks, and of course each of the members showed up in their Mercedes.  This group is a lot like the Airstream’s WBCCI group in age and obsessiveness, and like Airstreamers they own everything from vintage to new (and often several of both). Airstreamers aren’t all millionaires, despite what people think, and the same is true of Mercedes owners.  The ones we have met have turned out to be very nice and very dedicated to their cars, even the old clunkers.

Speaking of clunkers, the other noticeable element in the parking lot was several rows of older SUVs, pickup trucks, and minivans.  These are the remnants of the “cash for clunkers” program, and all are destined to be scrapped under the Federal guidelines of the program.  They were a pretty rough-looking bunch, especially when contrasted with the new Mercedes and Nissan cars being unloaded nearby.

We’re on the way out of town now, heading for a quieter spot for a few days, so we can catch up on work, laundry, groceries, and homeschooling. It looks like the SPAM Museum will not be on our route after all, due to limited camping opportunities in the area. We’re moving west again ….

OK, since things have settled down and we’re in relaxation mode, I can give the vehicle report for the gearheads.  As you’ll recall, we switched from a Nissan Armada to a Mercedes GL320 a couple of months ago.  This trip from Arizona to Vermont was the first big trip with the combination.

The trip was an ideal test for the new vehicle, since it encompassed virtually every condition we expect to tow in routinely:  mountains, windy plains, cities, curvy back roads, and deadly boring Interstate.  It also included a mix of towing and non-towing use.  That’s important because we chose the GL320 partially for its non-towing driveability.  In other words, I wanted all the performance we’d get from a bigger vehicle, but didn’t want to be saddled with an unwieldy truck when not towing.  We use our tow vehicle as our primary transportation for months, when we are on extended trips.

Anyone reading this for advice should first read my initial report on the GL320, since I’m not going to repeat all the things I said there.  There are significant caveats for anyone who might be considering this particular vehicle, or the essentially similar (but smaller) ML320.  I am NOT writing this to convince anyone that they should buy this (or any) vehicle.  I’m only documenting my experience.  The right vehicle for you may be completely different.

Our trip was about 4,000 miles, mostly highway.  The GL320 turned in about 12.5 MPG in the first 2,000 miles while towing, then the fuel economy improved markedly, between 14.0 to 15.2 while towing at 60 MPH.  Going 65 MPH costs us about 1 MPG.  Non-towing fuel economy has been superb for a vehicle of this size: 22 MPG in mixed driving, and 25-27 MPG on the highway at virtually any speed up to 75 MPH.

At this point the odometer shows 5,400 miles total.  We have not had to add oil or AdBlue to date, despite the fact that most of our mileage has been towing and the engine is probably still breaking in.  The AdBlue tank is scheduled to be refilled by the dealer at the 10,000 mile scheduled service interval, and I am interested to see if it gets low before then.  AdBlue consumption is related to fuel consumption and of course we use more fuel when towing.  The Bluetec system is a relatively new technology and there are reasonable questions about how whether the standard AdBlue tank is large enough to accommodate lots of towing.  Mercedes says it is.

Performance has been spectacular.  You would never know that this is a 3.0 liter V-6.  We have more pulling power (torque) than even the big 5.6 liter V-8 in our Armada. Up hills, it blows the Armada away, and despite having 7 gears in the transmission, it needs to shift less on hills because of the impressive torque.  Most of the time we are towing in 7th, with occasional shifts down to 6th and rarely 5th on moderate hills.  That’s with the full 7500# load that the car is rated for.  I am sure the engine is capable of much more.  We have yet to find the top speed (and probably never will), but in west Texas on I-10 where the speed limit is 85 MPH, it felt capable of every bit of that.  I personally never tow over 65 MPH for sustained periods, and usually keep the cruise control set around 60-62 MPH for best economy.

I am very interested to see the high-altitude performance, since that’s where we always struggled with the Armada. The normally aspirated gas engine lost a lot of power at altitude (like in Colorado and Utah), where the turbodiesel should do much better. But the performance of the turbodiesel is apparent even on flat plains because a headwind on the Interstate can be just as tough to deal with as an 8% grade in the mountains.

The brakes are also impressive.  The GL320 has 14 inch vented discs front and rear, again bigger than the Armada’s, and there’s no doubt in my mind that the brakes are up to the task of stopping both truck and trailer if they have to (in the event of trailer brake failure).

I know a lot of people get freaked out by the word “unibody,” but it’s not true that unibodies are always weaker or less capable of towing compared to traditional body-on-frame trucks.  In any frame, there are weak designs and there are strong ones.  The GL320 has an extremely strong unibody structure with lots of high-strength steel.  During the trip we never heard so much as a creak from the body, nor any indication of unusual flexing.  Tire wear has been normal thus far.  Every engineer I talk to says the same thing, “Unibodies are often stronger than ladder frames.”  I’m very comfortable with the vehicle structure but of course the proof will be a few years down the road.

My major beef with the car has been the completely hopeless hitch receiver that Mercedes put on it.  We reinforced ours in Tucson, which probably would have been enough, but then for added long-term durability I let Can-Am RV do their preferred reinforcement on it as well.  It is now very strong and distributes the stress of the hitch weight over much more area.

The Can-Am RV crew also changed the Hensley shank from a 2″ drop to a straight shank.  For our combination the 2″ drop bar was better for keeping the trailer level, but the straight one was recommended for slightly more weight distribution to the front axle.  I don’t if it was the new shank or the stiffer receiver, but when we weighed after the modifications, we had an additional 200 lbs on the front axle (and the same amount less on the rear axle).  This improved the ride slightly, and handling remained about the same (which is to say, very good).

The only problem with going to the straight shank is that the back of the trailer now rides about 1″ lower. We already had problems with the back occasionally scraping the road when we entered gas stations, and this makes it slightly worse.  I may switch back to the 2″ drop this fall if my experience is not good.

Handling-wise, there is still the usual SUV “squishiness” in the tires.  I felt this in the Armada as well.  The recommendation I’ve gotten is to change to a tire that more closely matches the width of the rim.  The rims are 8″ wide and the tires (275mm wide, or about 10.8 inches) overhang them by quite a bit.  I may try this when the stock tires are worn out.

I’m also still unimpressed by the lack of a spare tire.  It may be possible to shoe-horn a spare into the usual trunk space, but in any case I’m carrying a tire plug kit and a CO2 tire inflator.  I love this combination — it will fix 90% of flats and it all fits in hardly any space at all.  If you are interested in buying a CO2 inflator from Power Tank, type “AirstreamLife.com promotion” in the Comments box on their order form and you’ll get a free tire plug kit worth $40 with your purchase.   I’m also doing a review of their product, which will appear in the Fall 2009 Airstream Life Online Edition.

It should be apparent by now that I like the turbodiesel.  As I’ve said, the engine is most of the reason I bought this vehicle. It is astoundingly quiet, well-mannered, and the exhaust is so clean you can only tell it’s there by the warm steamy air.  Can’t smell it, can’t see it.  None of the diesel traits of the bad old days are present.  Most people can’t tell it isn’t a gas engine, until they stomp on the accelerator and it leaps forward with a different (but quiet) sort of engine rumble.

I wish there were more options to get these engines.  In Europe they’re everywhere, but in the US/Canada there are few available. As a result, today’s options for V-6 diesels mostly come from the European manufacturers: Land Rover, Mercedes, Volkswagen, Porsche, Audi, BMW.   (If it bothers you to buy a “foreign car,” keep in mind that the “made in America” thing is a red herring at least in the case of the GL320 because the Mercedes GL-class is built in Alabama. I still get grief about this.  But I know people still believe that a Dodge now owned by Fiat, or a Suburban built in Mexico, is more patriotic than a Mercedes made in Alabama, so that particular issue will probably dog me for years.)  In any case, there should be more of these diesels from the big truck manufacturers, because they offer an excellent compromise between power and economy.  Why should the only option for American diesel truck buyers be a 6.7 liter Cummins engine that makes enough noise to wake the dead, and only on the 2500-series trucks?

The best thing about the GL320 is driving it while it’s not towing.  I’ve never been a luxury car buyer before.  I’m still not, really.  If we had a shorter Airstream, I probably would have bought the VW Touareg 2 (now with 3.0 liter V-6 turbodiesel) instead. But since we needed the extra space and the third row seating, I can admit that the GL320 is a pleasure to drive when not towing.  It is no sports car but just constantly reminds you that it is competent and safe.  It is much nicer to drive and park than the Armada.  Eleanor even likes to drive it, and she always hated driving the Armada.  The safety features are extensive, so much that I can’t even get into them all here, but suffice to say it is in every way a safer vehicle for us to be driving.  Finally, I love the fact that I’m getting nearly 600 miles from a $60 tank of fuel, versus 345 miles in the Armada, while putting out much less exhaust emissions.

The worst thing about driving it is that it is so quiet and competent, highway drives are rather boring.  I have discovered that I tend to get drowsy, which is definitely not a good thing with three and a half tons of RV behind you.  I never had a tendency to fall asleep with the Armada.  The solution has been to play music from the iPod.  I guess in the big scheme of things, that’s not such a bad solution.

I will tell you one last thing.  A big part of my reasoning for buying this non-traditional tow vehicle is that I believe tow vehicles are headed in this technological direction.  Rising CAFE (fuel economy) standards and rising emissions requirements will put huge pressure on traditional tow vehicle designs. Simply making trucks lighter won’t address the challenge — manufacturers have to make their vehicles smarter.  I don’t think diesel is the whole solution either, but I do believe that a combination of technological advances (in body design, electronics, engines, transmissions, emissions controls, etc.) will lead us to the next generation of tow vehicles.  I bought this vehicle partly because I think it represents the first wave of where we are headed as an industry (I’m speaking of the RV industry), and I wanted to get some experience with it to understand the future.   If you wish to do the same, just remember that the leading edge is always sharp, so you need to be smart about your choices and do your research.

The long days on the road are coming to a close, thankfully.  Our drive from Columbia MO to Independence IA (300 miles) ended with a boom, literally.  Less than 30 minutes after we arrived at the small city-run RV park here, a wave of intense thunderstorms passed through and terrorized us for a couple of hours.  The clouds above were forming counter-clockwise swirls — a very bad sign — and the winds were strong enough to rock the trailer even with the stabilizers down.  As always, when caught in bad weather, we began looking for an emergency exit, which in this case would have been a nearby brick shower house.

Fortunately, the storms passed over us without causing any damage, and eventually left us with a gorgeous red and blue sunset, and fewer dead bugs plastered to the exterior skin of the Airstream.

I am still talking to the manufacturer about the hitch problem we encountered recently, but since I’m getting “outed” left and right by my friends, I will go ahead and start acknowledging the new tow vehicle.  It’s a 2009 Mercedes Benz GL320 with “Bluetec” engine.  We chose this because it is a diesel 7-passenger SUV which meets our needs.  We expect to use it for many years of towing.  Sadly, with American and Japanese manufacturers pulling back on their promised diesel vehicles, the only diesel SUVs available new are coming out of Europe.  VW, BMW, Audi, and MB all offer them today, while Nissan, Toyota, Chrysler, GM, and Honda have all announced light diesel programs and then canceled them.

I know this will kick off a firestorm of questions and controversy, because I’ve chosen a non-traditional tow vehicle.  I’ll try to answer the FAQs here:

Fuel consumption:  So far, with the engine still breaking in, we are getting 14.0 MPG towing at 60 MPH, flat to moderately rolling terrain, no wind.  Going to 65 MPH costs us 1 MPG. I am told that the economy will improve as the engine breaks in.  Still, that’s a solid 30% increase over the Armada.

Loading:  Yes, we are under the vehicle weight ratings.  That includes Gross Vehicle Weight Rating (GVWR), and Gross Axle Weight Ratings (GAWR).  The factory hitch is rated to 7500 lbs and 600 lbs of tongue, but we’ve substantially reinforced it, as readers of this blog know.  I regard the factory hitch as inadequate for even the rated 600 lbs of tongue weight, so beware.

Performance: The ride and handling are excellent, once hitched up properly.  The interior is as quiet as you’d expect.  Power is excellent, thanks to the diesel engine that puts out 398 ft-lbs of torque.  It’s unbelievably quiet when running, to the point that many people don’t know it is a diesel.  The 7-speed automatic keeps the engine in the ideal power band all the time.  I think that once other manufacturers get their acts together, engine/transmission combinations like this will be the future of recreational towing.

What I like compared to the Armada:  Better fuel economy (22/28 MPG not towing), much nicer to drive especially when not towing, better towing handling at highway speed, high ground clearance when off-roading, extensive safety and security features, cheaper insurance, less propensity to roll over, much more powerful air conditioning, slightly more torque, diesel reliability and durability, 7-speed transmission, less frequent oil changes, longer cruising range, full-time AWD.

What I don’t like compared to the Armada:  Expensive to buy, slightly more expensive to maintain, no spare tire, less interior space, slightly less carrying capacity, too much tricky electronics, smaller sideview mirrors, limited third-row access, no aftermarket hitches, no low range, fewer service centers, expensive tires.

Recommendation?:  Most people travel with a ton of “stuff.”  Most people never weigh their rig, either.  For best value, largest cargo area, and less concern about overloading, go with a pickup truck.  Seriously.  For most people, that’s the right choice.  Many of the SUVs require you to think carefully about what you carry, to avoid overloading the rear axle.

Also, Mercedes is not particularly oriented to towing.  The 2009 GL’s have a driver’s side knee airbag, which makes placement of the brake controller more challenging.  The 2009 models also have a urea tank (part of the “clean diesel” exhaust system) where the spare normally goes, so there’s no spare tire.  (It uses run-flat tires, and I carry a tire plug kit, but there is no substitute for a spare.  This is the major flaw of the design.)

The hitch design is inadequate, as I’ve already mentioned. There are no aftermarket hitches that fit this car, so you must buy the factory hitch — and even when you do get that option, you have to buy some wiring for the brake controller and there’s an additional charge to reprogram one of the computers so that the car will send signals to the brake controller.  For me the icing on the cake was that the computer is so “smart” it won’t recognize a trailer with LED lights, so you have to go through some hoops to fix that issue as well.

So with all those issues and limitations, you might wonder why I bothered with it.  Why not buy a 2009 Dodge RAM 2500 4×4 with Cummins diesel with Megacab, for $56k?  Well, some people like driving trucks, and some people don’t.   As part of this exercise I have talked to quite a number of people who are currently towing with Mercedes (mostly the less expensive and smaller ML-class), and they all love them.  I’ve also talked to many people who tow with big pickups and love them.  To each their own, I say.  Be safe, and have fun.

I’ll report further on the performance of the Mercedes as we accumulate miles.  The real proof of its appropriateness for the task will come only after many miles and (at least) several years of towing.

Today we are going to check out a Frank Lloyd Wright house here in Independence, and then scoot up to Madison.  There will be no escape from the heat, however.   The “Airstream effect” has already begun.  Whenever hundreds of Airstreams gather for the International Rally, the local area always experiences record high temperatures.  The poor people of Madison WI have no idea what is coming, I fear.  If we don’t hit 100 degrees during the rally week, it will be the first time in many years.