I’m always a little melancholy at the end of a rally. We are, after all, travelers, not settlers. Our destination is the journey. Still, seeing the occupants of a “silver city” evacuate is sobering.

This part of Silver City was just the little neighborhood parked in front of Exhibition Hall. Around 900 Airstream trailers made up the city in total.

Every time we go on a road trip, or attend a rally I tell myself not to do so much. It’s not possible to see everything, or do everything, and it’s frustrating to try. I much as I realize this, I always fail. I never give myself the opportunity to do absolutely nothing.

Every moment is filled with activity and priorities. Patrice makes her list of to do’s, like that’s actually going to help, but then I always end up running around like a chicken with its head cut off. It’s not a pretty sight.

Yet, we both managed to have a good time and I have quite a few highlights to remember and backup onto the computer in case I forget.

In the next few posts I’ll mention some of them, but I’ll start with a big thanks to Dave Schumann, General Manager Customer Relations of Airstream in Jackson Center. He made Wally Byam’s gold-anodized trailer available to me to photograph, measure and generally poke, prod, and crawl over and under. I was told that this was the first time in the last two years that it has even been opened. Airstream has kept it parked in a fenced lot south of the main factory. This kind of access was a real privilege. I proposed a floor plan review of it. Unfortunately, the interior was refurbished, not restored, and is not how Wally and Stella had it. Still, it was exciting and a real privilege to have that kind of access.

The gold anodized Airstream in the service bay at Jackson Center.

Simonton Lake Drive-In, when I was a boy, my grandfather treated me to ice cold root beer here. It is little changed and is a genuine blast from the past. The root beer and hamburgers are just the way I remember them.

Mackinac Bridge and Mackinaw Island – the bridge is easily one of the most beautiful and elegant in the world.

Mackinaw Island blew me away with its lilac bushes. Never in my life have I seen bushes of such size and bloom. They were everywhere. I often tell Patrice that lilac is what Heaven must smell like. It is intoxicating. The flowers on the island ranged from white to royal deep purple and each color had its own subtle, but distinctive sweet scent.

The scent of lilac is heavenly.