Every time we trailer to the coast or the Great Lakes, I get to thinking about the similarities between RV’ing and boating. Truly, a boat is a recreational vehicle, and even the lifestyles are quite similar. I just read a blog written by a full-time live aboard couple. They describe their “way of life” on the water and its advantages and disadvantages. The parallels are remarkable. Seamanship is much more demanding though, in my opinion. Taking a wrong turn with your Airstream is no emergency. Getting lost out in the vastness of the ocean is an entirely different matter.

There was a time when I thought I wanted a life at sea, but it only took a couple of summer cruises with the USN as a cadet to convince me that I was a landlubber for life. I never got so seasick that I was at the rail and green at the gills though. Instead of nausea, I had a constant dull headache 24/7.

I still think a life at sea is wonderful, for those who can adapt to it. Patrice and I were in Bar Harbor, Maine about five years ago. We were traveling in our new-to-us 1966 Airstream Overlander. We toured Acadia National Park and enjoyed the area so much that we hope to return someday. Though there was one attraction, we won’t do again.

Our 1966 Overlander parked in beautiful Bar Harbor Campground.

Somehow, Patrice got it in her head that we should go on a whale watching tour. She had been on ferries and riverboats and thought that since she handled those all right she would be okay on the Atlantic. Keep in mind that she is born and bred, fourth generation, on the Colorado high desert plains. “Are you sure?” I asked, but she had made up her mind to see the whales up close.

Our first definitive hint that this was a bad decision was when we learned that the ocean swells were “down” to fourteen feet. The previous three days the action was too great for the tour boats to go out. That’s three days of no income for that business and I think they were getting hungry. The boats were going out despite the marginal conditions.

Our second hint came as we watched passengers from the morning tour disembark. No one was smiling. No one was happy. Someone in our crowd called out, “did you see any whales?”

A particularly disgruntled old man answered, “Yes, we saw five whales and five hundred barf bags.”

That should have been our clue to ask for a refund, but no, Patrice wanted to soldier through. “It can’t be that bad,” she said, “look how calm the water is now.”

The catamaran in Bar Harbor’s calm water.

I reminded her that the harbor is supposed to be calmer and that the sea will change dramatically once the boat clears the breakwater. About then, the crowd we were hemmed into began to board and it was too late to change our minds.

The seed of nausea had already been planted though, and the catamaran tour boat didn’t help. Unlike a boat with a single deep draft hull, catamarans have two hulls fixed together to provide a shallow draft that will also resist capsizing. As a result, they ride the wave crest, unlike a conventional boat that will plow into a wave. In other words, if the waves are at fourteen feet, the Cat will ride the full distance up the peaks and down into the troughs just like a roller coaster.

But unlike an amusement park ride this one lasted for hours, not minutes. Patrice quickly realized that she would need the plastic lined paper bags. She leaned close and told me, as a matter of pride I suppose, that she only hoped she wouldn’t be the first to let loose.

I tried to encourage her by telling her that if she kept her eyes on the horizon it wouldn’t be that bad. She held out right up until the person across from us lost it. Well, she wasn’t the first, but she wasn’t the last either. A chain reaction of sickening gurgles and moans enveloped the boat. Few among the hundred or so passengers were spared.

I was fine until Patrice asked me to get some paper towels from the galley. This meant going below to an area of the boat where I couldn’t watch the horizon. Imagine also standing up in the first roller coaster car and scrambling over the passengers to the last car, and back. I was lucky; the trip only gave me that same spinning headache I’d experienced so many years earlier.

The captain announced that we would see some whales, if only he could find them, but not to worry, he’d stay out until he did. An hour into this, Patrice complained, “Just where are those damn whales?”

Finally, a passenger cried out, “There’s one. There he is at ten o’clock.”

A whale at 10 o’clock!

Patrice let out a sigh, “Finally! Enough already, we’ve seen a whale now let’s head in.”

The captain announced over the PA that another boat reported a pod a couple of miles away and that he’d head that direction. Patrice looked at me in desperation, her face an ashen grey, “go give him a thousand dollars to take us home. I’m serious.”

“I know you are. Aren’t you glad you didn’t buy us tickets to see the puffins as well?”

“I don’t think I can take it anymore,” she cried. “Give me another bag… quick!”

“They’re out,” I said, alarmed, “you’ll have to use the old one.” It was self-preservation; I turned away and watched the horizon. An hour later, the boat began the return trip. I fell asleep. I was exhausted from the constant movement.

When we disembarked, someone from the herd of fresh passengers waiting on the dock cried out, “did you see any whales?”
“Yes,” a fellow traveler answered, “we saw five of them and five hundred barf bags.”

As for me, I woke from my nap refreshed, with a clear head, and an empty stomach. I was surprisingly hungry, and to add insult to Patrice’s injury, I took her to the nearest restaurant where I devoured a Maine lobster in front of her. She had tea.

“Hon, you sure you don’t want some?”

After reading some of the other blogs, about wasps (I hate them!), mice, and other invaders, I now consider myself blessed. One of the great things about condominium living is that most of the duties of being a property owner are taken care of. It is one reason we thought it would work for us. A condo or townhome is a lock and leave lifestyle.

If only we could leave! I’d had thoughts of traveling, at least to some places around Colorado, but winter keeps invading our fall. It has absolutely killed what should have been a glorious autumn. Early freeze and snow at the beginning of the month turned green leaves straight to brown. It has depressed me to no end. Autumn is my favorite season, and old man winter stole it. Where did that good global warming go?

October along the Front Range in Colorado is usually a quiet month with mild sunny days and clear cool nights. Snow can come even in late September, but most often, we count on our first good snow and freezing temperature closer to Halloween. This October, we’ve fluctuated wildly between warm days and nights to sub-freezing temperatures and heavy wet snow. Local weathermen have taken to calling it the “warm before the storm.” For instance, Tuesday afternoon I played golf, but that night and since then we’ve been inundated with snow. In fact, there is a blizzard outside my window as I write this. I’d take a photo and post it, but what would be the point? If you need to know what it looks like outside my window, just take a piece of typing paper and hold it up close to your face. There it is!

So, the weather this month has me stymied. I’d hoped to get more work done on my Excella. I did fiberglass the floor under the bathroom sink where there was some minor water damage. I installed the stainless steel rock guards I purchased from Airstream back in June. I fixed a roof leak caused by cracks in our front Fantastic Vent. Whoever installed it didn’t use the foam gasket that comes with the kit. Instead, the outer flange was screwed directly to the aluminum skin and now there are cracks radiating out from the screws. Ultimately, I’ll have to replace it, but for now, my fix was to replace the old caulk and cover the flange and screws with adhesive backed aluminum tape. It’s a temporary fix, but will likely last for a couple of years.

I still have a long list of things to do though. I bought a five-gallon bucket of Napier RemovAll 220 from Vintage Trailer Supply. It is reportedly good for removing the clear coat on Airstreams, but I need a steady supply of 60+ degree-days to use it. If you are planning to do the same with your Airstream, get some now. The Napier factory has closed and RevovAll is no longer being made.

The bottom of the storage box behind the propane tanks has nearly rusted out and that will be a future project. Then there are the wheel wells, axles, and brakes. That will be a big project. The list goes on and on, but I’m closing the gap between projects and just doing maintenance – I think.

As involved as all this sounds, it isn’t unusual in the first three years of vintage ownership, and the Excella is very livable in its current condition. In fact, it has grown on me to the point where I like it as much as I do my Globe Trotter, but work on it and travel with it is now on hold. The good thing about being cooped up is that it gives me the opportunity to get some reading and writing done. I just checked out three books from the library written by Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jr. He and Wally Byam traveled together through Europe in Airstreams twice, the first time right after WWII ended and again in the Fifties. Cornelius lived a very interesting life and was a world trailer traveler even before Wally was. I hope to have more on that in a future article. Until then, stay warm!

Driving south on I-25 between Loveland and Denver I nearly lost control of my rig. We were returning from a rally. The weather was perfect. The road was straight and dry. Traffic was heavy as it always is in that area. I was towing at my normal highway speed of sixty mph when the road surface in the number two lane (farthest to the right) pitched up and down in a series lasting about a quarter mile. This wave like surface created an unsettling oscillation and sway, so much so that I was only able to regain control by using the trailer brake controller to activate the trailer brakes. I’d already taken my foot off the gas pedal and so we were slowing, but the trailer was pushing our Suburban around. By activating only the trailer brakes, we were able to slow down and stop sway.

Some of you may think that if I had a Hensley hitch, instead of the Reese dual cam, that this wouldn’t have been a problem, but you’d be wrong. Later that day, Rich Luhr and his family drove the same route and encountered the same problem. Rich even anticipated it because he noticed the undulating surface and slowed down somewhat prior to driving into it. His rig has the latest and best equipment – Hensley hitch, Kodiak disk brakes and of course his tow vehicle is a Mercedes – can’t get much better than that. My rig is all circa 1985 technology.

When we later compared notes, we came to the same conclusion. The only solution to that bad patch of road is to drive through it more slowly, perhaps at forty mph (the speed limit there is seventy-five). What we believe happened was that our trailers began seesawing and when the rear of the trailers went down the fronts went up, taking the rear of our tow vehicles with it. This effectively un-weighted the rear axles of our tow vehicles, causing the trailer to push instead of be pulled. Even with his Mercedes and its all wheel drive, the front wheels alone can’t control a thirty-foot trailer (mine is thirty-two feet, but a little lighter).

Our ‘86 Excella and ‘85 Suburban are in the foreground. Rich’s Tour of America bunk house is in the background.

The leaves are turning for autumn and nicely frame Rich’s Airstream.

Fortunately, we both arrived at Cherry Creek State Park no worse for wear. The park is still Five Star, even though the staff there was on furlough the day we arrived (the Governor recently mandated four furlough days for all State employees due to a budget crisis). Both Rich and I have commented in past postings about this park, but it deserves repeating. The RV sites all have level concrete pads, full hookups, and graveled picnic table and fire pit areas. The overall scenic appeal I’d rate at least an eight and in the fall perhaps a nine.

All the RV sites, whether they are back-in, such as this one, or pull through are excellent.

There is a lake for swimming, boating and fishing. The bike paths are simply the best in the world and can take you into downtown Denver and Aurora, or out into the country if you’re so inclined. There are excellent nature trails and even a remote controlled model airplane airport, complete with paved runways and spectator stands. Outside the park is all the shopping you could hope for, in any direction. Access into and out of the park is straightforward because it borders I-225. Rates continue to go up though. That is the only downside, but it is still a better deal than any private RV park in the area.

Mt Evans (14,240 ft), in the background, and Cherry Creek Dam are visible from much of the park.

The community I live in is a retirement community. When it first opened, it was designed for “active mature adults” and the minimum age to live here was fifty-five. That was a little over thirty years ago, and so now many of the original home buyers are in their eighties and nineties. This is still a very pleasant place to live and my wife and I love it. However, it does have its peculiarities.

I’ve been selling some Airstream related items left over from when we moved here. I just don’t have much room to store extraneous items. One of these is a dinette cushion set designed for late model Bambi trailers. I don’t own a Bambi, but the cushions were on sale at a dealership at a relatively low price and I thought, erroneously, that I might be able to adapt them for use in my Globe Trotter.

They didn’t fit my Globe Trotter; not even close. The only usable part I could have salvaged was the foam. Even then, it would have been a mess. The curvature and dimensions are radically different. So, instead, I decided to sell them. I put them on Craig’s List and a month went by with no serious inquiries. Just as I was about to give up, a buyer from out of state wanted them and would pick them up in person because he and his partner were passing through Denver on a road trip with their Bambi.

We no sooner worked out a deal via email than I had three more buyers interested in them. It’s somewhat odd how that works. When it rains, it pours I guess. My buyers stopped by this morning and it was a pleasant transaction. It’s a beautiful day, Labor Day, and there must be an old people’s walking marathon going on. Just about everyone is out and about. The buyer and I are on the street talking about their Airstream and mid-sentence two old women interrupt us. They excitedly ask, “Are you going fishing? If you have a fish fry, could we come?”

I know, I know, they were just being friendly, and you probably think they were sweet. They were, but I run into this every day here. Old people can be just plain nosey. Besides, I was in the middle of making a sale. It was business, but I’m not a good salesman, and that causes me anxiety. When I’m anxious, I get a little short tempered, but I bit my tongue and didn’t say anything. If I had, I might have said something like this, “You old biddies, do you see a boat? Do you see any fishing gear, poles, tackle boxes, waders? No? Then what makes you think we’re going fishing? And even if we were, what’s it to you?”

Instead, I just stood there silently, a furrow in my brow no doubt, while the buyers, both easy going Californians, joked with these two old women about how they would be welcome to frozen fish instead. A few minutes later, I completed the sale, wished my buyers a good road trip, and shuffled back to my condo talking to myself. Yikes, it suddenly dawned on me; sooner rather than later, I’ll be one of those “old” people. In a couple years, I’ll be sixty. It just doesn’t seem possible. Am I going to be one of the grumpy old men of Heather Gardens? Am I there already?

The battle was lost. It’s an old saying. A more mundane paraphrase might go like this: For lack of a nut a wheel was lost. For lack of a wheel the truck was lost, and so on. The lesson is that one thing leads to another. There is such a thing as cause and effect. This is what preventative maintenance is all about, breaking the chain of cause and effect.

I took my ’85 Suburban in to have the tires rotated at Big O Tires. As I waited in the customer lounge, I became concerned hearing an excessive air impact wrench screaming, screaming, and screaming. “Good God,” I thought, “just how tight do they think those lug nuts need to be?” Or, were they taking them off? A few minutes later, my fear was confirmed. The manager came out with two lug nuts in his cupped hands, holding them gently as though it was some small dead animal.

“What do you think is causing this?” He asked. The lug nuts were busted apart. I looked at them in amazement. I’d never seen lug nuts fractured in half. “The good thing is that your lugs and wheels are okay, but when we torque the nuts to spec they seem to be breaking on us. Has this happened to you before?”

Stunned, I simply shook my head, “no.” The manager hinted that it wasn’t the result of anything they’d done, implying that the old lug nuts must be defective or had been subject to abuse. However, a short time later both of us came to the same conclusion, the nuts were the kind that have a threaded sleeve. Mine are 9/16” 18 thread mag lug nuts with a 1” sleeve, and require washers. The sleeve and openings in the mag wheel mate to close tolerances, and if the lug nut is wallowed in, as an air impact wrench is inclined to do, the sleeve binds in the hole and fractures. Then, when it is torqued to spec (120 ft. lbs.), the nut breaks apart. Retail, they are about $3 apiece.

At first Big O only wanted to replace the two that were broken, but I wanted the entire set of 32 replaced, free of charge. There was no telling whether the remaining lug nuts had fractures and I didn’t want to find out while towing my 32’ long Airstream down the Interstate. Besides, I had a matched set, now I didn’t. Big O was only a little reluctant to do this. No business wants to eat a mistake, but they did. Except the nuts had to be special ordered. They had none in stock.

The next day, Big O telephoned and told me the nuts were in. So, I returned and they installed the new set, mostly by hand. That took two employees nearly an hour. This was late in the afternoon and I was in a hurry to get back home. As a result, I only gave the wheels a cursory look. Surely, they couldn’t mess it up a second time.

The following morning, I spent preparing for a rally near Pikes Peak. As I was adding air to the front right tire, I discovered that one of the lug nuts was missing. Apparently, it had not been tightened and had come off on the drive home. I telephoned Big O and the manager agreed to give me another, and assured me that they had more in stock. When I went there though, the manager realized they had used up the entire order – on my wheels. He said he’d order another and I could come back for it. By now, I was extremely tired and annoyed with the expense and time spent driving back and forth. So, Big O agreed to deliver a single lug nut to me at home.

Later, that afternoon, their driver arrived, handed me the lug nut and drove off. That’s when I realized I should have also asked for a mag washer. I was now so frustrated with this particular Big O that I’ve decided I will never return. It took me over an hour to locate an appropriate washer. None of the local auto parts stores had them in stock. It is special order. I found an acceptable substitute at an Ace Hardware store. In all, I used five to six hours of my time, spread out over three days just to rotate the tires.

Of course, Big O didn’t come out on top either. They bore the expense of parts, labor, and delivery. To be fair, Big O gets an ‘A’ for effort, they really tried hard to accommodate me and make good on their mistake. However, they are a tire and wheel company, should reasonably know what they are doing and incompetence has a limit. It’s not a very good way to run a business.

A couple of good things have come from this though. I do have a free matching set of brand new chrome mag lug nuts. It also got me to thinking about my spare tire. It doesn’t have a mag style wheel. It has a standard steel wheel. The mag lug nuts won’t work with that. To mount my spare, I need standard open end acorn style nuts. The taper on that kind of nut is needed to center the wheel openings on the lugs. Mag lug nuts are not tapered. That is why they need a washer. So, all the time we’ve owned the Suburban I’ve carried a spare that I couldn’t mount. After an exhaustive search, I now have 8 lug nuts for it, but that’s another story altogether.

The VAC parades into the International Rally

The Vintage Airstream Club parade into the International Rally is always one of the big highlights. Not only were there great trailers and tow vehicles but wonderful people as well.

Rob Baker by his fabulous 30′ 1951 Sovereign of the Road.

David Winick sitting on the porch of his soon to be completed 1948 Wee Wind restoration.

I finally met Rob Baker and David Winick, talked with the seemingly always present, Dale Schwaumborn, and linked up with friends from Colorado, California, Nevada, Florida, New York and well… everywhere. It is the one time of the year when we are all in the same place at the same time. That’s how special it is.

My very special friends from the Denver CO Unit, Luke Bernander and Ray Velasquez.

I also met some really interesting people I didn’t know, and would never had known if we hadn’t made the trip to Madison. While exploring the downtown area, off-campus so to speak, we stumbled into the House of Wisconsin Cheese. We went in ostensibly to look for post cards (yes, we bought some awesome cheese too), but discovered that it was also a hotbed of Airstream devotion. The owner, Jeff Price, has a history. His parents were friends and fellow travelers with Wally Byam. He even has childhood memories of Wally and Stella coming over for dinner and cocktails.

When we went in, The Long, Long Trailer was playing, a model of an Airstream was on display, and an official looking street sign at the curb in front read, “Airstream Parking Only.” So, Rob Baker couldn’t resist. Even though the street is a really a dedicated pedestrian mall, he towed his Airstream there, honking no doubt at the college students to get out of the way, and parked under Jeff’s sign. Quick, someone fly a pirate flag! We’re breaking all the rules!

House of Wisconsin Cheese owner, Jeff Price, displaying the photo he took of Rob Baker parked at the curb in front of his shop.

Alas, it is Wisconsin for pity’s sake, and it is all just for fun. It made our day, for sure, and put a big smile on our face. And that is the flavor of the month at a vintage rally. The happy face flag says it all.

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.

Our one-month summer road trip is over. We’ve returned reluctantly, but quickly. The irony of this always puzzles me. We don’t want the journey to end, yet when it is indeed coming to a close we rush home. We covered a little over a thousand miles in two days.

In the past, I’ve said I wouldn’t do that. It’s particularly hard on Patrice, but we’ve discovered something that many of you probably already know – naps in the afternoon. By pulling over when we get groggy, just about when lunch has digested, when the day is warmest, and fatigue sets in, pull over for a nap in the trailer. We’ve found, well I’ve found – since Patrice isn’t quite as convinced – that when I wake I’m refreshed enough to drive until it is good and dark. In the summer that is around 9:30 p.m. Then we pull over for the night; get a good sleep and an early start the following morning. I think this can be repeated for quite some time and seems to me to be a safe way to cover 500 or 600 miles each day.

Or so I think, after we left Madison and were driving southwest on Highway 151, about 30 miles from Dubuque, where we came upon the aftermath of an accident. At the bottom of a long steep hill, a tow truck was pulling a trailer up onto its wheels. The mangled shiny mess wasn’t immediately recognizable, but as we went by, we saw that it was an Airstream. It had rolled like Kick the Can down the embankment. A sobering reminder that safety can’t be taken for granted.

Out of all the roadside rests we used our vote for the best were Nebraska’s. They were often well off the Interstate and usually segregated RV parking away from trucks. They were also well kept and as pretty as the ones in Missouri which we gave second place to.

The new RV Museum in Elkhart, IN

I needed more time to do research at the RV Museum in Elkhart, so before leaving for Mackinaw City, MI, I spent the morning in a rush going through old trailer magazines in the library. This is another place I could spend an entire season. If only they’d let me camp in the parking lot.

Vintage trailers on display at the museum.

But we nearly spent too much time there. It wasn’t that we had a reservation to make because we had none. It was the weather. It had rained exceptionally hard the night before and more was on the way. There was a window of opportunity I wanted to take advantage of. The weather was supposed to clear for a a few hours between storm fronts and that was all the time I figured we’d need to head north and away from the violent weather.

When I went into the library, I found Forrest and Jeri Bone there, researching early Tin Can Tourist articles. They’d original thought they’d be on the road, but they decided to wait out the thunderstorms. I promised Patrice we’d have lunch at 12:30 then leave, but typical of me, I was late, so we didn’t actually get on the road until 1:30.

Oh my, that was nearly a very bad mistake. About an hour into Michigan we ran straight into the storm that dumped eight inches of rain in an hour on the village of Holland and spawned a tornado east of there that damaged four homes and lifted a barn from its foundation .

“Why is the trailer swaying so?” Patrice asked.

I watched the tops of trees along state highway 131 bending into the shape of corkscrews and did not answer. Should I stop? Should I speed up? The rain blew horizontally across the road and suddenly there it was, a funnel to the west. My grip tightened on the steering wheel and I resisted the urge to go faster. The storm was moving east. We were headed north. If I could just keep us on the road the tornado would pass behind us. I wondered about the few cars and trucks heading the opposite direction.

“You know when you asked me about the swaying?” I finally replied. “I think we dodged a tornado.” Seriously, how could I abandon our rig, then walk, pull, or even drag Patrice into a roadside ditch to take cover? Yet, that exact thought went through my mind. Pucker factor, nine. Relief, priceless.

Let’s face it, if you’re not interested in Airstream history, then likely you’ll find Jackson Center, Ohio a dull place. Certainly, there are even Airstream owners who only want to go there for the service center and perhaps the factory tour. Past that, the area has little appeal for them.

As for me, I could easily spend an entire season there. You would find me either camped at the Terraport (free Wi-Fi), or at the east end of the village, in the back lot of the Wally Byam Caravan Club International headquarters. There alone I could spend considerable time just going through the history archive.

There are other things of interest in and around JC though. Directly across the street from WBCCI HQ is the Wally Byam Memorial Park, at the corner of State Route 274 (Pike Street) and Parkwood Drive. The park features a municipal pool with a spray park, sheltered patios, restrooms, picnic areas, lighted tennis courts, basketball courts, and playground equipment.

The sheltered patios are available for a mere $25. Each has picnic tables, power and can accommodate 50 to 60 people.

There is GKN, manufacturer of the Henschen Axle on the north side of the village at, 522 N Main St. It is a non-descript long metal sided building. Tours have been available in the past, but right now, with the slow down in the economy, the factory looked inactive. If you want to see how the rubber torsion axle is assembled, call first, (937) 596-6125.

The Bicycle Museum of America

About fifteen miles west of JC, is New Bremen, Ohio, where you can find the highest point of the Erie Canal and the most excellent Bicycle Museum of America (419-629-9249). The museum is at 7 West Monroe St. (ST RT 274), which is nearly dead center of the town. So, it can’t be missed. Every stage of bicycle development is represented, including one of the unicycles used in the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics, held in China. Be sure to go to the third floor and look at the replica of Alfred LeTourner’s Schwinn Paramount. He set a land speed record of 108 mph on it, and he is the bicyclist Wally Byam hired to photograph pulling an Airstream trailer in 1947. That photo is the iconic image Airstream Inc. still uses today to identify its product.

Alfred LeTourneur towing Airstream Liner, courtesy WBCCI Archive

Just up the Interstate from JC is the Neil Armstrong Air & Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio. It is also easy to find, being just a few hundred yards northwest of Interstate 75 exit 111 (SR 33). Obviously, named to honor Astronaut, Neil Armstrong, for being the first man to set foot on the moon, but it also chronicles Ohio’s contributions to space flight. Among the items on display are an F5D Sky Lancer, the Gemini VIII spacecraft, Apollo 11 artifacts and a moon rock. The museum’s Astro-theater runs multimedia presentations.

There are numerous other attractions within an afternoon drive of JC, such as glass museums, and the fabulous Air Force Museum in Dayton, OH, but the surprise for me was that Airstream Inc. has not worked these connections more to its favor. That is, the LeTourner exhibit ought to have at least a photograph of Alfred pulling an Airstream with a bicycle, but it doesn’t. He was among the most famous of bicyclists in his era and one would think that, being practically neighbors, Airstream Inc. and the bicycle museum would want to make that connection, yet they don’t. The Neil Armstrong museum likewise has a photograph of the Apollo 11 astronauts talking to President Nixon through the window of the Airstream built Mobile Quarantine Facility. Would it not make sense for both the museum and Airstream Inc. to make the connection with just a note that the MQF was another of Ohio’s contributions to the space program and was built just down the road?

President Nixon talks to Astronauts housed in the MQF

It’s just nuts. Sure, I know Airstream Inc. touts these accomplishments in its sales brochures, but I think they also need to get together with their neighbors so that the general, non-RV‘ing, public can appreciate the connection when they tour the museums.