Nuestra casa rodante - Our Airstream, travels and such…

I found this page looking around. I think it is Korean but I am not sure. They are definitely talking about Airstreams and other ’silver’ trailers. I have used WorldLingo to translate it. It appears they just wanted to talk about Airstreams.

Fortune magazine has an article on Airstreams. Thanks to Sean and Kristy at The Long, Long Honeymoon.

Many of you may know about Airstream Life. It is an independent magazine dedicated to fans of Airstream products and the lifestyle. It is published by Rich Luhr. Rich has been running this magazine, along with his family, AND fulltiming for 2 years! He has blogged about these subjects in the Tour of America blog.

Over the past 3-4 days the ‘Tour’ has been de-Toured. In reading their blog I saw they were in Yosemite last week so I offered our home (about 3 hr south) for a chance for them to courtesy park. They agreed but Rich was hoping to move on to a ‘bigger’ town to get some of his things done. I guess Visalia turned out to be big enough since they did stay a few nights with us. This was a little bit of downtime for them. Yes, they did get around to service their tow vehicle, do some laundry, run some technology errands and manage some business. Luckily they were able to do it all here.

We really enjoyed having them here and we were happy that the also enjoyed themselves. I think it was both relaxing and fruitful at the same time.

I remember reading their early blogs, and that of other fulltimers, and thinking how carefree it must be. My viewpoint has changed a bit now. Perhaps Rich and his family are a variation on the fulltimers since they ARE running a magazine as they travel. I was surprised to see how much time they devote to this aspect of their lives and how much, recently, they had to plan out what they were going to do. I have a new respect for what they go through in their travels.

The ‘Tour’ continued on today as they left Visalia. I still am not sure exactly where they will end up this evening but I will be looking for the blog entry to let all of us know.

If you ever get the opportunity to offer courtesy parking to the Luhr family, by all means do it. I know I will be sure to offer again (actually I already have) and it will not stop with just the Luhr’s. One way to learn about this world is to talk to others that have been traveling it.

Back in July we met up with the Sierra Nevada unit of the WBCCI (see the previous story). One of the blogs that I watch is theirs. Most recently they have a link to some old photos from one of the members. I enjoy seeing pictures of old Airstreams in their original environment, as you can tell.

USA Today wrote up a story on the resurgence of interest in Airstreams.

As we were outbound on our latest trip (previous entry), we stopped at a dump station to make sure we were completely empty for the 3 nights of dry camping. On our trailer we have a black tank flush device. It is a connector for a hose that is behind a little door by our dump valves. It allows you to hook a hose from the dump station or your own water tank. When you apply water to it, it squirts inside the black tank to help ‘dislodge’ anything that may be stuck inside there.

I hooked it up to the shore water at the dump station and turned it on. Water started gushing out our holding tank belly pan. It was more interesting since my valve repair added many new rivets and the water came out of this rivets in a most interesting pattern.  So I will be going back under the trailer, removing the rivets and the cover plate.  Hopefully the hose just became disconnected and all I have to do is reconnect it.

We made it back from our week’s long excursion. We started on Thursday and, as I was hooking up, I noticed that one of the trailer tires was starting to split in the tread. Time to get another. Luckily a local tire store had a tire and said it would take 20 minutes to mount it. Sure enough, that is all it took. Removal and reinstallation on the trailer was speedy due to my TrailerAid. We got on the road, got some supplies and lunch in Oakhurst at Todd’s Cookhouse BBQ. The drive through Yosemite and down Tioga Pass took a bit of time due to the speed limits. Roxie did not like the downhill part of Tioga since she was right by the dropoff. Arrival at Obsidian Dome was about 5pm.

The Sierra Nevada Unit of WBCCI is a very likable group. We had a total of 8 trailers there. The evening turned out to be a bit too cold to sit around and talk much. The recent fire limitations did not allow a campfire which put a bit of a damper on things. The next day some of us helped out the Forest Service to remove some fire rings in the area and make the area look like they never existed. This is to try to deter people from camping in areas where they should not. We took a much needed nap that afternoon and then went into Mammoth Lakes for some supplies. On the second day we were welcomed with a waffle breakfast which filled everyone up. The planned potluck at lunch was pushed back until dinner. We decided to go to Devil’s Postpile National Monument. I hadn’t been there since 1974, Roxie never.

We were going to stay one more evening but decided to go visit my sister in Bishop, since we were over that way. After that we headed back through Yosemite to the Yosemite Pines RV Park, our stop for the next 3 nights. The park is OK. They say they are rated #8 from the Travel Channel but I don’t agree. It is not very lush, all dirt. Our sewer hookup was uphill from the trailer which made it hard to empty the tanks. What is does have going for it is that is close to many things.

The first day we decided to go through some Gold Country towns along Highway 49. We went down the CA-120 grade, past Lake Don Pedro and through Jamestown. We stopped for lunch in Sonora at a very good Chinese restaurant, the Hong Kong. We then decided to go to see a movie. We saw “Live Free or Die Hard”. I always liked the Die Hard series but a added benefit was how many Nokia cellphones were used in the film. I saw an N76, E61 (the one I have) and an E90. After the movie we went to Columbia and walked around a bit. Not much to see so we continued on. We ended up in Jackson and had dinner at a forgettable Mexican restaurant. We then returned home via a different route.

Day 2 was in Yosemite, we went into the valley and took the 2 hour open tram ride. We have only lived for 22 years about 90 miles from Yosemite and have been there a scant 4-5 times. I have seen the trams and thought it would be fun. It was. I usually do the driving and therefore don’t get to see all the scenery. This time I could just relax and enjoy things.

The next day we headed home. We went a bit of a circuitous route to get back. Groveland, down 120 to 49, south on 49 to Coulterville, west on 132 to the Merced Falls turnoff, then south to Merced Falls and on to Merced.

This just added. I forgot to show my favorite place to dump the holding tanks. Click on the photo for more information:

It was nice to get out with the trailer after such a long time.

It is about time!! We finally have plans to take the trailer out. We are going to join the Sierra Nevada WBCCI unit for their rally at Obsidian dome. It is between June Lake and Mammoth Lakes on the east side of the Sierras. We will be going through Tioga pass to get there then we will stay a few nights at the Yosemite Pine RV park and visit Yosemite and/or the Gold Country. I will put up a postmortem when it is over.