Ahhh. An unplugged weekend in the Washington drizzle. An itty bitty town. A laid-back, rural campground deep in huckleberry country. Uncoiling with friendly Airstream folk and some fine musicians. 

On the first day, the clouds parted to reveal a gobsmacking, up close & personal view of Mt. Adams. And then….wait. Why reinvent the wheel when Airstreaming author Tom Schabarum has already posted a thorough recap with better photos?

After five years of ‘streaming with the DWR we traveled again to Timberlake Campground (aka "Leroy’s Place") in the green Gorge. The reason: party with the local Wally Club at the first rally of the Oregon Airstream season.

It was dark, dank, and bitter cold. Driving up to I-84 from Bend we could see the spring cloud pattern laid out before us like a weatherman’s graphic: blue on the right, socked in on the left. The rally camaraderie (to the left) was well worth the trip, but the weekend reconfirmed our decision to move to the sunny side of the state. (So what was that funny lump in my throat when we waved goodbye and pulled away?)

Leroy runs a tight ship. The Timberlake grounds are immaculate, and you could eat in the bathroom. But know before you go: his attention to detail extends all the way to you and the inside of your rig.

You will be personally escorted to your campsite, and, if you have one of the high-numbered ones on the top of the hill, Leroy will insist that you place your tow vehicle in 4WD for the duration of the drive. Once you reach your site, Leroy himself will firmly direct you back into it, no matter how you emphatically assure him you’ve got it. (A good trust exercise in letting go of control.) “Well, he does do a really good job,” admitted one Airstreamer. 

Good junk at the first-ever club swap meet—I scored some more Airstream party lights—and outstanding Irish rally fare. Go raibh maith agat, chef Doug!

How do you tell the quality of a diner? By its chicken fried steak, of course.

Maybe it was just the mid 80’s, when everything was better, but the finest I ever tasted was at Boz Scaggs‘ Blue Light Cafe on Union Street in San Francisco. I’ve been chasing that high for three decades. (The Blue Light today, minimized and lost to new management, serves greasy, monotonous bar food paired with Jello shots.)

With the Martini Wagon in tow, the award for Second Best Chicken Fried Steak went to a diner outside Grand Coulee Dam. Actual steak, with a bone, real and delicious. The coating, crispycrunchy. The gravy, oh god, the gravy: not too salty, and lumpy with pork sausage. “Laah!” sang the angels as I scraped my plate and a heavenly light streamed through the humble, lace-trimmed windows. The home fries kicked ass as well.

I returned hungry to Grand Coulee years later, this time with the Airstream, and towed it the length and breadth of the teeny town, searching in vain for that magical restaurant, now disappeared. (Did it ever exist?)

How many chicken fried steaks have I eaten on the road, Airstreaming from diner to diner? Dozens. Scores. Hundreds? (Like the rings on a tree, you could probably measure this by my blood pressure readings or fat cells in my butt.)

You can say the same thing about sex, pizza, and democracy as you can about chicken fried steak: when it’s good, it’s great, and when it’s bad…it’s still pretty good. A few raise the bar. Zims Brau Haus in the Columbia Gorge really soaks up that hangover. Donna’s Diner in Moorcroft Wyoming borders on excellent, but the gravy’s uninspired. Sometimes you get chicken fried chicken, like at the beloved old Chicken Pie Shop, once an icon on the corner in Hillcrest, San Diego.

Gotta go, this is making me hungry. I’m currently mapping my summer trip across the country, this time via I70 East and I40 West. There HAS to be some mind blowing chicken fried manna on Route 66…any suggestions? 

The fine folks of George Sutton RV towed three spanking new Airstream trailers* to a recent WBCCI rally for us to paw over. (Little-known perk of Wally club membership: your local dealer may offer a discount on parts, service, or a whole new Airstream for members and rally attendees.) 

When we bought our little DWR lo these many years ago, the sales process was a simple matter: we pointed to its photo on the cover of the Design Within Reach catalog and exclaimed “we’ll take it!” I wasn’t aware of the usual drill when purchasing a new Airstream: options abound, Chinese menu style, and many features are customizable. 

I was also unaware how intimately involved local dealerships are with Airstream production and innovation. I knew that The Mothership encourages user input and collaborates with dealers to make the best possible trailer, but I was impressed to learn how dealers take a hands-on, active role to develop new features and floor plans.

“A lot of the things that happen to the Airstream product come out of the Sutton dealership,” said Mark, an “RV chat master” and specialist in Airstream products and service, who seems to love aluminum as much as we owners do. “It’s pretty cool.” 

For instance, Mark and company contributed to the floor plan of the new 25ft rear queen. “Sutton RV was administered three different potential floor plans for this trailer,” he said. “They asked for our input so we critiqued it. We wanted to accomplish a couple of things,” such as moving the refrigerator to accommodate a microwave, elongating the bathroom, and changing the straight counter to one with a “bump”.

“Number one, it’s very Airstreamish, and two, it’s valuable,” said Mark, demonstrating the storage space inside the round counter cap. “It’s where I put my pots and pans.”

The bathroom remains segregated—shower on one side, loo on the other—with a divider on each side. “So if you were entertaining people and somebody was sleeping, you could still use the bathroom; or if somebody were to get up and you had people in front you could close up the side so they could take a shower privately.”

Other late-model features that he has encouraged include porcelain toilets, both gas and electric water heaters, larger (LED) TVs, and swanky dimmer switches. “I was in one of the first Airstreams at the factory with LED lights in the ceiling and I asked adamantly to put dimmer switches on them,” he said. Later, Mark tinkered with the lights in a 25 International Serenity while at the Pendleton Round Up. 

“We used a very expensive rheostat to see if we could successfully dim the lights, but they pulsed, so if you moved your arm they would actually flash,” Mark explained. “I did personal research on it and I discovered there are two different types of LED lights: one is meant to be dimmed, and one is not.” He waxed on enthusiastically about slowing pulse widths and built in registers at the loom—of which, of course, I have no understanding. But the conversation illustrates the level of passion he has about building better Airstreams…which now come from Ohio with factory-installed dimmer switches.

New style highlights include the Winick-like porthole window in the bathroom door, subtle tiger-striped wall paneling, and espresso Ultraleather.

Mark, who owns three Airstreams, helps customers trick out their trailers to their specifications, down to the awning packages and hatch bracketry. But there’s more to consider than simple aesthetics.

“The thing about the Airstream product that a lot of people don’t understand is that when they are completely empty, they are perfectly balanced,” he said. “And when you fill them up with water, and then add your clothing and your pots and pans and such in their logical places, they are still fully balanced. That—with the fact that 50% of the weight is below the floor, and the torsion axels, and the shape—is why they tow the way they do. So Airstream is very reluctant to change floorplans on just a whim like most manufacturers do. Others aren’t concerned about weight ratios. Airstream is, because of their reputation for the way they tow. That’s why it takes so long for them to develop new floorplans. They are very specific about that.”

Who knew?! 

Sutton has ordered two Sterlings, that darling of the internets: a 25ft and a 27ft. While I’m disinclined to alter my Chris Deam trailer in any way, necessary adjustments are planned for one of the Sterlings.

“I already have a gentleman interested in the 27,” said Mark. The customer plans to tow it to Belize, where he has lived for several months. "His biggest issue down there is monkeys.” (Excuse me, what?) 

“He had a friend come along with him who had a regular box trailer and the monkeys would just tear the windows right off,” he said. (Egad! Important travel tip when Airstreaming in monkey-infested areas.) “Also, they are attracted to the silver. So this trailer that we’re going to do for him will have a stainless steel air conditioning shroud so the monkeys can’t pull it apart, and we’re going to encapsulate the dump valves into a stainless steel body. We’ll basically make it monkeyproof.”

* A 2012 25 Rear Queen Flying Cloud Golden Night; a 2012 27 Front Bed Flying Cloud; and a 2013 International CCD 23D.

For five years I’ve been towing alone, passing myself off as some kind of RV studette. Repeatedly on the road I hear, “oh my, a woman all alone with your Airstream, crossing the country, how do you do it?” “Nothing to it,” I brag, with a smug wave of my hand.

I’m a fraud.

I’ve been cheating. For five years I’ve been using the trailer as a glorified tent, essentially car camping. I’ve never showered in it, washed dishes in the sink with hot water, or used the commode for its intended purpose. I’ve never replaced the propane tanks myself, put up the awning, or, god forbid, visited a dump station. (Sexist alert: I have my man for that.)

Shame eventually compelled me to put on the big girl pants and achieve proficiency with all the functions of my little trailer. 

I chose a roasting weekend in late July before an Oregon Wally Club rally for my “boondock of discovery”. Dry camping in the sweltering, shadeless terrain near Summer Lake was good practice and a skills refresher for my week at Burning Man, looming in less than a month. “OK. Here we go, boys,” I sighed to myself as I pulled into the barren campground.

Step One, upon arrival: Slather sunscreen. 

Step Two: Incarcerate dachshunds within portable invisible fence.

Step Three: Bracing slug of near beer. 

Next steps, one by one:

• Fire up the fridge (“gas on”); start making ice. I know a stiff cocktail is in my near future.
  

• Deploy the dreaded awning. (This blog was originally titled “F You, Canopy”. An entire later post will be dedicated to our ongoing struggle with the Airstream awning and my plans to destroy the ZipDee factory.) 
  

• Take the owner manuals and how-to books on a systems walkabout, inside and out. (Do you own the Newbie’s Guide to Airstreaming? If not, procure it at once.) As well as a dry camp exercise, this trip was also a cyber vacation, without WiFi or cell service. Phoning Ralph, Googling for answers, and trolling for advice on the Airforums iPhone app were all unavailable. 
  

• Figure out and test the hot water heater, shower, and that little exterior trap door for the hose. (There’s a key for that? Locate key.)
  

• Troubleshoot the TV (broken, now, again, for some reason), the stereo (which I’m told has an inoperable case of “frame hum”) and DVD player (See: TV, broken).
  

• Test provisions. I purposefully left town with only a pair of shorts, change of underwear and some random, unrelated groceries that were going bad in the fridge at home in order to develop a new supplies list using the RV Companion app. New goal: keep the Airstream stocked with the basics. Yes, I have been watching Doomsday Preppers. Don’t judge.
  

• Hot shower. Success, but a tight squeeze. Here’s what doesn’t work in a wet bath: fancy plush toilet lid covers.
  

Fast forward, two days later: No one has openly cried or visited an urgent care or emergency vet. In other words, triumph (so far). 

Now, after relying on the self-contained systems (solar power, inverter, water pump and fresh water tank) it was time to practice hooking up at the campsite for the rally weekend and the remainder of my stay. Full disclosure: while squinting at the shore power inlet with the owner’s manual in my hand and the clean water hose at my feet, a friendly male neighbor (how long had he been watching?) couldn’t resist running over to install it all for me. It’s What Men Do.

After stalling as long as I could at the end of another stellar Oregon Unit gathering, The Terrible Awful arrived. Time to dump. 

I was planning to tow over to a nearby dump station, but as I observed my neighbor’s hose I realized that the sewer hole was next to the electric and water station, right there at the campsite! Oh! So that’s what “full hookup” means! (she said, losing all respect).

This time I really did need help. After seeing me puzzle over the orange aftermarket hose fittings, neighbor Joel took pity and assisted with the hose clamp and step by step instructions. His wife contributed advice and a pair of rubber gloves. Steve, on site promoting Target Hitch, offered moral support. It takes a village. (“Or a village idiot,” quipped Joel.) The owner’s manual—useless for this process (one must first know what a “bayonet fitting” is)—went untouched.

Dumping was easy. Dare I say fun? One tank for both black and grey, one handle to pull—whoosh, rinse, stow, done.

Tip: Get a clear hose connector. You may not have the stomach for looking directly at the matter that flows into the sewer, but others like to “see what’s going on.” 

Thank you Jay at Ana Reservoir RV Park for holding my hand, and Joel from Medford. I owe you guys.

It was chilly and rainy at the final Oregon WBCCI Airstream rally of the season at Champoeg State Park (shocking), but the hosts made it warm and fall-tastic in the clubhouse, and the hilltop views from the vineyards in Dayton and Dundee during the Saturday tasting excursion were lit by advantageously-timed sunbreaks. (“Sunbreak". That’s a west-of the-Cascades weather word you don’t hear growing up in California.) 

At the “epicenter of Oregon Pinot Noir” thirty miles southwest of Portland, foodies can spend a delightful afternoon (or week) sampling wine, cheese, olive oil and filberts at the dozens of wineries and other manufacturers of artisanal treats. Purveyors in the various tasting rooms broadened my culinary knowledge: cheese can be described as “fudgy” or “bloomy”; all varieties of olive are green until ripening; and what I don’t know about wine can still fill the Heidelberg Tun.

The rich autumn palette of red, yellow, orange, and lime green in the Willamette Valley was a shock after a summer spent in the spare high desert and rocky Utah; on Sunday, the colorful foliage in the pass on the drive back to Bend was sugarcoated with a dusting of October snow. 

**Blog Hiatus Report**  What’s up with that yawning gap between June 18 and today? I’ve been criss-crossing the west, enjoying Airstream rallies, Burning Man, and a long camping honeymoon. What I haven’t been is posting to ‘Streaming. Apologies and thank you, reader Leo, for encouraging me to get back behind the laptop. Stay tuned for more incriminating photos and dozens of new campground and gear reviews after I return from the Great Barrier Reef. ―rg

WBCCI ralliers at wonderful, warm, windy Ana Reservoir RV Park enjoyed what the Oregon Outback had to offer: a tour of the state wildlife refuge, wildflower viewing on the way to Fremont Point, the Paisley Mosquito Festival, splashing in the lake, collecting cattails, and evening kite flying followed by a knock-your-socks-off sunset reflected in aluminum.

An expedition to the Cowboy Dinner Tree in nearby Silver Lake was organized, and mass quantities of meat were consumed—obscene portions served family style with sides. Complete dinner: $30, including tip and much-needed doggie bag. (Soft drinks only. No liquor license, are you kidding me?) (Related: the town of Summer Lake is only 75 or so miles from the California border, then another 60 miles to the Alturas Rite Aid and its el cheapo liquor aisle. Well worth the scenic drive.)

After nightfall, resident amateur astronomer Alicia trained her 10” Meade Starfinder on Saturn (small in the eyepiece, but you could see the separation of the rings from the body of the planet, and one of her moons) and Mars (blurry, but red as advertised). Club members used their own telescopes, spotting scopes, and high powered birding lenses to admire the half moon, bright in the clear sky.

Ever hear of winkboytels? Me neither. These are deep fried patties of dough dressed with butter, powered sugar, syrup and jam (approximate Weight Watchers points: 56,000). I asked the chef, how did they get their name? He didn’t know. He believes it’s German. The lack of curiosity in this world amazes me. There’s a bar in Portland I used to frequent called “The Tillicum”. One night I asked my server, “what is a tillicum, anyway?” “A what?” she replied. My god. Uh, the name of the place where you WORK? 

Like Madison County in Iowa, Linn County and Lane County in Oregon are lousy with covered bridges. 

Nearly 30 Airstreams and their Oregon “Wally Club” owners convened at green and spacious Sunnyside County Park on Foster Reservoir for the Covered Bridge Rally.

I brought my bike in hopes of riding the Covered Bridge Bicycle Tour, but only the hardest-core cyclists in the group ventured forth to try legs on the “68, 85 and 100-mile routes” (even the “short” tour was 40 miles; fughettaboutit). Turns out, most of the bridges are located in and around Scio, a town several miles away and the butt of local jokes; just look up "Scion" in the Urban Dictionary. (Scio: Where one’s family tree does not fork.)

A couple of us sensibly left our bikes behind and set out to sightsee in a car, but we bagged only one bridge before becoming distracted by the several Sweet Home garage sales. (You’ve seen one covered bridge, you’ve seen them all, right?) I returned to the comfort of the DWR campchair in the shade, and watched the fishing folks walk back from the stocked pond holding high their limit of rainbows.

Later, wobbly on my hand-me-down Softride after years of neglect, I joined the casual cyclists and idly peddled around and around the campground loop.

Another perfect Airstream weekend.

Confession: I don’t understand energy. At all. I know that after two miles on the treadmill I’ve only burned the caloric equivalent of one damn cookie, but apart from that, I got nothing. 

What’s a watt? What’s a volt? What does “at peak the inverter will pull 170 amps” mean? These and other concepts were no doubt covered during a science class I was absent from, or during shop, which was once For Boys Only.

Airstreamers toss around phrases I’ve heard a thousand times: 110 volt versus 12 volt, AC/DC, 220 heavy load capacity—while I nod, too embarrassed to admit I don’t understand. I’m admitting it now.

Given all that, here’s what I know about our new Zamp 95 watt solar panel with the 30 amp controller.

1. I love it.

2. It was hella expensive.

3. It eliminates the need for shore power, as long as we don’t run a heater or a hairdryer. (Thankfully, the inverter will power other essential glamp-pliances, like an espresso machine or blender.)

4. The new twenty-pound, four-foot long panel is bolted atop the Airstream alongside the factory issued solar panel that came with the DWR; we made room for it by removing the antiquated TV antenna (which, of course, is carefully stored away so it can be remounted in ten years as a hootworthy retro feature). The top of the tiny trailer now looks cramped with contraptions. (“Oh, if you want, I can fit another panel on there, totally,” boasted the solar installation tech.)

5. Energy from Mr. Sun is collected by the two panels, stored in two Trojan 6-volt unsealed batteries mounted on the hitch, and magically delivered to the Xantrex PROwatt SW 2000 Sine Wave Inverter bolted beneath the dinette table waiting for us to plug in whatever we see fit. (Primarily, it powers and recharges our various iDevices).

6. The charge controller is straightforward and simple to use for those who understand amps and volts but looks to me like Sulu’s helm control panel. I’m told that the operative data is the LED readout in the middle, which “should be kept on 14.4, at which point it will shut off.” I have no idea what this means—the scribbled notes I took during the hasty tutorial conducted by Beau at Jerry’s RV are now, upon review, hieroglyphics—but to date the panel has faithfully displayed 14.4ish, indicating a full charge. 

Though there’s lots to learn about the new system, there isn’t much to physically do; simply find a sunny place to park and the equipment does what it does, just as electricity pours reliably throughout your stationary home.

Maupin, Oregon is a two-horse town perched above a pleasing bend in the Deschutes that exists solely for the enjoyment of fly fishermen and as a place for river rafters to put in.

We joined the Oregon Unit of the WBCCI “Deschutes and Ladders Rally” at Maupin City Park, which isn’t a city park at all but a shady, grassy RV campground. As always, we were late to sign up for the sold-out rally and were relegated to the cheap seats in the adjacent overflow dry camping lot. Not a problem: our new supplemental solar panel mounted atop the Airstream kept the lights burning and power flowing to the interior inverter. (Another weekend first: after five years as a storage closet, the onboard bathroom in the DWR was finally christened in the manner for which it was intended.)

While Ralph fished the river, I embarked on a successful garage sale expedition with Corrine, the Airstream ceramicist (you will want one of these) and returned with two monkey pod hors d’oeuvre servers, a kitschy cribbage board, and a foldable red plastic mini picnic table. (Ralph: “what is this…a table for ANTS?!”)

During the rally a salmon fly hatch was in progress—indicating optimum fishing conditions—but it was more than a tad unnerving when the giant bugs landed repeatedly on our shirts and heads during happy hour. I had a death grip on my sangria, knowing I’d fling it into the crowd if one of the monsters lighted on my drinking arm.

Rally entertainment included a half-naked blonde on parade outside her tent trailer, and a group presentation by a uniformed BLM official who shared local trivia and helpful tips. (“If you see the river patrol while you’re drinking in your raft and you have an oar in one hand and a beer in the other? Drop one,” she advised.)

As is always the case at an Oregon Airstream gathering, new friends were made, beverages flowed, and the fare was hearty (including the rally host’s signature breakfast dish, “Ferry Surprise”—ice cream and oatmeal).