Airstream,
RV Camping
& Travel Tips

So, here’s what didn’t work.

My effort to prevent devaluing my fabulous collectible Chris Deam DWR Airstream with the WBCCI Big Red Numbers resulted in a frightful defacement. “Take THAT,” snickered the ghost of Wally Byam.

My own displaced vanity and lack of ability to think a process through is really to blame, of course.

The first flakes of snow are sticking, and the larch in the yard is bright yellow. Time to talk winterizing.

No self-respecting RV blog is complete without a post on winterizing (just a posh word for “drying out” the trailer), a function Ralph has executed exactly twice.

A couple of years ago we moved from the mild, wet, green side of Oregon to the dry, cold, High Desert side where it freezes at night so early and often the tomato growing season lasts eight weeks.

The fine folks of George Sutton RV towed three spanking new Airstream trailers to a recent WBCCI rally for us to paw over.

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.

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, 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.)

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.

The iBall Hitch Cam went directly onto my Christmas wish list after Teresa Taylor’s sister demonstrated its virtues at the Pendleton Round Up rally.

It requires a 9V battery, not included, nor is a manual—everything you need to know about its operation is described by a three-step diagram on the packaging card. (By the way, will someone please invent a device to pop open the industrial strength plastic casing that’s fused around everything these days. You need the jaws of life just to open the iBall package.)

Airstream is but a tiny, shiny star in the RV universe—most are SOBs (Some Other Brand). ‘Streamers I recently polled guesstimate that Airstreams comprise only one to three percent of the market, both new and old.

As it was held in my backyard (Redmond, only thirty minutes from Bend), I dropped in on “The Rally” (sans DWR…no aluminum allowed*), the premier annual RV gathering, to see how the other (more than) half lives.

It looked kinda fun, if you have a White Box.