Posts from the ‘Airstream’ Category

Jan 13

Wandering Without Airstream

Last Saturday Kelly and I concluded our two week holiday trip through the southwestern desert, but not before stopping for some maintenance at Toscano RV. In the interest of brevity, I’ll summarize to the following — we arrived in time for repairs on Friday and decided to spend the night at the RV dealer as our preference is not arrive to our home base RV park after dark.

Gray & Fresh water tank sensors replaced

Grey & Fresh water tank sensors replaced – this one dangling is the Grey

Sleeping at the RV dealer. No charge for full hook-ups.

Our overnight spot at the RV dealer. No charge for full hook-ups (that’s us in the middle)

Saturday we arrived back to HMB, allowing Kelly one final weekend of complete freedom before starting her new job on Monday. Alas, once again we are full-fledged DINKS.

This week has been a bit crazed for us, hence the lack of blog postings. Before I knew it, the week had passed and I found myself jetting (pun intended) off to Europe on a business trip.

My ride — Boeing 747-400

Currently I am in northern Germany, specifically the town of Hamburg attending to some work matters this week. Unfortunately, the ways of winter apply here in Hamburg — it’s quite chilly and the days are short. Thank goodness I had enough sense to bring a stocking cap and gloves.

Cap San Diego

This is my second visit to the Hamburg office. Unlike my previous visit, this trip affords me enough time that I hope to more thoroughly venture out after work hours and explore the town.

Per usual, I was not able to get any sleep on the long-haul portion (10 hours) of the flight (San Francisco to Frankfurt). This being the case, I’ve been forcing myself to stay awake today until I know that I can get a solid night of sleep in an attempt to ‘flip’ myself onto local time (GMT +1.00). Tomorrow evening I’ll know whether or not my plan worked.

Trying to stay awake has been a challenge this evening. My hotel TV has a full array of satellite channels to view, but since I don’t speak German (or any other language for that matter), I opted to take a walk. I wandered throughout the downtown and waterfront areas until (and I mean this literally) my feet were too cold to continue. Long gone are the days when I thought 34 degrees was crisp. Whatever, now I consider that to be cold.

It’s about 9pm local time and I’m pushing almost 30 hours without sleep. I’m dead tired.

Time for bed.

Jan 2

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Sunrise At Anza-Borrego Springs

Keen to catch at least one full sunrise during our trip, Kelly and I awoke early and emerged from the Airstream in time to watch the sun rise in the Eastern sky. Like the many sunsets we have watched these past 10 days, the sunrise was equally wonderful to observe.

I snapped a few pictures, all of them taken within a few steps of Mabel – our roaming home.

Our Airstream

Class-A in the distance

Reflection off front bedroom window

Foothills in the distance

Morning moon

Reflection off the dinette window

Large group of Class-A rigs

The Watson’s rig – love the polish in the morning light

Class-A rig catching the first shimmers of direct morning light

Our neighbors super polish rig

Dec 29

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In Search Of Relaxation and Improved Showers

Home for the next two nights

Following a hearty breakfast with Gene and Sandy, Kelly and I begun what will be a week-long crawl back towards home base in Half Moon Bay. This past week with Kelly parents and their respective spouses was great and we both are definitely glad we made the long drive this way.

One upside of this lengthy journey is that our location now affords ample opportunity to visit places new to us and even better – not overrun with hustle and bustle one will find elsewhere. In fact, based largely on the glowing reviews of our pals over at WeaselMouth, we’ve gone out of our way to be out of the way … stopping for two days at the BLM campground Painted Rock Petroglyph.

Our destination today is only about 100 miles southwest of the hustle and bustle metropolis wherein we awoke this morning, but the area lies squarely in the midst of nowhere – just about perfect for our wants at the moment. If you ever decide to visit the area, you’ll know you’re getting close once you pass the Space Age Lodge in Gila Bend, AZ … about 11 miles away.

Hotels rooms are out of this world

Our campground is nothing more than a huge chunk of land – probably a few hundred acres in size and offers no amenities, less a picnic table and fire pit. For many with RV’s this types of dry camping is not appealing, but for Kelly and me (and a few others here), these primitive campsites are just what we need to recharge – both mentally and physically. Of course it helps that our Airstream is pretty self-contained, equipped with just about all the necessities to make for a more than comfortable stay.

Site #6

Once we were set-up, we took a little walk – nothing major, but enough for Lilly to stretch her legs a bit and poke her nose into endless holes in hopes that she might come across a critter or two along the way. (she came away empty-handed)

Lilly, waiting for me

Upon returning, I had a simple modification to complete — replacing the shower head. I continually hear high praise for the Oxygenics BodySpa shower head and its magical abilities to deliver a quality shower with stingy water usage, so I figured this week in the desert would make for a fitting field test.

Our new shower weapon of choice

Swapping out the previous unit with this new one is about as easy a task as one could expect. As per my usual ~~cheap~~ frugal self, I opted to save $10 bucks and went with white, not polished, so the new head unit doesn’t match the non-replaced hosing and bracket, but I really don’t care about the fashion of it all. Rather, I’m far more interested in the water flow – something I’ll test tomorrow.

Function over fashion

Once the “work” was complete for today, I set my attention towards more interesting matters – like watching the sunset in this beautiful area … Mother Nature’s Fantastic theatre in the sky.

Another fabulous desert sunset

Dec 21

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And We’re Off

Once again, Kelly and I are on the road with Airstream in tow, our destination being Arizona wherein we will rendezvous with Kelly’s family for the holidays, before spending some time exploring desert areas of the southwest.

Per usual, we decided to get a jump on the drive and we have landed in the modest town of Los Banos for the night. We are currently parked in the far reaches of a Walmart parking lot, accompanied by a half-dozen or so RVs and semi-trucks.