Rick felt something hit the wheel and both of us instantly knew it was tire problems. Luckily, we were just passing an on-ramp on I-81, so we managed to pull over towards the end of the merge lane (giving us a lane’s width of space to the freeway. We rolled out the spare, but soon realized that our jack kit had the wrong wrench–but stores were still open, so Rick left me with the trailer. The weather was perfect, so I sat down on the tire, pulled a coke out of the fridge and started reading my book.

Oddly, it really wasn’t unpleasant sitting on the side of I-81. The only perplexing thing was that passing big rig trucks kept on honking at me.  Before too long, Bob and Sue Chatman passed and pulled over. Bob pulled his wrenches out to try, but before we made it to the trailer, Rick had arrived. In short order, the tire was changed, using Bob’s extra long pry bar for extra torque.  We got on the road again as the skies opened up…for yet another shower.

Lots of good fortune–fairly easy switch, nearby hardware suppliers, good weather, deep pullover space, even at a time when we weren’t in a particular hurry!  The worst part–the gash to our belly pan–isn’t really that awful–we plan to replace it when we do the rear end–in the meanwhile, we can patch it. Mostly, it left us feeling that we can handle something that had given us silent dread for a long time.

Oh, and it made getting new tires a large priority!

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Looking online, I failed to find any suitable alternatives at flag retailers, who seemed mostly targetted to selling poles people would permanently install outside a home.

Over vacation, I went to Jazzfest and afterwards a light went off in my brain. This event has lots of concerts on many stages. Many groups brought portable flags to identify their group in the crowd. This being an artsy crowd, banners and flags tended towards the creative, many with kite accessories like spinners and drogues.

So, on return, I started researching and found that indeed, kite retailers sell flagpoles–portable flagpoles–at more reasonable costs. Researching, the best option appears to be the PX Heavy Duty Banner/Windsock pole. It extends from 45″ to 13′, has a swivel attachement eye at the end of the stick and banner tie-off clips. At $24.99 it seems like a pretty good deal.

Another option is using a telescoping fishing pole. Now these are dead cheap–$6.79 for a black 13′ pole that collapses to under 40″–and it comes with a line guide. However, I’m pretty sure this doesn’t have a whole lot of rigidity.

I’m going to try a hybrid solution. Since I have a five hole flag holder, I’m thinking I’ll order three of the heavy duty poles and two of the cheap ones. I can use the three for general use, the two inexpensive ones for lighter flags on the side. All totaled with shipping and handling, this puts my total cost for five poles close to $100. Of course, if I went only with the fishing poles, that could be under $50, but I just don’t know if they’d bend too much (then again, a flag is hardly as heavy as a fish).

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With all supplies on hand, this is a tedious, but easy job for anyone comfortable with a sewing machine. I made my curtains out of a shirting cotton with lycra mixed in, so sewing it is a little tougher than regular cotton. To protect the fabric from UV deterioration, I lined the fabric with blackout material–a polyester fabric coated with a rubberlike material to block out as much light as possible. That is a little more expensive, but I found it actually a bit easier to sew than muslin. My curse came in matching design to the carrier system…

For a brief time in the early 60s, trailer curtains were held up by a snap system. My initial obstacle when trying to replace the curtain was getting new snaps: trailer snaps are slightly different than standard snaps sold at fabric stores. After lots of searching, I found that you could get webbing with snaps preattached that worked (available from Beacon Fabrics).

My actual curse came from wanting triple pleated curtains, which seemed to be more vintage appropriate. Difficulty was, there was a little variability in pleats and there was no effective way to sew the snaps on by machine. Result–I ended up following the laborious effort of sewing on all the snaps by hand.

This past Cherry Blossom Rally, I got the chance to see the inside of Colin Hyde’s personal trailer from that same era. This unit is remarkable because it was kept in covered storage and was virtually unaltered from its original condition. Checking out the original curtains, I noted that they were a turquoise and brown plaid-with single pleats! That had the effect of reducing the fabric requirement–and made it possible to machine sew in the snap tape (due to the lower fuss factor).

Now that I only have one set of curtain (for my smallest window) left to make, I will stick to the three pleats. Anyhow, they do look better–but if I decide to make new ones, I’ll probably go with single pleats!

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A nice interior can hide many problems. Secret problems. Bad ones. Our attitude amazes many friends when we show with pride how we’ve transformed that lovely picture into this:

Getting to this part took a whole lot of hard work. Results of that accomplishment, however, is fairly subtle. It’s not showy, but it is significant.

The difference is substantive. What we have now is solid…and eventually we’ll reinstall all that pretty stuff once again! Nobody will call it a polished turd!

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Rick is a portrait photographer, a musician and a dad with a deep love for the traditions and heritage that makes New Orleans such a special place. His photographs of the local celebrities are magic. You can feel the music coming right off the paper. Tania is a free spirit, too. She works here as a teacher–and has a true passion for exploration. She can’t wait until Rick finishes their Safari and they hit the road. I hope their path comes North. I’d love to show Marsalla around Richmond and Washington DC.

Three years on and Hurricane Katrina still is a deep presence in this city. Coming down, I wondered if it would be treated as somewhat taboo. It isn’t: the people here are legitimately proud of their resilience and eager to share their stories, which are truly inspiring. However, this is an area that has transformed. Certainly, the leading industry is tourism, which is hardly surprising. The other major industry is higher education–and that has given the neighborhood we’re staying in a dominant college town feel. Small funky restaurants. A vibrant arts scene. I don’t know if this was as deeply characteristic before the flooding, but it makes the environment truly enjoyable, even as the area rebuilds.

Much waits to be done, though. The city is filled with empty houses waiting for reconstruction and occupancy. In this mid city area, almost all the historic homes have survived, but so many are in need of attention. There is concern about owners who have procrastinated rebuilding for so long, choosing to remain in trailers. However, the vibe here is distinctly upbeat: the optimism is infectious here.

Yesterday local Rick Olivier hosted a little Airstreaming get-together. To our surprise, Airstream Life editor Rich Luhr and his family happened to be in the area. They brought their companions, Adam and Susan from Maine. It was great catching up with Rick and Eleanor, whom I hadn’t seen for three years, since our whole restoration effort started. Rick invited over neighbors and Jim and Donna Clark.

Earlier this winter Rick shot photos of Jim and Donna’s 2005 Airstream at a local marina which will appear in the summer’s issue of Airstream Life. What I learned from Donna was that the article won’t tell the truly epic back story: after the shoot, it took an hour to extricate their trailer from the tricky parking spot. Then on the way home, Jim took a turn a little tight and their son heard a noise. A few yards later they realized they had a flat tire. Jim changed the tire, looked up and realized something more: the axle had bent! Somehow they limped home…and ordered a new axle.

Drinking ice cold sprites out on the porch, snacking on veggies, talking with the girls and watching the palms move in the gentle southern winds was just about heaven. Later, Rick gave us tours of his Airstream: again, we got to view an amazing bathroom renovation. We are postponing that part of our own effort because it is the least critical repair ahead. However, seeing what Rick…and Frank and Rob have done is downright inspiring. I can’t wait to get there now either!

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The rally was like going home. Most old friends were there, others were missed, new friends felt like old. We ate, we talked, we dreamed, we celebrated. Kids played, dancing with kites and remote control aircraft. It rained, as it always does at every CBR–and amazingly, our trailer did not leak, though we know there are holes that can seep. Funny stories were shared and challenges levied.

After a day of beautiful sunsets and warm breezes, we headed home, excited for our next rally.

Then we got to work. Many mundane responsibilities were left to hang for us to work on the trailer–and we had to get things in relative order before heading off for vacation.

Now we are in New Orleans, enjoying a few days of indulgent laziness before getting to work on rebuilding. But more on that later…it’s vacation now and we are enjoying it!

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Yes, our trailer hit the road! It took a couple more days than we anticipated…involving a whole lot of clearing out and a fair amount of work, but we managed to get her moving on Saturday morning, just in time for the last day of the Cherry Blossom Rally.

Getting to that point was laborious. It took a whole evening to just clear out the tools and parts that we’d accumulated in there. I cut and installed several belly pan patches, finished packing insulation while Rick wired up the electric system. Rick fabricated a more stable steel channel reinforcement for the doorway. We did lots of structural riveting, removed the handing gas lines and put repair rivets on the bottom of the belly pan. The tires were re-pressurized, we tested electric, wired in the jack and hit the road.

Two efforts did not lead to success, mostly because we lacked of the right tools and fasteners. After taking on a very laborious task of cutting the bottom of the front wall down 2/16″ to match our now slightly higher floor, we tried to reinstall it. However, lacking the correct clecos, we could not make the holes in the old wall match up. We left a few rivets in and decided to wait to get the right ones later. Our second problem was re-attaching the front banana wrap–ie, the lateral aluminum strip on the exterior separating the belly pan from the upper skin. Our problem there was that we quickly realized that this would require longer rivets than those available from our local big box store. A drive to our local Fastenal distributor revealed that these would be a special order item. So, that, too, would have to wait.

We finished at 10:30 pm Friday night. Realizing it was too late, we crashed and slept very soundly. First thing in the morning, we hitched her up, sucked in our breath and watched the trailer finally roll.

So, all in all, we managed to accomplish what we felt was a critical milestone: we got our trailer to this year’s Cherry Blossom Rally. Riding behind it in a passenger car, I could observe that it rode with a noticeable degree less bounciness than it had in 2005.

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So, with little time ahead, we swung into action this weekend. My first order of action was finishing up the panel to seal up the old furnace hole. Over the week, I’d taken a file (properly called, to my endless amusement, a bastard file) to smooth off the edges and round the corners off. It’s funny how rounding off the corners really transformed it from a crude piece of metal into something that looked like a real panel. I measured in a half inch and marked hole points every 3″. With that, I slept–something I did a lot of in my fevered state.

Saturday, knowing my tendency to skate a drill on smooth aluminum, I decided to work slowly to guard against error. I started by drilling small holes in my marked spots with a very small drill bit. Then I took a #20 drill bit (one the size of Olympic rivets) and widened the outermost top holes to full size. Then Rick held it up to the hole while I looked for visual fit. When it looked right, I took a Sharpie pen and marked the holes on the skin of the trailer. I drilled in those holes, gooped the back of the panel with vulkem caulk and set my first rivets. Then I continued drilling out holes, gooping rivets with vulkem and cranking them in place. By far, the hardest part was the bottom, which curved over the belly pan. We tried bending the edge with a broomstick and a pvc pipe–with little result. Finally, by working together, one person forcing the panel to curve while the other riveted, we managed decent success. Completion was a cooperative result and we were both pleased with the result.

Today, we focused on completion. Rick finalized wiring while I attended to insulation. I put Reflectix insulation under all of the exposed exterior panels, sealed it with aluminum tape and filled in the gap with fiberglass batting. Most of the panels are done–but we ran out of batting, so I will have to finish up tomorrow. Overall, it was an exceptionally tedious job. There are few ways to make endless hours of taping and cutting sound exciting. However, the notion of gaining some decent warmth made it worthwhile.

After replacement of a couple of interior rivets gone awry, we quit for the evening. Tomorrow we reattach the inside wall. Then getting this trailer back on the road will start to become a real possibility…

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This is a view we’ve wanted to see for two years!

We still have a zillion bolts and screws to drive down (isn’t that what Sundays are for?), we have lots of other things to attend to (including the very dead battery in our tow vehicle) but our front end floor is in.

Ironically, it wasn’t until Wednesday that we realized why we’ve been having such a hard time getting this stuff in…the 3/4″ ply we used (we think it was that thickness, but remember–we bought it two years ago) was a little thicker than the old flooring material. If you notice, we’ve started planing edges to match. Well, we are still learning…

Our approach to installing the flooring was by partial sheet. Full sheets are a stronger option–but not always most practical for installation. For us, partial sheets were a necessary compromise: I cannot handle full sheets of plywood by myself–in this marine grade, it’s just too heavy–and finally, smaller pieces are just easier to fit.

We solidified the joints by battens, strips of wood screwed underneath, mating up the new pieces to the old flooring. It’s a technique we learned from other members of our unit of the Airstream club–and it seems to work. It has involved a whole lot of screw setting (and we still have a lot more to do). However, now that the new floor is down, it’s feeling really solid. That’s very, very nice.

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