Trip West to the Mother Ship

Here's a 48 Curtis Wrght and "The Trailer" of Steve and Amy

Inside shots of the 48....



Gotta love the 70s...



The boys loving the pond at the campground...

The 56 Overlander that Dave and Rhonda own...

Lots of Airstream Interstate vans in the factory parking lot....

The granddaddy.... the gold trailer was out in the back looking rough... it was off limits...

Ok, so last week, we departed for the Factory as reported in the last post. We started out around 330pm on Wednesday and headed for Morgantown, West Virginia. It was a good pull through Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia. Lots of hills through WV and finally, around 830pm, we arrived at Bill Jacobs place, a fellow WDCUer.Before we got to see Bill, I had passed his driveway up in the hills of WV and had to figure out how to turn around.The road kept getting narrower and narrower and finally we came up to a road to the left and thus a "T" in the road. Perfect. Zoe' got out, and as I was backing around, the only two cars in the county were coming down the road. I pulled back in to the little road to the left and waited. They passed. Zoe' was in the back, helping me back around and as I was backing, she was no where to be seen. Finally, after backing a few more feet, I stopped and got out... glad I did because she had fallen in a rut in the road and torked her knee really well and well... if I hadn't stopped, I would have backed over her....wow! Her knee is killing her still today. So, we CLIMBED Bill's driveway after turning around and going back down to his place, and up on top, it was great... nice and quiet. We talked for a bit, and then hit the hay! We got up at day break and were on the road at 645am as we wanted to be in Jackson Center for the 2pm tour. We pushed and pushed, but with three kids, it's hard to make great time. We were in contact with Rich Luhr who was at the Factory but was leaving. I knew if we did not make it today, we could tour the factory on Friday, but I wanted to see the factory in progress and the tour on Friday's is with no employees working as on Friday's, the factory shuts down before the tour. We made it into the Factory parking lot at 1245 and the Luhr's were on their way out as we were coming in. We parked in the Terraport and went into the factory store at 130pm. I was like a kid in a toy store. WE hit the tour. It was loud but Don, who started at Airstream in 1958, gave a great tour. I told Don we had our 1958 Sovereign in the Terraportand after the tour, he came over to the trailer to see it. That was a treat, to have a guy that could have helped build our trailer 50 years ago. Very cool. Here are a few pictures of the front of the Mother ship. After Don's tourof our trailer, I went back over to the Factory and met w/ Bob Wheeler, the leader of Airstream. That was great, to sit and talk Vintage with him, as Bob has a 50 Flying Cloud all restored by David Winick. Thanks Bob, that was a blast. We taped the VAP later that night and I did it from the Airstream parking lot - that was a hoot too!

On friday, we were up and we had the trailer ready to go. Where... well before we were to head for Milan, Mi to the Metro Detroit rally, the SOTR was going into service for wheel bearing repack. It went in and did not come out until 3pm... alot longer than we expected. That gave us the opportunity to headed over to Sidney, Oh to eat at The Spot and then to head east of town to the WBCCI headquarters to see what was there. The President was there in his classic Motorhome and I stopped in and talked for about 15-20 minutes. We talked change and Wisconsin and of course the WDCU! It was fun. We headed back to the factory and by 330pm we were on the road for Milan - only 2.5 hours away. About a half hour out, we stopped into a rest stop, and I jumped into the trailer for a snacl for the boys... AMMONIA is all I could smell. Ugh... it was really strong. I jumped into the truck and continued on.We pulled into the KC Campground around 530pm. Finally. I opened up the rear of the fridge access hatch, and there was all this yellow sludge.. our fridgewas dead on arrival. Bummer! Serious Bummer. I think Dave and Rhonda were surprised that we actually made it.
Well, our time at Milan was great. We hit a garage sale on Saturday and they had three very nice Coleman coolers, and I asked how much.. she said, $1 a piece..and all three coolers were what we used the rest of the trip. Perfect find! Open house was a blast as was the Potluck Saturday night. We had a blast at Milan. Thanks Dave and Rhonda. Meeting everyone was a blast, and we had alot of fun at the open house.

On Sunday, we got up at 6am, were on the road at 640am and arrived Quantico at 9pm. It was a long day! Whew, what a weekend. Perfect weather, great placesto visit and awesome friends! Thanks everyone.