Tag Archives: Airstream

Alumafiesta 2014 trip – Days 1 and 2 – Back to Arizona

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We had pretty much just got back from our trip to Arizona but I was thinking of another.  Roxie was/is getting close to starting a new job so I knew we had a bit of time.  Knowing that we had better head south in CA or AZ for some warmth I thought of Alumafiesta.  This is similar to Alumafandango that we attended in August.  This is another one of the 4 events that are put on by R&B, the others being Alumaflamingo and Alumapalooza.

I contacted the coordinator, Rich of R&B, to see if there were any cancellations.  He said that registration was still open.  We mulled it over a bit and decided to do it!  Back to Arizona again.  That was fine with Roxie and I as we do enjoy Arizona.  We were in.  The registration actually closed about a week after that.  Two weeks after decided to go we were leaving.

I have really started liking the idea of staying in truck stops.  I don’t feel uneasy in the slightest.  They are usually pretty level and often lit up well.

Day 1

We left on Saturday and I wanted to get at least 1/2 way.  That would be about 340 miles.  That turned out to be around Chiriaco Summit on I10.  I researched it on freecampsites.net and there is a place you can stay right by the General Patton Museum.  That was the plan dependent upon how we felt and amount of sunlight.

We got out early and stopped for breakfast down 99:

AF01

 

We headed over the grapevine and the truck did wonderful.  I have to keep it down to 60 going uphill as it will easily do more!  We did the 210 route to skirt the LA basin and did a quick dogleg over to I10.  Driving through here I recognized the area.  Here is the back story.

Many years ago we were driving in SoCal.  I remember we came across a truck wash with bays high enough for the trailer but they also had platforms on the sides of the bays so you could get to the roof of your trailer.  I have been searching for this spot ever since.  I always thought it was in Banning or Beaumont.  I was wrong.  As I was driving down I10 I saw a sign about a Self Service Truck Wash.  I got off the freeway.  There it was!  The one I had been searching for!!  It is the Valley Colton Truck Stop (in Colton).  We hosed off the trailer a bit and got back on the road.

When we got to the tentative stopping location, Chiriaco Summit, there was still a good deal of daylight left and I wasn’t too tired.  I always research a bit ahead for times like this and I knew that there were a few truck stops up ahead and even Quartzsite was not out of the question.  We pushed on and made it to a Flying J truck stop just 1 mile over the AZ border.  Roxie cooked up some good sausages, cheesy noodles and white corn kernels.  Yum.  Day 1 over.  400 miles under the belt.

AF02

Day 2

We got up early also, or at least we thought.  That one extra mile added 1 hour to our time.  That made the differential.  We got on the road not knowing how far we were going to go.  I checked out our friends’ blog (MaliMish) and found that they were boondocking outside Tucson.  A few Twitter exchanges later and we knew where they were.

Me being the eternal tightwad, in some ways, I thought another day of dry camping would be great!  We took the US85S cutoff of I10 to bypass Phoenix and got on to I8.  Boy this was a boring stretch!  Now I know how people fall asleep at the wheel.  This stretch would do it for you.

We passed by Picacho Peak State Park.  We mentioned how often we say we are going to stop there but never do.  Might have to fix that this trip…  We also passed by an Ostrich Ranch.  I asked Roxie if she wanted to ride an ostrich and that brought up an interesting exchange.

We made it to the Snyder Hill BLM boondocking site around 4pm.  Only about 280 miles today but we are here!

Saw 4 other Airstreams and setup a spot for us (near Aluminarium):

AF03

Other Airstreamers showed up and we talked a while with them with this great sunset behind us:

AF04

 

Roxie made some tacos this evening.  Very tasty!  End of Day 2.

Tomorrow we will head over to the KOA and get ready for the Alumafiesta.

Score – Ikea: 1, Airstream: 2

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In a previous post I talked about the things I have done to the trailer with some Ikea products.  Here is an update on how they have gone.

The clear winner at this point, and the way that Ikea got its’ point, were the fold up hooks.  These are wonderful and we will be adding more around the trailer for everyday living.

Ikea: 1, Airstream: 0

One issue we had was with the Ikea storage unit (the ‘pantry’) that we put in the wardrobe closet.  Underneath the wardrobe ‘floor’ are many components for the fresh water system including the water pump.  There are also many different wires, etc.  Since there are items that might need access the ‘floor’ is not secured.  I actually had to remove two knobs, that are used to lift it, to allow a flat surface.  Obviously I didn’t think much of it.  Until after we had lunch at Kramer Junction:

KJ01

 

In getting back on highway 58 I took a very bumpy route.  It jarred the truck and trailer quite a bit.  I didn’t realize how much until we stopped again and looked inside.

In our wardrobe the ‘floor’ had come off of one edge of the supports (the one nearest the hall) and had fallen into the are underneath.  This caused the ‘pantry’ to lean forward to the point where it almost was whacking the mirrored wardrobe door.  The preliminary fix was to empty the wardrobe, reseat the ‘floor’ and put everything back.  I knew it would happen again.

It did.  I now needed a fix and before it broke one of our doors.  The solution was in Salome, AZ.

The path I took was kind of remote and the towns were relatively small.  I decided a couple of screws through the ‘floor’ into its’ supports would do the trick.  Alas I brought no screws or phillips bit for my drill.  Family Dollar store #9045 came to our rescue.  I was able to buy a screw set and a multi-tip screwdriver.  I used 3 screws and one of the tips from the screwdriver in my drill.  Nice and solid and no more problems!

Ikea: 1, Airstream: 1

The final Ikea issue was the toilet paper holder.  If you look at the post mentioned above, go ahead I will wait, you will see that we were not happy with Airstreams toilet paper location.  We got a holder from Ikea and I mounted it under the cabinet in the bathroom.  We found two issues with this.  First is that we could not put anything on the counter under or in front of it.  It blocked easy access.  The second item is that it came off during travel.  We were putting the roll back on every time we stopped!  Here is our new location:

TP01

We haven’t road tested it yet but I hope we don’t hit bumps bad enough to pop this off!  We will see soon however as we will be back on the road to Alumafiesta pretty soon.

Final Score:
Ikea: 1, Airstream: 2