Fred & Emily
Evening, Peeps!
Fred and I have knocked out another snackbar video, this time taking you through the basics of replacing a popped rivet.
In my opinion this is a mandatory skill for any Airstreamer and it requires very few tools. I have replaced many rivets on the road so enjoy!
Emily
Evening, Peeps.
Way back in December we went up to St. George to do some winter Airstreaming and of course some mountain biking too.
Now behold, my very first video documenting the experience. I mean “mine” as in I edited this video.
Not Fred.
Me.
The editing experience has given me a whole new appreciation for Fred’s work, and this was a quick video! Anyway, we call these “Snack Bars” because the video’s only a couple minutes – about as long as YouTube analytics tell us people watch our videos anyway.
So enjoy this snack, peace out and see you soon.
Emily
Evening, Peeps!
The hard part about blogging after a trip is realizing all the things you should have done. For example, I wish that I’d realized I was going to start a blog. If I’d known that I would have spent much more time taking better pictures.
Case in point, the redwoods. They just don’t photograph well except in the vertical format, which annoys my photographer sensibilities. And then when you finally find the time to write about it the pictures you did bother take just aren’t quite up to the task – you have to scroooooolllll to see them all.
Still:
That’s a camper to the right there – imagine you’re standing right down at the base. Gawwwd they’re big!
So let’s catch up. The reason I’m talking about this is in mid 2017 we left Vacaville (close’ish to San Francisco) after completing some unexpected repairs to the Airstream and I was determined to get us to the redwoods come hell or high water.
To get there we took the 101 north to the Humboldt Redwoods State Park.
For our overnight we stayed at the Giant Redwoods RV & Camp right off the 101 where the opening picture above was taken:
I have to say, Giant Redwoods RV & Camp was just wonderful. The vibe was laid back and easy, there was lots to explore including awesome access to the South Fork Eel River. Sites were level, shaded and equipped with full services:
There was a nice new clean bathhouse and the owners were friendly and accommodating. They even placed some calls for us to work out a glitch in our Good Sam membership. I also super appreciated their laid back welcome for dogs.
The next day we drove up the 101 which hugs the coastline. Our destination was Redwood Meadows RV Resort which is just outside Crescent City.
Although the 101 hangs precariously to the seaside cliffs, and the trees are thick, you still get heart-stopping views like this one now and again. I mean, if you’re into that sort of thing ;o)
When we passed through Crescent City and managed a little time to explore the water. The bay is so shallow the water recedes extensively at low tide.
Finally we made our way to Redwood Meadows RV Resort, of which I managed to get exactly zero pictures.
Even without the pictures I can say only good things. The park has trees but it’s been substantially thinned so satellite reception, ironically, was just fine. Our site was level, clean and fully equipped. People were friendly, though evidently there had been some problems with theft in the past. Prices, in my opinion, we exceptional both for the time of year an ambiance.
The best thing about this campground though was location. Perched right on the edge of the Jedediah Smith Redwoods State Park the park offered convenient access to Crescent City and exceptional access to acres of redwoods. We made frequent trips into town for supplies but still felt very much “away from it all”.
Ah yes, my favorite topic. Mountain biking.
Located close to Redwood Meadows RV Resort is the Little Bald Hills Trail, which is located directly across the Smith River from the RV park. Strangely getting there involved a somewhat serpentine though jaw-droppingly picturesque route.
Part of the drive includes a covered bridge which I think might be made out of redwood. I sort of expected to see Ichabod Crane.
The trailhead begins at Howland Hills Road, which is surrounded by tall and dense redwoods. The road is narrow and winding but parking at the trailhead was spacious enough for half-dozen trucks.
From there things got intense. This trail runs at a grade sometimes over 20% and with the humidity running 100% within seconds the sweat was rolling off of me and attracting car-sized mosquitoes. But who cares, look at this place!
Interestingly one of the strongest memories I have from the redwoods is the smell. It’s a very distinctive pleasant sweet odor. I can still smell it when I think about it.
Flowers were uncommon, only sprouting up in rare patches of open sunlight.
The climb was absolutely brutal, requiring frequent dismounts due to fitness and thick dead-fall. Still, at the top I was greeted with a fairy like view. I found that the higher I got the redwoods gave way to more common pine and less fog.
Despite the murderous climb I rode this trail a half-dozen times during our stay. It’s not for the lighthearted but damn what an experience.
Our trip to the redwoods had the best possible outcome – it made us want more. We only spent a couple weeks there due to our soon-to-end travel so now we have a little seed germinating that will almost certainly take us back to there for a much longer stay. This place absolutely has “it” and we can’t wait to go back.
Fred & Emily
Evening, Peeps.
Riffing on our repair video here, we noticed during our last trip in the Airstream that there was a perceptible bow in the closet shelf. Looking more carefully at the design it became apparent the shelf was not supported in the rear where it meets the exterior shell. This left the shelf hanging precipitously in space, so even without much weight on it just fishing around for items on the shelf would cause the wood to sag.
Fred and I talked about various approaches to this problem and finally landed on the idea of a supporting bracket affixed to the Airstream shell itself and a floating “T” to hold the shelf up and away. We decided on the floating “T” because we felt like the Airstream designers probably left the shelf floating to give everything a chance to flex in transport – bolting the shelf directly to the Airstream skin would risk tearing it apart.
At last, armed with the idea pictured above we proceeded to manufacture a bracket and you can see the results in a four minute video below.
Hope you enjoy this Airstream DIY and peace out!
Fred & Emily
Evening, Peeps!
Yes, the blog still lives. But sadly, boring things like work keep getting in the way so we haven’t been producing as much content as we’d like.
Still, we found some time to address a fairly serious issue in the Airstream which is separating closet panels. While I would normally jump all over Airstream for their bad quality on this front, I have to say I think I understand what they were after.
The closet in its original form has sort of a “negative edge” appearance, which has almost no visible screws and a nice clean white appearance with few seams. When new, this approach is quite stunning and makes the closet look very spacious. Until the screws back out, the unglued pegs fail and panels start to bow.
Fred and I talked about various solutions to the imploding closet, like re-threading the failed wingy/doodads that made the negative edge possible in the first place, or running a white piece of angle along the closet edge. In the end you will see see our video below we settled on a very straight forward set of brackets to keep things in place.
Hope you enjoy this Airstream DIY and peace out!
Fred & Emily
Evening, Peeps!
If you’ve ever ventured into the dark scary forest of bike rack options for your truck, never fear, Fred is here to walk you though the options with a detailed review of his choice of the Yakima Bedrock base rack system and the RockyMounts BrassKnuckles bike mount. This particular combination doesn’t block the rear facing camera, can be used when towing an Airstream and doesn’t interfere with bed storage.
As always please share with your friends, subscribe and give us feedback.
Peace out!
Fred & Emily & Luke
Evening, Peeps!
Fred’s neighbor, Luke, got wind of this little YouTube experiment of ours and asked us if he could take a crack at editing a new episode. It would seem he has some experience in that arena. So we handed over some six hours of 4k video from our last ride out a the Hawes Trail System here in the Phoenix area and Luke went to town.
Now behold, a totally new take on how an Airstream MTB video should be! Please watch it and tell us if the new format works better, the same or worse. Or don’t say anything and just enjoy. We have no pride ;o)
Peace out!
