Getting ready for Alumapalooza 6

Alumapalooza 6 | Fun at the Airstream factory!

This will be our first trip in our new to us Airstream Classic 30. We've spent the last two weeks getting her ready, cleaning and stocking her up. We've had five years in an old Class C motorhome so it's not that new to us but it is different. We have to remember that we have a truck to store stuff in in addition to the AS(AirStream).

Last night I took off the "1" from the front and back of the AS. A previous owner had the WBCCI number of 1205 and still owned it. WBCCI gave us the number 7205 which means I had to replace the "1" with a "7". I was surprised how easy the "1" came off with just the use of a hair dryer. Now I have to prep the area and put up the "7".

I plan to do a lot of looking and asking questions this next week. What rear view camera are you using for one. It's very odd to drive without knowing what's behind me. I can only see if someone's there on a curve or if I drift a bit to the side. The 6 hour or so drive up to Jackson Center Ohio will be very interesting and informative.

We did a short test trip and found out the brake controller on the truck was causing the trailer brakes to 'pulse' and overheat. I installed a new one and will have to test that out one day this week before we head out. While I had the lower dash out I added a 3 amp hard wired dual USB port with an extra cigarette lighter outlet. That makes three of those which should give us enough to power everything in the cab while on the trip. I like to use my old Garmin GPS as a backup to the iPhone/iPad with Google maps. And we also discovered that the iPad mini sets perfectly on the dash boards extended cup holder without any special mount. There is another two cup holders in the console between the seats so it works out well... I think.

The truck is an old 2004 Ford F-250 with a V10 gas engine. Diesel would have given better torque and gas mileage but that would have been a wash because the fuel costs more. Repairs are also lots more so I decided to stay with what I know. So far I like the truck but gas mileage even without pulling anything is poor. About 8.8MPG around town and 12MPG on the road. I'm hoping for 10 pulling the AS which would be a huge improvement over the 7.5 in the motorhome. This trip will tell us what it really is.

After Alumapalooza we're planning on spending about a week coming back making stops at interesting places along the way.

If you want to get on my mailing list for almost daily updates while we're traveling send me a request at: frankhogg@gmail.com This is a low tech mailing list, actually just a small group of people interested in what we're doing.