Airstream Rally: Early Halloween, Seminars, Clubs, Libations, Oh My

Random observations from Day 2 and 3 of the rally:

There are 1,300 Airstreams here, and let’s say 1/3 have one dog and 1/3 have two dogs. That’s 1,300 dogs, right? Big ones, barking ones, tiny ones in people’s purses.

I’ve been sitting with folks from Arkansas and Tennessee at the Member Services desk, and I’ve taken up their Southern accent, although I don’t realize it until I’m talking on the phone with someone who’s not here. That’s made me chuckle.  (Can you hear my accent when I say “chuckle”?)

Some people sell their Airstream and buy others like they’re throw pillows. 

Intra-groups are Airstreamers who rally and caravan together, not because they’re from the same area but because they share an interest. They’ve been enjoying their own events here and organizing events for others. Stella’s sisters are women who travel alone, indie streamers are anyone traveling alone, future streamers travel with kids. There’s the vintage club, boondockers, mountaineers, pride streamers, and folks who do HAM radio. And, of course, fulltimers.  

What fulltimers talk about: Where do you winter? Do you have stuff in storage/have any kind of homebase/work from the road? We complain about laundromats, campfires, people yelling at each other in campgrounds. 

We share complaints we can’t tell our sticks-and-bricks friends:

How weird it is to fall off the radar of old friends because their lives keep going on without us after we hit the road.

What it’s like to have to do a data dump (say all what’s happened to each of us) each time we see them instead of being able to simply hang out.

How, with some friends, none of this matters.  

How beautiful this country is.

Seminars we’ve attended: Board games, Fitness on the road, Brake repair, Awning care, Boondocking, Writing, GPS jamming and spoofing. The last was just sitting with the speaker over beers so actually much more enjoyable than others. Seems that speakers who are good at this have something to sell; those whom you can’t hear and who mess up their slides are the ones you want to actually understand. 

There was a Halloween costume party, and seeing as how we don’t travel with costumes, Tracy volunteered to drive the golf cart shuttle, and I went along for the ride. Lots of giant flamingos, lots of Buc-ees (is that a chipmunk?). The costumes looked wild but the music was for people 20 years older than us. Still, so much fun driving around in the dark ferrying costumed folks back to their trailers. Volunteering for the win.

Grapes and Grains is an Airstream club of members camping together near breweries, distilleries, and wineries. Tracy drives a golf cart shuttle out to their section of the campground, and he says every third trailer or so has an outside bar and about ten people partaking in happy hour together each night.

They put on a tasting open to the rest of the Airstream club, and we spent the afternoon partaking of every style of beer you could imagine, plus a beautiful purple gin that turned pink when you drop anything acidic inside (like lime juice). The company was as good as the libations: probably 500 Airstreamers were there.

One night everyone put lights on their trailers and golf carts and bikes.  We did our best with the lights we have, and our neighbor gave us a fuse so we could turn our running lights on even though we weren’t hitched to the truck. The whole fairgrounds was aglow.  

Everywhere we go, people are talking about the hurricanes in the South, collecting donations, offering shelter, rerouting plans. We’re staying put for several more days: two more for the rally and one to catch our breath.