Duckweileer State Park, Los Angeles - March 20, 2014
I am pleasantly surprised so far. True, I did not set the bar very high. My goals were to A) make it to LA, B) not destroy neither myself, my truck nor my Airstream in the process. Before heading off to Kat’s cottage I conducted a little analysis to make certain I had cleared the bar. First goal, I was here. My objective was to arrive in LA on Thursday or Friday. When Kat sounded the alarm I literally and figuratively shifted gears, pushing on and arriving on Tuesday afternoon. Covering 1,500 miles in four days pulling 3.5 tons - A) was an unqualified yes. I gave myself an “A.”
My F-150 had suffered somewhat with the change in strategy
when I ignored those important Airstream axioms regarding speeding and lane
changes. In my world, however, if the
idiot lights aren’t shining up at you from the dashboard you are doing just
fine, but the truth is I had courted disaster. I checked the miles per gallon –
12.9 – Gulp! That goes for both me
and the F-150. With gas in LA at a
torrid $4.25 per gallon I knew my credit card was melting down. In comparison, gas in Texas is $3.39 a gallon
- the advantage of living in Texas, the heart of the petroleum industry. With good old hydraulic fracking and all
those good old boys driving their duallies around that big state, you can be
assured Texas will have the lowest gas. George
Clooney, on the other hand, probably sets California gas prices. All things considered I go give the F-150 a
realistic “C+”.
Moving on with the grading, I was bursting with proud
regarding the Airstream. Any shortcoming
– hot water, broken R pins, difficulty backing up were my fault not the
Airstreams. I was the one struggling
through the learning curve. Whenever I
finally figured something out, my first thought was, “Wow! That’s cleaver. This thing is well engineered.” I was about to give the Airstream a great big
fat A+ when I noticed something. Oh my
God. On the front of the Airstream, in
the beautiful, classic aluminum skin was a series of what I can only describe
as pings.
 |
| Ouch - The hail storm damage |
Were they there when I bought
it? I would have noticed. The Airstream was in magnificent shape for a
ten year old trailer. It had to have had some road wear, but I would have
certainly noticed them. Then it hit
me. “Holy Shit! The hail!” That thirty-second freak of nature hailstorm way back in Abilene had taken a toll on the front end of my aluminum bullet! I climbed up on the back of the hutch to get a closer look.
Suddenly, it was like teenage acne on Friday night. The pings were all I could see. What to do? Yes, I
was a teenager on Friday night. Would
anybody notice? Ha! That’s all they’d see.
Was there a quick fix – some sort of Aluminum Clearasil? Should I even touch it or just leave it
alone? I kept staring, occasionally squinting at my baby’s aluminum skin –
stepping up – standing back – getting a better angle.
Steve Jobs was again my only salvation. I typed Airstream Repair into my phone and up
popped Airstream Los Angeles. I went
into the Airstream, typed the information into my desktop Mac. In San Gabriel, these guys claimed an entire
service department devoted to Airstream.
I clicked “schedule an appointment” and filled out a form describing my
problem, clicked send and already felt better.
Like your Mom making an appointment for you at the dermatologist. Problem not solved yet but working on a
sensible solution.
With my damaged Airstream safely tucked into its ocean front
space, I locked her up and headed for Venice Beach. As I
drove away, I thought, -- story of my life
-- One “A” and “C+” and, damn it – an Incomplete. I felt like I was back in Boulder in the late
60’s – hoping like hell I could figure out how to turn the Incomplete into a
decent enough grade to salvage a 3.0 average. Yes, back in Boulder, Colorado.
There was nothing like Boulder, Colorado in 1968 and never would be again.
There was nothing like Boulder, Colorado in 1968 and never would be again.
No comments:
Post a Comment