Much better than a tent

Our first night in the Airstream!

At the Olive Branch Campground; an interesting name. After filling our fresh water tank (more about that later) we were ready to move to our site. All of our things that we have been hauling around in the car for our stays in the hotels had to be moved into the Airstream. But then, we were ready for our first meal and overnight.

Our first dinner - black bean soup and salad.

After dinner we watched a little Downton Abby - season 4. 

Frederick modeling the famous recliners.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step

A journey of many thousand miles begins with hitching up the Airstream! We now have over two hundred miles under our tires and are staying in a hotel in Independence, Ohio. (There are no campgrounds open in this area.)

We woke up this morning and it was snowing - in Buffalo, of all places. But by 9am it had stopped and the sun tried to come out. We said good-bye to Kathryn without whose help this venture would have been a lot harder to launch.  She gave up a good part of her house to store our Airstream items.

Thank you for your help, Kathryn. We are grateful!

We then went to the campground and did our first hitch unsupervised; it only took us an hour. But, after stowing inside items for travel, we were on our way. We kept our speed to 55 mph and despite frequent snow squalls, sometimes producing white-out conditions, we made steady progress.

Hanging out with the "big boys" at the Pennsylvania Welcome Center.

Making an Airstream a home

I think that we will be able to travel with the second row of seats up!  I had thought that we would not have enough room in the Airstream for all the stuff we wanted to take and that we would have to store some of it in the Mercedes. But we have put away everything and the bins under the bed are empty and most of the storage in the bathroom is not being used.

Cleaning the adhesive from the warning labels that were plastered everywhere.

After putting all the stuff away we made a run to the store to buy a mattress pad, goo-gone, work gloves, and various other essentials. 

The Airstream came with some decor, a bedspread  and 8 pillows. Since we are using our own duvet we have packed away the pillows and bedspread for a later time.

Bedroom with Airstream decor.

Tomorrow we hit the road!

NO SHOEHORN NEEDED

What a relief!  I thought we would have to really pare down what we were planning to take with us "on the road". But, after spending a good part of the day arranging the kitchen/galley everything has a home with room to spare. I was planning on taking a picture of us loading the Airstream, but I forgot.  So in order to have a picture in this post, I'll revisit some from the past six weeks.

The First Public Library in the United States

When we were staying at the Residence Inn in Franklin, MA, there were pictures in our room of the Franklin Public Library which claims to be the "oldest public library in the U.S." We went inside for a visit.  I don't think this is the actual original building of the oldest library, at least it was not the one in our room picture. I think this building opened in 1904. 

A charming, very large, picture in the front entryway. The dog looked like Prince.

Some folks enjoying the Reading Room. 

Spring in Canada

Snow and arctic blasts! It's cold in Canada on the first day of spring!!

It turns out that Frederick is a superb trailer backer upper.  We had the opportunity to practice backing up today with Kirk Thomson, Andy's brother. When I was at the wheel and Frederick was giving directions, I backed the trailer right next to the cones and when Frederick was at the wheel, piece of cake! We feel so much better. We will keep practicing, but no more sleepless nights.

Practicing backing up at a vacant Ford plant parking lot.

We are now back at Kathryn's house. We drove our car back from London and our trailer was imported by Kirk. We met up at an RV park 5 miles from Kathryn's house.  It is still cold and snowy. Tomorrow we will move our stuff into the trailer. We are not staying in the trailer because it is still winterized, but we will have electricity and heat.

Kirk and Spock at the RV park.

Beauty and the Beast

It was an intense day of orientation, well, half a day. We got to the dealership shortly after 9am and were told that our beautiful Airstream was being cleaned. So we settled down in the customer waiting area to drink hot chocolate (Frederick) and figure out how to add pictures to this blog. Another customer, Dave Topley, was waiting for his 5th wheel to be readied. He and his wife are going full time and continuing to work out of their RV. He has a software company that provides personnel scheduling programs. They emigrated from England in 2007.  He gave us lots of camping/RVing tips.

Phil #2 (Phil #1 was our car mechanic in yesterday's pictures) began our in-depth orientation shortly before noon.  We got most of the way through the syllabus when we had to stop to fill out paperwork for exporting the trailer. Tomorrow, Kirk Thomson, brother of Andy, will tow our Airstream to a campground in North Tonawanda, just next door to Amherst, NY, where Kathryn lives. They have experience in exporting trailers across the border into the U.S. We will meet him at the campground.

About 5pm, Andy took us out for our first tow. And yes, it was raining. (Hey, it wasn't snow!)

Andy preparing to take us on our first tow.

First a little towing around the neighborhood streets of a suburb outside of London, then onto the freeway where I had to catch myself and back down from accelerating to 70 miles per hour.  We want to travel 55 - 60 mph when we are towing. Finally, gasp, we returned to the dealership where I backed up the trailer. The first time went remarkably well, not so much the second try. So tomorrow before we leave for the U.S. we will both practice some more.  

First Day

9am - Can-Am, London, Ontario, to meet John Watterton, our salesman, and our Airstream for the first time. Met Andy Thomson - the towing guru - the owner of Can-Am. Our car was whisked away to begin the installation of the Hensley hitch.

John gave us a brief orientation to the outside - propane, levelers, bike rack, awnings, sewer, water, electricity, etc. - in the morning and an interior orientation in the afternoon.

Phil will provide a more in-depth orientation tomorrow plus we will get some towing training.
We have been given a briefcase full of manuals (and a briefcase) to review this evening. I don't know how far I'll get - I'm exhausted.