The first adventure

So here it is, in the pasture, with Amelia. It sat here for about 2 years, with the only inhabitants a ton of icky bugs and some mice. Surprisingly, everything (thus far) still works! The box on the back was for a generator, but it sits empty at the moment. See the solar panel on the top, behind the air conditioner? I am dreading opening the awning.

We showed up to view the Airstream on Sunday, and decided to buy it on Monday. After our offer was accepted ($1600), we began to make arrangements to make the hour and a half drive down to Santa Cruz on Tuesday morning. Since we already had a small utility trailer, we were set up for towing. But on Sunday, I noticed that the Airstream used what looked like a much larger ball. After joining a Airstream forum (Airforums.com, what a great resource!!!) I learned all about towing an Airstream. It is, indeed, a 2 5/16' ball. And it is much better if you had a weight distribution hitch, instead of a simple ball hitch. Since these hitches are north of $400, we made the decision to forego it for now, with the intention of getting one before doing any real traveling. So we headed out to the trailer supply place to get a 2 5/16' ball, on the way to SC. Sounds simple, right? Too simple. The shank of a 2 5/16' ball is bigger than the shank of the utility trailer 2" ball, so we'll need a new setup. I estimated (incorrectly - there is a lesson here) that we would need about a 3" drop. But that was based on how the utility trailer rode behind the Avalanche. There in considerable difference between a 6000 pound trailer and a 250 pound trailer. Duh. So we get to the pasture, and realize that what we just spend almost $100 is not going to work at all. Luckily for us, the seller had a weight distribution hitch that he was willing to sell us. Sounds easy? Nah, where is the adventure in that? His truck sat about 8" higher than ours, and the hitch was not adjustable. So now we have this great towing giddy-up, and cant use it. Off to town to try and find someone to do some metal fab on this setup, to no avail. We end up driving about 50 miles to Camping World (the IKEA for the RV world) to spend yet another $100 on a new, fully adjustable, hitch-thing.

Back to the pasture, more coordinating phone calls with the seller, and an hour later we are pulling out of the pasture, headed home with our new Airstream, solidly in tow.

Let the adventure begin!