I have a 1968 Airstream Caravel 17′ travel trailer.
I bought it in 2003 and camped in it that summer. Then in 2004 I did a partial floor replacement, welded up cracks in the frame, replaced the axel and replaced the fridge and heater, and did a few other miscellaneous things, but left it as original as possible. I have been enjoying it like that ever since, with tweaks here and there. It is time for an update.
The original layout was a dinette in the front, and a gaucho on the side, which is a couch that pulls out into a bed. My issue with the gaucho has always been 1) we have to pull it out every night and put it away in the morning. 2) the bed design is terrible and the legs fall off frequently while you are on it and then you have to get up and put them back in. 3) If you sleep with your heads at the back end the heater blows in your face all night, and you are right next to the bathroom with it’s bathroom funk (we keep it clean, but be real, RV toilets can be funky sometimes).
We like the dinette for sitting at and eating, playing games, etc, but much of the time we will have it folded down into a lounging area.
Barclay enjoying the dinette lounge while camping.
So I decided to do some upgrades to the layout. This was a hard decision for me, because I have always taken pride in my trailer being original, and just how people have enjoyed it since 1968. But my choices were coming down to selling it and let someone else enjoy its originality, and buying another trailer to remodel to my taste, OR redo it so I could enjoy it more. I decided to stick with ‘the devil I know’ and do a remodel.
The plan is to build a two person dinette on the side, and put a permanent bed in the front. The dinette will also fold down into a lounging area, and will have storage in the seats. None of the existing utilities will be moved, so the dinette must work around the existing ‘utility tunnel’ against the wall where the wheelwell is, and the water pipes and wiring runs. The bed will not disturb the existing water tank, and will lift up for access to the two big storage areas in the corners. I think I will leave the center section of the bed open because it is handy to be able to store things under it for quick access, Well, maybe half of it anyway, if things go too far back you’d have to crawl under to reach them.
So that is my plan. It is not undertaken lightly, I put a lot of thought into it. Because I love my trailer, and all the good times it has given us. I want it to be our vacation home for many years to come.
I started by piling the entire interior of the living space into the garage, so I had room to measure and work in the trailer, and got started building the dinette.
Mighty guarding the pile of trailer interior that buried my kayak.
One last trip before winter hits! We decided to knock off another National Park by heading to Southern Oregon and see Crater Lake.
We should have seen Crater Lake a long time ago. Both of us saw it on family trips when we were kids. We went to college in Klamath Falls, OR, and considered going to Crater Lake because it was really close, but we always ended up spending our free weekends at Tule Lake and the Lava Beds Caves. Crater Lake was always just something I had a vague idea of where it was, and we figured we’d get there sometime. We literally drove right by it everytime we drove to school and back home. But who knew after college we’d move to another state and not get around to it for <cough> 30 years?!
On the way down we stopped for lunch and Dave showed off our ability to fit into any parking lot where he can find two parking spots end to end. This is the real reason we will probably never move up to a bigger trailer. It is so convenient when travelling to know we should always be able to find a spot to park it.
On the way down the road climbed over a mountain and as it got higher, things got colder, and by the top it was sprinking snow on us, and Dave was getting skeptical about my trip planning. The weather said it was supposed to be nice all week, so I tried to keep the faith. The trip took a little longer than expected so by the time we got to Diamond Lake, it was dark. It was also only a week out from it closing for the season, and it looked buttoned up, and completely empty as we drove past the closed ranger station and wound through the empty park. We found a spot not far from the only other trailer there, right on the lake, and didn’t even bother to unhook for the night. We checked our phones and found we had no service. I made a quick dinner and Dave went out to get something from the cooler in the car, and walked back in and announced it was snowing! We went to bed and it was the darkest and questest place I think I’ve ever been, as the snow drifted down around us, nervous to see what it would look like by morning.
To our relief, the snow didn’t stick, and the roads were clear. If we had woke up to a foot of snow, with no cell phone coverage and no ranger on duty, I’m not sure what we would have done next. We decided to pull out and head up the road to my backup campground, Lemolo Lake KOA, which was even farther off the main roads, but for some reason had cell coverage and was staffed.
On the way we realized we were low on gas, and it was getting a little sketchy for driving even farther off the beaten path and then all the way back to the main highway. Luckily there was a gas station between the two campgrounds, so we stopped there first. When we got there there were two cars waiting at the pumps, and one person was walking back to their car from the building, so we figured it was open. One car left and we pulled up and waited. In Oregon you have to wait for the attendant to pump your gas. And we waited, and waited, and waited. Finally Dave went to the building and the person in the other car said she had used the phone to call the attendant, and he was on his way (from wherever he lived, apparently somewhere nearby). A couple minutes later a pickup truck pulled up and the gentleman got out and got us all gassed up! They probably don’t get a lot of customers this time of year!
We headed up to the KOA, and got all settled in. It cost a bit more, but now we had full hookups, electricity, cell service, and a little store on site. Everything we needed. I felt a lot better about leaving the trailer unattended there. There was even another Airstream.
We were finally ready to head off to see Crater Lake.
Crater Lake is inside of a mountain that has blown it’s top, leaving a crater in the middle, which filled with water. So at the slightly higher elevation of the mountain, the snow from the previous night stuck around a bit longer.
What a treat to see the rim covered in snow! I would not have planned a trip if I had known there would be snow, because we have had some bad experiences with snow driving, and the snow piles on up here in a hurry. In fact the East Rim drive was closed by snow just a few days after our visit!
For this beautiful, sunny morning, it was a winter wonderland!
The blue-green water around Wizard Island was stunning! Even more so than the photograph could capture. And..are those fish down there in the shallows?
We worked our way around the rim, stopping at all the overlooks and chatting with folks from all around the country who had come to see this natural wonder. Everyone was just so happy to be there, and amazed by the beauty of it all!
Sunglasses selfie!
We hiked up to the Phantom Ship overlook. This rock formation is apparently bigger than it looks – 16 stories tall! It is the oldest part of the original volcano – 400,000 years old!
Crater Lake is all about shades of blue.
As we went further East, we got a glimpse of cool rock formations and colorful bands showing different layers in the rock. I wish I knew enough geology to read what it is telling us!
On the east side of the lake we were eye-to-eye with Mt Scott. Looking at a map, and then looking at it later from Highway 97…(with help from Google Earth)
You could be driving down Hiway 97, see this little mountain, and not have any inkling that Crater Lake is right there on the other side of it! You are looking right at Crater Lake!
All you have to do is change your perspective a little. Imagine the view if Mt Mazama was still there!
From up there by Mt Scott we could see across the valley to the North, where we had come from. That lake in between the two mountains (Mt Bailey on the left, Mt Thielsen on the right), in the center of the picture, that’s Diamond Lake, where we stayed the first night. The KOA is a bit further North.
Between Crater Lake and the campground there was a lot of burned forest. Mt Bailey is barely visible between the charred trunks.
That night in the trailer I could just not get comfortable. The heater was squeeking, the foam matress was too thin, the leg kept falling off the gaucho (I’ve been putting up with that since we bought it), and I just wasn’t having it. I tossed and turned and in the morning we thought about what else we wanted to do down here, and decided…nothing. We came for Crater Lake, and we saw Crater Lake. We had it pretty well covered. So we packed up, and headed home.
So the next project on my list will be a remodel to fix several things about the camper which will make it much more comfortable to use next season. I’ll be sure and post to the blog as I do them.
Third trip out in a year, pretty good for us. The Airstream had it’s new front window cover and we were ready to go!
We might not have gotten this trip in, as campgrounds were booked full early on, and I am a last minute planner. But I saw someone on the WA Airstreamers group on FB had reserved a spot at Rasar State Park they couldn’t use, and I jumped up and said I’d take it, not even knowing really where this park was, so it was my lucky find. It turns out this is a really popular park all summer, so this was a particularly lucky chance for us to try out a place during peak season when we would normally be home hiding from the crowds.
Mid-trip stop for lunch. It’s always nice to have the trailer to eat in while on the road, especially during these crazy covid times when many places still didn’t have indoor dining.Nice, heavily wooded state park with big spots. Our favorite kind!
This was our first time up in the North end of WA, and it checked off one of our boxes for National Parks, because this is North Cascades country.
This was going to be a road trip within a road trip, because the North Cascades are different from your usual park. Many of the best spots are only accessable after long hikes. The views from the road are just peek-a-boo peeps at the beautiful rugged mountains in the distance. Much of the park is wilderness area, and has to be hiked into, and unfortunately neither of us felt we were up to hikes that long.
The first town we stopped in was Concrete, and the only activity going on in town so early in the day was folks lining up to pick up food at the food bank. A reminder that not everyone was doing so well in this post-covid world. We walked up and down it’s single main-street, and went to check out the historic bridge over the Baker River before heading on our way.
We stopped to check out some old-growth forests
It was really hot, like in the 90s, which was more than expected even for hiking in shady forests. We had a nice little hike around a park with old growth trees, and got a bit turned around, though we could hear the highway not far away so we finally found our way back to the car. I was starting to wish I’d brought water though.
We continued exploring along Highway 20, just stopping wherever it looked interesting along the way.
Had a pretty view for the eating the lunch I had packed.Peek-a-boo views.On the way back to the campground we stopped at a wildlife overlook and were rewarded with spotting a faraway elk!
Heading the other direction – towards Mt Baker, via Baker Lake.
They grow the trees tall out here!Amazing views around every cornerShould have brought our kayak.Hmm, maybe we’ll just stay close to the car!Panorama from above the Mt Baker Ski Lodge – breathtaking!Picture Lake
Super beautiful views up there, and I think that was all just the rugged mountains around Mt Baker, we didn’t quite get to where we could see Mt Baker!
We only had a couple days to explore, three nights at the park, then headed home. Definitly a fun place to visit, we could do it even longer next time. Maybe start at one end of Highway 20 and take the trailer to a campground further down as we go, just check out the entire N end of the state. This was a great little get-away though. I never get tired of looking at majestic mountains off in the distance.
I caused the problems with our broken windows on our last trip (see previous post) by removing the old front window rockguard off of our 1968 Caravel so I could rebuild it, but I didn’t get it rebuilt in time before the trip. Here is a picture of the original rockguard. As you can see, it was completely opaque, but it started out clear, back when it was new in 1968. It also had a few holes knocked into it from rocks over the years already.
I removed it from the trailer, which was easy to do, as it was not riveted on, it was only screwed on. likewise the two extendable arms were screwed to the trailer, and then to the inside sides of the cover, near the bottom. The shape of the cover allowed the arms to sit inside the cover when it’s folded down. This was probably the trickiest part of the whole build.
Inside of the rockguard after removal
The rockguard needs about 1 3/4 inches clearance inside for the arms to fit under it.
So I removed the plastic insert from the thin aluminum frame of the rockguard, and built my new aluminum frame to sit inside of the original auminum frame. That original frame would be key to locating the original hinge and latches so the new rockguard would fit right back into place on the body of the trailer without drilling any new holes.
I picked up these pieces of aluminum angleTwo of them together make this sort of Z piece. I riveted those together.
Then I riveted those pieces into the original frame with pop rivets. It was all looking really good, until I thought about the arms.
Oh shoot! I didn’t think about the arms when I selected my angled pieces!
Back to the hardware store.
Off to the hardware store for 1 1/2 inch angle pieces.The first attempt fit well, so I used those pieces to mark the new ones and cut them to length.Rivet it all back together again.Finally, lay in the lexan and pop rivet it into place as well.Finally, reinstall it on the trailer!Install the arms, and everything fits like it was meant to be there!
I also replaced the weatherstripping on that front window and glued the lexan sheet into the hinge (which still refuses to come apart) with ParBond. It seems to be solidly seated in there now, and I don’t think it will come out. It opens and closes just like the glass window did.
All done! It really wasn’t that difficult, and I wish I had finished it before heading out on that trip and breaking the front and side windows. It was mostly a gumption block – sitting there in the garage staring at it and trying to puzzle out the right way to do it. When I finally jumped in, I did it wrong by using that angle piece that was too small, but at least it was easier to do it the second time with the right-sized angle pieces! It fits, it looks good, and I can see out of it from inside the trailer without having to open it up. And to think this is a project I’ve been mulling over for the past 10 years or so!
We planned a camping trip to Whidbey Island in May, to complete the vacation in October that got cut short for Barclay’s illness. So I started preparing the Airstream by tackling some of the issues I found on our last trip.
I polished up the old Plexiglass window
I replaced missing rivets
I lubed and tightened up the door latch.
I pulled off the broken front window guard so I could rebuild it. I didn’t get it done in time, but I figured that was ok, lots of Airstreams travel without front window guards. Surely we could make ONE trip without ours.
We were all ready to hit the road for an adventure. But when we finally hit that road, we were cruising along about 50 miles from home when I looked in the rearview and wondered why the curtains were waving around inside the trailer?
OH NO!
And the broken front window let in so much air going down the highway that it also blew out our old plexiglass window!
OH NO!!!
We pulled over in Castle Rock and carefully cleaned up all the broken glass we could with the limited tools available in the trailer, swept debris up off the road. Then considered our options and turned around and headed home.
Once we got home I started taking stuff apart while Dave ran to the hardware store and picked up some lexan.
I easily cut it to size on the table saw and installed the side window. It could probably use new weatherstripping as well, but good enough for now.
The Front window had other ideas. Nothing we could do could get the hinge apart. You need to take the two piece hinge apart to attach the new window with adhesive tape to the hinge. But the hinge was absolutely not coming apart.
Dave and I tried impact drivers and screw drivers and soaked the screws in penetrant and even tried to drill them out, and nothing was working. So we called Scott over.
He tried everything from special screw extractor bits to the dremel to heating it with a torch, and still nothing was working, and we didn’t want to set the trailer on fire, so as the sun was getting low we pried all the broken glass out of the hinge and slid a piece of lexan cut to size up into it, put the clips on the bottom, and because of how much flex it had, we fastened a piece of aluminum across the middle to hold it in place (since the top wasn’t actually stuck in with adhesive like it should be).
So we had replaced 2 windows in 5 hours, and were completely exhausted. We slept at home that night and the next morning we were ready to roll again.
With our newly replaced windows, we headed up to our reserved campsite at Fort Casey on Whidbey Island. We were a bit worried we would loose it, as the campground was fully booked, and we were arriving a day late, but the nice lady at WA State Parks assured us it should remain ours as long as we arrived by 2pm, so we made an effort to scoot up there with a bit of expediency.
Typical grey Seattle day. You can just see the Space Needle peeking over the stadium.
We got there and got our spot in the back row, furthest from the water, and it was..unimpressive. We didn’t have hookups, and we didn’t have a view, in fact our door faced a row of bushes away from the water. And there were three rows of RVs to look past to see the water. So, not as exciting as I had hoped. I had gotten the impression online that the rows were tiered, but the park was quite flat. So it was ok when we first parked, and we had a nice view across the Sound, but it quickly filled in.
Once we arrived we went and explored Fort Casey a bit. We had seen the Fort itself last time we were there, with it’s massive WWII gun turrets pointed out over the Sound. This time we went by the Admiralty Head Lighthouse, which is a pretty old Lighthouse, no longer in use.
Once we were settled we had a pretty nice trip, exploring around the island. We went to a beach and watched eagles fishing.
That dot halfway down the beach is a blad eagle. I wish I’d had a longer lens.Dave stayed in the warm car and snapped a picture of me freezing trying to capture the eagle passing overhead.
We also saw this:
We had a chance to chat with some fellow Airstreamers back at the park, since there were 5 Airstrems there! A Basecamp, two newer trailers, and a couple Class Bs down at the end! That’s a lot of Airstreams! Chilling out reading a book one afternoon I heard people walking by saying ‘look at the old one, it’s so little!’ That’s us alright!
Fort Casey is right next to the Coupeville/Port Townsend Ferry, which was pretty exciting.
We did take the Ferry over to Port Townsend for a day, which was fun. Drove all around, looked at the cool vintage buildings and neat little houses. We also drove out to Point Wilson LIghthouse. I wish we could have stayed for a perfect shot, since we had such dreary skies. It looks like you could get a really neat photo with the right skies and Mt Baker in the background.
My photographic goal for the trip was to get at least one really good photo with a lot of negative space. I kind of lean towards that style anyway, and then this old house caught my eye, out by itself on the end of a row, right up against the ocean, with this beautiful big field in front of it, and not a cloud in the sky.
Perfect.
So ends another fun little trip in our trailer. Sometimes I feel like folks want to know more about camping in a vintage Airstream, but it was nothing to talk about, since everything worked, it was just a cozy place to read and take naps, and cook dinners between explorations, and it kept us warm at night.
On the way home we stopped for doughnuts, and easily fit trailer and truck into two parking spots end to end, which is the greatest arguement for keeping this trailer anyone could make. Easy peasy, and we were off on our way in no time. Whidbey Island was a real treat, very beautiful, lots to see and do, and I’m sure we will be back.
First trip of the year, just a short run from home to see if everything was working. It was! Trailer kept us warm and cozy even though we had constant downpours. There was a tiny little drip at one of the windows, but no big deal. It was raining like a car wash outside, so not too surprising.
I had intended to do some fishing, because in the winter the perch and crappie all come hang out in the canals like the one behind the campground. I came here for a WDFW fishing clinic a couple years ago and caught a bunch of fish! But the constant rain made fishing sound like less fun than what we decided to do, which is go explore the nearby towns of Castle Rock and Longview.
Longview has a neat museum that covers the history of the area, and quite a bit about the Mt St Helens eruption in 1980. The fellow at the museum was happy to answer questions and come by to add his knowledge to the exhibits when he wasn’t busy.
It felt really weird to finally be out camping and chatting with neighbors, and checking out each other’s trailers after all the time spent avoiding people during covid, but hey, we’re all vaccinated now, right? Well, so far, so good! The folks next to us had one of those faux ‘Vintage’ trailers, which looked really comfy inside. Looked vintage, but with all the modern goodies. I was a little jealous!
I’m hoping we will be able to get the Airstream out for more trips this summer. We keep meaning to, and every year something seems to stop us. While camping at Deception Pass I got the idea of making a sticker wall for places we’d gone. I picked up a couple stickers there, and then I went on Etsy and found stickers for the other significant places we had visited in the trailer already. I placed them on a plexi sheet and riveted it to the inside skin of the door of the trailer. I also mounted my US Map of states visited down below.
I positioned them this way so they would be visible with the screen door fastened to the door, which is how we will see them inside the trailer.
I also wanted to be able to easily remove them and put them in another trailer if we ever upgrade, or just keep them as souvineers when our travelling days are over.
My favorite part is the (WA)nder sticker, which I just ran across and knew I needed to have, for all our trips around our home state. I hope over the next few years we can pack this thing full.
In October we decided we needed a vacation from this miserable year of lockdowns and Covid, and scheduled a spot that was recommended to us at Deception Pass. It is an area we haven’t explored, and thought it would make a nice getaway. We arranged for Scott and Sherry to watch the dogs, and made our escape.
After all the wildfires, the trailer needed a good scrub.
We had reserved a spot that was supposed to have a great view, but t the last minute I realized that we might be hard pressed to last a whole week on one battery, even with LED lights! So I asked the ranger when we checked in if we could upgrade to a spot with electricity, and she found us one. It turned out to be a super tight back-in, on a corner and downhill, but Dave managed it perfectly as always.
Cell Service required some contortions…
Although you can’t tell through the trees, there was a bit of a view of the lake, though it was so foggy it didn’t really matter.
It was too foggy to even see the bridge everyone is always on about
It was a very ‘boaty’ place, which I was quite enjoying, because I have a thing for boats right now. It’s a phase I’m going through.
Saw this neat toy on the street in LaConner I thinkCleared up a bit by afternoonMaking faces 🙂
We were having a pretty good trip. I had actually packed well and we had food for breakfasts and dinners without having to go hunting around, so we could enjoy lunches out and about.
The next day we went to Port Townsend, which involved a Ferry ride.
Port Townsend was also BoatyWe had a nice lunch with a view of the water
We were waiting in line at the Ferry dock to go home, when we got a call from Sherry that Barclay was not feeling well. He had been throwing up, and looked shaky. We discussed it and decided to wait and see. But by the time we got back to the trailer we decided he should go to the emergency vet. So they tried to do that, while we packed up the trailer, thank goodness for having a simple setup, cut our vacay short, and headed home.
Pre-Covid (in the before-times) I had big plans to make some improvements to our little Airstream Caravel (grey tank, new wheels and hubcaps, new front window guard, glass side window to replace the plexiglass one) and get it out more this year. So much for that. But, now that I sold the Mustang, I figured I had a little Mustang money saved up that I could allocate to it and make those upgrades – except now everything is indefinitely out of stock.
The tongue and the bumper have been slowly getting cruddier looking, and they needed some work, and that was something I could easily do with things I could find at the hardware store. So I removed everything off the tongue and got to it, scrubbing every place with a degreaser to get it ready for paint. Luckily the rust was just mild surface rust.
I used this stuff to try and assure any rust that was still on there would get stopped. I tried to get all the nooks and crannies, especially around the equalizer bar hooks, and underneath.
Once that was done I dug around my spray paint collection and found a metallic silver, and decided to go for it. If I hate it, I can repaint it later.
I wish I’d masked off the jack before I sprayed!
Since this was going so well, I moved on to the rear bumper. It looked pretty crusty from multiple layers of paint over the years. So I grabbed the Mouse sander and smoothed it all out. Paint flakes were flying everywhere!
And then I laid on a couple coats of that black rust-killer paint.
I got more serious about masking back here.
And finally another layer of the silver metallic. At first I thought it was too metallic, but it’s starting to grow on me.
Then a foul wind blew in, and we were suddenly in a crisis caused by a windstorm and wildfires all around us, and the air was hazardous to breathe, and things were quite apocaplyptic!
Well, shit…
So I popped on my respirator and ran out and reassembled the tongue in case we needed to grab the trailer and get out of town in a hurry.
Ready to roll!
So for a week we were stuck inside, trying to keep the smoke out.
Eventually it was over 500, which is just nuts. It’s terrifying to be inside your house, knowing you shouldn’t breathe the air outside. We kept the pets in, and just let the dogs out for potty breaks, then shooed them right back inside, which made everyone unhappy. Our cat, Mighty, started attacking out feet just because she was pissed about staying inside. The dogs were bored. Luckily we could still work, and Dave went out and photographed a few houses, and wore the respirator when he had to be outside. Crazy times. Finally the winds came back and blew it away.
A few days later we got wind and rain, and were back to normal. This will do for now. None of those other trailer projects HAVE to get done right away. The trailer is ready to use as is, and we have reservations coming up soon for Deceptions Pass, which is exciting because it’s a new part of WA for us. Off to the San Juans we go!
Steff Does Stuff! 