Saturday, July 03, 1999
Airstream owners trade tales of the open road
BY JAMES HANNAH
The Associated Press
DAYTON, Ohio — It was a sea of silver shimmering in the sun. Endless rows of aluminum Airstream trailers from New Jersey to Kansas crowded together on the campus parking lot as their owners traded tales of the open road.
An estimated 4,500 people pulled their trailers to Wright State University for the Wally Byam Caravan Club's annual international rally. The vehicles sported flags, awnings, hanging baskets and even satellite dishes.
The owners talked pretty much about one thing — getting away from it all.
“It's freedom, no telephones,” Donald Perry, 62, a retired mailman from Greenwich, Conn., said Friday. “If it wasn't for my wife, I'd do it full-time. But she wants to have a home base.”
The caravan club, with more than 10,000 members, is the official Airstream owners group founded by the man who created the distinctive aluminum trailer in the mid-1930s.
Airstreams, which feature bedrooms, showers, living areas and kitchenettes, are manufactured at nearby Jackson Center, Ohio.
R.C. “Wag” Wagnon, the club's international president, said many Airstream owners form caravans and take trips together. He said they average about 300 miles a day and try to avoid morning and evening rush hours.
“You can travel with friends and basically see a lot more of this country than you would ever see out of a motel or hotel room,” said Mr. Wagnon, 70, of Gurnee, Ill.
For years, Mr. Perry and his wife went camping in tents.
“One day the tent blew down, and some folks who were next to us had a trailer. They invited us in,” said Mr. Perry. “Now, I can't get her back in a tent.”
John Dona, 65, of Buffalo, N.Y., said he and his wife put 16,000 miles on their Airstream in 1998, a year that featured a trip to Alaska with 34 other Airstreams.
Marilyn Sandy, of Salem County, N.J., said her family used to go camping in tents and campers, then graduated to hotels.
“I actually got tired of in-and-out hotels, unpacking suitcases all of the time,” she said.
Her husband, Walt Sandy, who worked as a control technician at the Salem nuclear power plant before retiring, said there's a certain prestige about owning an Airstream.
“It's a classic picture of freedom on the road,” he said. “That's what it's all about.”
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