They have quite an efficient operation at the service department at Airstream. You check in with them, and then they come with a tractor and move your Airstream into the shop. If your work takes more than one day, they bring your Airstream out for the night for you to sleep in it and take it back to the shop in the morning.
Flo is in the background, just in case you were wondering where the big red numbers are.
Then you are free to take advantage of their hospitality in the lounge.
People bring in their traveling companions. They plug in their computers and use the free wifi.
They even have snacks for us. There is one of those coffee machines where you pick what you want. The cup drops and then various liquids pour in.
While I was there, they opened up the machine to do some maintenance.
I was amazed that there were real beans inside!
You can stroll about the town.
Naturally, the museum wasn’t open – and I didn’t think to call ahead to make an appointment.
You can go grab a bite to eat at the local restaurants.
You can sneak a look at your baby while it’s being worked on.
The best thing to do while you are waiting, though, is to take a factory tour. I have been on my fair share of factory tours, and this one is definitely topnotch.
We met up with our tour guide, who had been with the factory here in Jackson Center practically from the start.
We meet up in the lounge and walk back to the factory past some owner’s rigs that are in the shop. This one is an Argosy. I thought their shells were 100% fiberglass, but I was wrong. I wouldn’t mind if that one would follow me home!
There are all sorts of Airstreams waiting for their turn in the shop.
You’ll also see Wally and Stella Byam’s gold Airstream that he used when leading caravans.
It was easy to pick them out in a sea of silver.
They also had a Bowlus on the lot. This was a unique design where the door was on the end and you stepped up on the tongue to enter.
It really is a time capsule.
Still, when you consider that this trailer was made in the mid-’30s, I think it was quite advanced.
You can see the ideas of this Bowlus Road Chief being carried out in the “newly imagined” Bowlus Road Chief.
If you have some extra cash sitting around, you might want to consider one. Just be sure you are sitting down when you click on the link above.
With that, it was on to the factory tour. And this is as far as they let us take photos. If you want to see the factory, you will have to take the tour yourself.
On the tour, I buddied up with my friend, Tommy, who was having the high school reunion at his Airstream. At the end of the tour, we stopped in to see how the work on his trailer was coming along.
He showed off the new table top he had installed.
After that, we took a lap through the store.
What would a factory tour be without a gift shop?
At the end of the day, the had finished working on Flo and it would be time to go.