Tag: Mothership

Fixing Flo

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.

www.bowlusroadchief.com

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.

 

The Mothership

Ah, the Mothership!

The factory where the Airstreams are born and one of the best places to go for service and repairs. (And I should know, because I think I have found many of the less-than-best places for service and repairs.)

I had made a reservation several months back to have a bump repaired and to have a pressure test done to try one last time to detect where the leak was and get it fixed. Since insurance was paying for the bump and I had already made an appointment, I figured I might as well get it taken care of before I handed Flo over to Joyce.

They have a great little campground on the property. They invite anyone to stay there, although it is “free” if you are having work done. I arrived on the weekend, so I had a day to fill before my appointment.

I took off for Bellefontaine, a nearby town, which was touted as have two things of interest to me:

An award-winning pizza restaurant
The nation’s oldest concrete street

The restaurant is Six Hundred Downtown. According to their website, they are “a completely independent restaurant, locally owned and operated by 5 time World Pizza Champion Brittany Saxton. In addition to being a World Pizza Champion, Brittany has competed on the Food Network show Guys Grocery Games.”

I parked and walked over to the restaurant.

I passed this sign in the window next door. I am in favor of using the wind to generate electricity, but I do realize that people can have differing opinions. I had to laugh at the name of their organization. FightTheWind.com. Really?

I entered the restaurant and got settled.

I decided to have the Detroit Style. I don’t know if the description of the pizza was  what sold me or the limited availability. It was a little more than I usually spend on a pizza, but I figured that I could eat it for several days.

I found the digitally displayed drink menus to be interesting. Just in case you missed it, this is what it says at the bottom of the menu:

Why not? Everyone is staring at their phones anyway. Might as well take advantage of it.

After the wait time – which they warned me about – the Detroit style pizza arrived.

The sad thing was that I didn’t like it. How surprising and disappointing. I did manage to eat a couple slices. After all, this was my food and it was as it was described. I just didn’t care for it. I wasn’t about to leave it there, so I had it boxed up and I took it with me.

Well, that took care of my number one objective, now it was time to check out the concrete street.

And there is is!

George Bartholomew developed his formula for a durable paving concrete in Bellefontaine. According to a plaque near the stature, he used a “small laboratory in the rear of his childhood friend George Kalteyer’s drug store, across from Court Avenue.”

This statue of him was presented to the citizens of Logan country by the Concrete Industries of Ohio and the United States in 1991, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the first concrete street in America.

There was a lovely courthouse in Bellefontaine that appeared to be undergoing some major renovations.

I imagine that it will be quite lovely when it is complete.

Still, the fountain continues to splash merrily. I wonder if that is the “belle” fountain?

There was a marker dedicated to Blue Jacket. I wonder how accurate the silhouettes are at the top? I don’t recall knowing that the Natives of this area lived in teepees. Still, it is something that they recognized history that wasn’t that of the settlers. If you want to find out more about Blue Jacket, click here.

I made my way back to where I had parked Bart. I thought this was an interesting composition.

I can’t imagine wanting to park where there is potential for grease over-spray.

And what is the purpose of “Unseen Elegance”?

Ah, I guess I ask too many questions.

Once back in the car, I consulted my favorite app for locating the offbeat places, History HERE! and I found that there was another marker for Blue Jacket.

The plaque reads, “This marks the site of the home of Blue Jacket, celebrated Chief of the Shawonoe Indians. Erected by Bellefontaine Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution 1928.”

The folks sitting on the porch where the monument was didn’t mind me taking their photo.

At this point, I figured that I had just about exhausted the charms of Bellefontaine. I got into Bart and headed back to the campground at the Mothership, which is referred to as “The Terrport.” There were a few folks hanging out, and I figured that I’d see if they wanted the pizza. At this point, I decided that I didn’t need to eat it just because I paid for it.

It turns out that they were having a high school reunion because Tommy was back in town getting some work done on this Airstream. I had fun with them, trying to fool the people who came up as we sat there. They’d tell me the people’s names and I greet them warmly and act like we were old friends. I managed to fool a few of them for a minute or two until my improv skills let me down.

I had a good evening with my new friends. In the morning it would be time to take care of Flo.