By Pat Lee, BRN 3204
There were times in 2022 when I wondered if committing to three national Airstream caravans in a six-month period might be too much of a good thing, but in retrospect, I’m glad I did. Joining a caravan with its detailed itinerary, reserved campgrounds (in oftentimes lovely spots) and thoughtfully planned activities, is a nice break from the extensive trip planning I normally do when on my own.
Caravans are routed on mostly quiet blue highways that show off the “lay of the land,” in turn leading to or passing by unexpected opportunities for personal side trips, often not available to interstate travelers. Making all of this happen are the adults in charge of leading the caravans.
These hardworking leaders and co-leaders manage – which is to say inform, cajole, humor and guide – fellow Airstreamers who can sometimes be individualists with strong personalities. Which is why it always amazed me that by the end of three, four or seven weeks on the road together, an accommodating personality or “culture” would emerge that changed us from a “herd of cats” to a tribe that cared about, and took care of each other, as needs came up. So, about those caravans.
Red, red roads of Georgia
Georgia On My Mind
I spent most of March with the 25-day, Georgia on My Mind Caravan with 32 others in 18 Airstreams. Spring was busting out all over and we kept mostly to small towns on country roads in the lower left quadrant of the state. Georgia has not a single natural lake. The Kolomoki Mounds — great temple, burial and ceremonial mounds — were built just 250 years after Christ walked the earth. Quail eating at a hunting lodge. A rousing community play extolling firefighters. Pancake breakfasts. Antebellum homes. Movie nights with popcorn in the campground, watching southern-themed movies like Driving Miss Daisy or Fried Green Tomatoes. A butterfly conservatory. A train trip through acres and acres of walnut groves to Plains to visit Jimmy Carter’s school (now a museum) and current home; then on to the still-active farm in Archery where he was born. A guitar-strumming, fellow Airstreamer with a great voice, coaxed most of us to visit the era of the Allman Brothers Band by way of their home in Macon, Georgia, now a museum. (I drew a blank until our guitarist played their hit song, “Ramblin’ Man.”) Lunch at the Whistle Stop Cafe in Juliette of “Fried Green Tomatoes” fame, complete with trains rumbling by. FDR’s humble Little White House at Warm Springs, with its tall bookcases filled only as high as he could reach from his wheelchair, was moving.
The Andersonville National Historic Site was also moving but in a horrible, holocaustic kind of way. Hastily built as a prison camp for captured Union soldiers during the last 14 months of the Civil War, it became a hell on earth, leaving 13,000 prisoners dead. A fellow caravanner put me onto the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Andersonville, by MacKinlay Kantor, written in 1955. It is a “door stop” of a book, but the author’s telling of this terrible time in our history from multiple points of view, is riveting.
The Andersonville National Historic Site was also moving but in a horrible, holocaustic kind of way. Hastily built as a prison camp for captured Union soldiers during the last 14 months of the Civil War, it became a hell on earth, leaving 13,000 prisoners dead. A fellow caravanner put me onto the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Andersonville, by MacKinlay Kantor, written in 1955. It is a “door stop” of a book, but the author’s telling of this terrible time in our history from multiple points of view, is riveting.
Retirement racehorse accepts carrots and adulations from
Airstreamers at Old Friends Thoroughbred Retirement Farm
Springtime in Kentucky
I spent most of May with the 23-day, Springtime in Kentucky Caravan with 43 others in 23 Airstreams. Hanging out with horses (racing and retired), bourbon tastings, museum-hopping and bluegrass listening were mainstays of our journey. Kentucky is bordered by seven states. It sided with the Union during the Civil War. While Illinois may claim Abe Lincoln as their native son, it was Kentucky where he was born and lived until he was 21. Winters are cold and lots of snow is not unusual. There’s a National Park – Mammoth Cave – in the middle of the state. Watching ordinary people get the red-carpet treatment as they drove their newly-purchased, factory-fresh Corvettes out of the National Corvette Museum in Bowling Green, made me almost want one. Breakfast and mint juleps at Churchill Downs with beautiful hats all around. Live betting and food and drinks on Kentucky Derby Day, all day long at beautiful Keeneland. I held Hank Aaron’s 700th home run bat at the Louisville Slugger Museum.
That’s one big bat at the Louisville Slugger Museum & Factory
The hollers where Loretta Lynn was born and grew up in eastern Kentucky, were filled with the sounds of bluegrass. You simply cannot keep your feet still when listening to it. I became enlightened at the Smithsonian-like, Muhammed Ali Center in Louisville; and felt shame for my longstanding, mistaken perceptions of gentle Ali (the Greatest), who floated like a butterfly and stung like a bee.
Sunset at Kaibab Paiute Band Tribal Campground
Southwest Adventure
I spent half of August through early October with the Southwest Adventure Caravan with 57 others and 30 Airstreams. The predominant thought I repeatedly jotted in my journal as we traveled the rugged, Four Corners area of the red rock southwest was: Come back here again! The well-planned, 50-day caravan — twice as long as any I’d been on before — was a hit parade of national parks and national monuments (too many to recount here); plus, unique experiences and side trips I normally would not have sought out as a solo traveler. There was confession with a Korean, Spanish-speaking priest at the Church of the Holy Dirt in Chimayo; rock crawling in the canyons around scorching, hot Moab; catching my first sight of the straight and iconic road that goes down and then up and up to spectacular Monument Valley and Valley of the Gods; the unforgettable, early morning light of Bryce Canyon, as seen from the top of a special mule named Shasta; and an unexpected sighting of dozens of freed, captivity-bred California condors flying along the ridgeline of the Vermilion Cliffs National Monument. A wagon wheel formation of Airstreams under the starriest of night skies at North Rim Grand Canyon is an enduring memory.
The caravan’s finale was the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta with its’ mass dawn take-offs, watched from front-row camping spots. It was only when the caravan ended and we were all on our own again, that I realized how much I saw, how much I had missed, and how much I needed to go back again and again and again.
Three Airstreams departing Monument Valley
Early morning in a front row seat at 2022 Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta
I could have written a lot more about each one of these caravans but don’t want to give it all away. One of the more important things that caravan leaders do are the production of the travel guides that are issued to us at the beginning of the caravan. They are a detailed compendium of campgrounds, biographies (people and pets), planned routes; daily schedules, rosters, team assignments (you haven’t lived until you’ve been a parker or de-parker); and well-researched suggestions on what to see along the way, on your own or with friends. Post-caravan, they become a souvenir for the memories they invoke, a reference for future travel, and best of all, an enabler for caravan friendships to continue.
You can learn about all the caravans offered over multiple years at AirstreamClub.org; but the best place for nitty-gritty caravan details will always be at the international rallies. This year, the International is at Rock Springs, Wyoming in June. If my previous experiences hold true, there will likely be tables set up for many of the caravans, manned by leaders and co-leaders. Watch out! They will soften you up with their charisma and enthusiasm; and then enchant you with stories of all the adventures to come.
For me, it was no less than a siren’s song, and the only way I can explain how I committed to do three in six months. One thing I am sure of though, is that 2022 was the year that I lived Wally Byam’s creed to the fullest: See more! Do more! Live more!
Pat Lee became a MAL (member-at-large) of WBCCI in June 2005; and then finally cracked and joined the Washington DC unit during the 2021 International Rally in Lebanon, Kentucky. She was drawn by the unit’s newsletter, membership outreach, outstanding unit rally offerings in really cool places and their enthusiasm for life in general.
