May 9, 2022
Last summer, while fishing in the Smokies, my fresh water tank started leaking. All the Airstream dealers were busy and booked for months, so I ordered the tank and a new pan, thinking I would do it myself. Finally I made an appointment at Airstream of Virginia in Ashland, VA. Driving up, I could see it was a busy place. Lots of Airstreams were parked in a lot to the right and a bunch were parked in front of the service doors. Inside I talked to a very nice lady, Lauren Holman, who said it might be three weeks before I could pick it up! Whaaat?? She said they are selling a lot of Airstreams, but they haven’t expanded the service center. It is also very hard to find technicians, and when they do find them, they have to go to Ohio for training.
When I went to pick up the Airstream, I met a gentleman and his wife with a very cool truck. He told me their names, but now I can’t remember. They were very nice in showing me around their Dodge Ram 3500 diesel dually with a 115 gallon gas tank on the flatbed and a 55 gallon underneath. He has a generator and battery on the back, but I didn’t want to sound too stupid in asking what he used those for. Certainly they can be used to charge the trailer batteries, or the truck batteries. Their job is hauling trailers all around and across the country. They haul 5th wheelers and all kinds of trailers, but they love pulling Airstreams best. They have a bed in the back, so one of them can sleep while the other drives. After someone ran into them last year, they had some back issues, so they installed air-cushion seats, wrapped in leather at $2100 each. They let me sit in the driver’s seat, and man was it comfortable. Then the wife turned on the vibrator and I thought I had gone to heaven. They use a Rand McNally GPS due to the size of some big trailers they haul. He changes the oil every two weeks, and they have 740,000 miles on it. They hope it will make a million miles. While we were talking, a salesman came out and put a “sold” sign on the Airstream they had just brought in. I hope we cross paths again, as I know they have a bunch of stories to tell, but we both had to get down the road.
