"Make no changes, only improvements" - Wally Byam - Garfield and Tango Travel the Long and Winding Road

July 21, 2022

"Make no changes, only improvements" - Wally Byam

Ohio fun day

Day 3 of the repairs. After my tough ride yesterday, I told Don I wanted a day off of riding so we decided to go see a couple of museums.

One was the Airstream Heritage Museum at the Airstream factory and the other was the Bicycle Museum of America located in New Bremen. Both were very interesting and for today's journal, I will highlight pictures taken only in the Airstream museum:

Every morning at about 7am, the John Deer tractor comes and transports Tango to her berth in the service bay.

Trailers awaiting some type of service. The blue building behind is the service center.

The expanded main Airstream factory was recently opened. The company was started in 1931 by Wally Byam.

This is overlooking the factory floor. About 4-5 trailers are completed each day. Expected delivery time now for a new trailer is 14 months. We lucked out and got ours in 7 months. They are in high demand all over the world.

The "Clipper" was the first riveted aluminum semi-monocoque trailer made in 1936. It's quite surreal looking from the outside with these unusual windows.

In 1947, Wally used French cyclist Alfred Letourneur to demonstrate how easy it was to pull the lightweight trailers - even a bike could do it. He pulled this 22 ft. trailer around on a runway. Sometime I'd like to recreate this picture using us on the tandem.

This is the "Stella" trailer that Wally and his wife, Stella used for traveling on many caravans. Those are listed on the side of the trailer. She designed it especially for their use on these trips. It was a one-of-a-kind painted white trailer that matched their white Cadillac tow vehicle.

Airstream also made vehicles for other purposes like this funeral coach. Notice the compartment at the back for storing the coffin.

This Airstream coach was called the Astrovan and was made to serve as a transport vehicle for astronauts as they traveled to and from the launch pad during the shuttle era. NASA also used these as quarantine quarters for astronauts returning from the moon. The coaches were used up until 2019 for astronauts returning from the International Space Station.

They look pretty happy to be going to their Airstream!

Trailer-henge is located near Tampa, FL. We missed seeing it on this trip.

We lucked out tonight when this severe weather stayed to the south of us.

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Kelly IniguezAll of the Airstream photos were interesting. Good thing you ordered yours early, with that wait time!
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