Airstream - Jackson Center, Ohio

We pulled into Jackson Center, Ohio -- home of the Airstream factory -- mid-afternoon on Sunday. This quiet little town was preceded by miles of corn and soy bean fields (and we expect it is the same on the other side of town). The weather remained warm and sunny and we were pleased to be on the road only two hours after our overnight stop in Indiana.

We had booked the van in for some warranty work on Monday morning so knew we had to clean it out a little and re-arrange our living quarters. It was a little surprising to learn that Customer Service opened at 7am -- kind of early for us city folk! In the spirit of factory work hours (staff go home around 3:30pm), Doug was volunteered to report to the service desk early to get the work started on the van.

Airstream makes their "Terraport" available for those coming in for service work. It's a free parking/camping area right on the Airstream ground. We parked there but also set up our big tent on the grassy field nearby to create a bedroom at night (so the kids could sleep in) and school house during the day (so the kids could stay on top of their home schooling).

Apparently, at the end of the Airstream workday, various rigs are returned to owners with any incompleted work started again the the next day. Sure enough, our van was ready for pick-up at 3:30pm. Day 2 work begins early tomorrow.

We're trying to catch up on school work (for kids) and email/work/website update for parents. For better or worse, there is not a whole lot to do in Jackson Center. Fortunately, there is a laundromat. This will be a prime visit tomorrow (woohoo!). This afternoon we did the Airstream Factory Tour which could have been incredibly interesting but lacked a certain bounce and energy. To be precise, the kids called it "long and somewhat boring". Probably the best part was walking through some of the near-finished units at the end of the tour. We did learn that the Sprinter Interstate (by Airstream) is a big seller for them. The Interstate is based on the longer, 22 foot wheel base (our Sprinter Westfalia is 18 feet) and a bigger engine -- the Sprinter 3500 with V6 and dual wheels -- while ours is built on the Sprinter 2500 with 5 cylinder engine. Nonetheless, we're proud to own one of the just 250 Sprinter Westfalia's sold in the US... and delighted to be getting a little over 20 MPG towing a 5' x 8' trailer on the more than 3,000 miles of our journey so far and across some very mountainous parts of the country.