Knoebles Amusement Resort

This weekend was one of the funnest I have had in many. They really do just keep getting better and better. Our Airstream has become a great excuse to go out and have fun. At Knoebles we did just that. This is one of those good old fashion parks. No modern steel coasters here, just wooden ones. It is situated in a valley with lots of trees and you just walk in. No parking fee, no admission, just buy a book of tickets and hit the rides.

Most of these pictures just speak for themselves. The park is one of those old fashion places that force a good time out of you.

The fact that these five kids laughed so much was worth every penny in gas it took to get there.

The kids just got to be kids...



Even the big kids...

All kids love to ring the fire bell. This was Halle's first ride ever. She didn't know what to make of it except when it was over she cried to go again.

There was a live steam engine taking us on a ride through the park.

We rode the bigger train in the dark. It makes a long loop through the whole park and runs by the campground. The trailers were all lit up and it was very picturesque. We hope that next time we come we will plan a little a head and be able to camp at the park. You just walk over a covered bridge and there you are in the park.

Thank you again for the big surprise. And Beth, thank you for being spontanious.

They just keep getting better and better.

Heading into the weekend, we had absolutely no plans to do anything. On Friday morning I taunted Beth with a "Hey baby, how about we hook up Anna and go camping?" If you knew my wife, you would know that spur of the moment, last minute, by the seat of your pants is not how she operates, but this time she said "that sounds great, make it happen." So we thought it might be fun to go to an amusement park, and we chose to go to Knoebles Grove in Pennsylvania. We had seen the park featured on a PBS show about the great old fashion amusement parks and it was only three hours north of us.

The hard part was finding a campsite, due to it being Labor Day weekend. I got on the phone and was told sorry repeatedly. Lucky for me, J&D Campground said they had some spaces in their over flow area. As long as we could make due with just water and electric, we were set. We headed out first thing Saturday morning. After a smooth tow of three hours and an average speed of 65 mph, we arrived in Catawissa where the campground is. Coming up the road to it, Ava shouts "Dad there is another Airstream" I can only see a small glimpse of it because of the sign you see here. What I can see is two sets of windows, and they are Hehr Standards, and I instantly know there is a 50's trailer here. As an Airstream lover, a 50's trailer always gets me excited. We come around the sign and there is not just any 50's Airstream, no, it is Sophia sitting there. Rob Baker had changed his plans for his family vacation, and instead of going to the Thousand Islands, he brought them to Knoebles Grove as a surprised to me. Rob Baker loves to play tricks on people and boy did he get me. I had no idea he was coming. I had only mentioned that we were going to Catawissa ever so briefly in a skype conversation and he picked up on it. I was totally caught off guard and was so honored that he would come and join my family for the weekend. Someone else had no idea about us coming though....

Zoe was just slightly surprised...


Good thing our wives like each other ...

To say the least, it was a classic weekend. We had a blast together. Robs boys are very fond of Ava and the kids all played together like one big family. We ate some wonderful meals together. Had ice creams from the stand across the road together, and just enjoyed a perfect weekend.

A full rundown of Knoebles Grove will come it the next post to my blog

My friends are too much....

Thank you Don, I will except the challenge...

Good times always call for two posts

I had an exceptionally good time camping at Jersey Shore Haven. The campground was full of Airstreams, amounting to the most I have ever seen in any one place at the same time.

One of the first things that struck me was how many Excella and Limited there were. The place is the land of late 1970 to late 1980. Most all trailers are big girls too, triple axle 34 footers. The small trailers were the Overlanders. There were a few older trailers, such as the 1963 Globetrotter and Dave's 1964 Safari sitting next to a 1964 Globetrotter. The 63 just had a new panel installed not to long ago.

Here is the trailer sales company in Florida that the original owner purchased it from.

There were also some somewhat obscure units around like this MOHO. I vote to let it in the club. I tried many times to locate the owners, but they were not around. I really wanted to see the inside.

How often do you see an Airstream fifth wheel? Seriously, how often? Well I saw four. Once again I tried to see the inside of any of the four, and no one was home.

A squarestream... no comment.

Now how many years of service to the club is that? To who ever you are, Thanks.

Brand new paint on this Argosy 20. I really liked the cloud patterned glass used in the rear. The folks that owned this one have another there full time. They were super nice to us.

Well, I thought I had the oldest trailer in the park until I found this sad looking old girl.

She is a 1960 Sovereign of the road. This girl needs some one to love her. Whoever owns her is not giving her any loving and it breaks my heart to see.



She did have nice knockers....






And then there was the brand new 2008 Bambi owned by Jane. Jane was there with her parents camping. Dad sleeps in the cot tent under the awning. It was a very cool Cabelas item intended for the hunter that needs everything, however it worked well as an ad hoc bedroom.


Much more modern than my tastes, but I still liked it a lot. Cute little thing it was.

No camping trip would be complete without the SOB sighting.

we sighted this wannabee Airstream SOB in Wildwood on the boardwalk. Dr. Suess, your umpalumpas are looking for your trailer.

And then there was this guy I had to pass....

I actually felt bad passing him for when I did he was snapping photos of me too. I wonder is some guy with a Scamp blog is posting about the Airstream that passed him in Delaware.

Shore had a great time

Jersey Shore Haven was this weekends destination. One of my good buddies Dave is a shareholder at this Land Yacht Harbor and invited us to come down and camp with him. The location is excellent being 15 minutes from the beach and half way between Atlantic City and Cape May. For us this was a one tank weekend. I made sure to fill up before we left New Jersey, it was $3.34 per gallon and they pumped it to boot.

The campground was super clean and well cared for. Each site is nestled into the trees. There were blueberries in prime ripeness everywhere just begging to be picked. We had the most delicious pancakes one of the mornings. Many of the sites are seasonal lots and quite a few are permanent sites for some of the Airstreams. Dave told me that over 100 trailers are there at any time during the season.

Anna was right at home in the trees. I was told seven times that I had the shiniest trailer in the park. It was not a long stretch, for most of the trailers were late 1970's through late 1980's. Quite a few new trailers were scattered through out the park too. In a later post, I will highlight some of the trailer I saw there.

To really top things off, right across the road from us was Vintage Thunder!!!! Amanda, Don, and Donal came down too. They came as a birthday gift to me, for on saturday I turned 42. We have come to love Don and Amanda deeply, having camped with them virtually every month since spring. I hope everyone reading this has the divine pleasure of getting to know them on a personal level. These folks are very fun to hang out with and they have intense Airsream Spirit. Thank you guys again for a wonderful weekend, and thanks for humoring me by pretending to be staying the extra night only to slip away right after we went to bed. I now know how some of those girls felt back in college. If any of those girls are reading this, sorry. No seriously, sorry.


Well during the weekend we managed to do all the things one is supposed to do on vacation at the beach. We went to the pool at Jersey Shore Haven and ate lolly pops. Halle calls them Pee Pops, and asked for another continuously. The pool was ultra clean and the perfect temperature. Al, one of the staffers, takes great pride in his pool and it shows.

We ate lots of good food all throughout the weekend. Often it was done communally in someone's site.

We went to the beach for the day on Saturday. The day was perfect... Beth's Grandfather would have said, "It is sore peter weather, so good you just can't beat it" We lounged on the beach in Avalon the entire day and all took in a bit too much sun. Don and I took in a few too many beers too. In the left of the photo you see Dave. Thanks again Dave for having us down.

Here is my attempt at the minds eye photography... see how many people you can find. The first four are very easy, there are more.

I just cannot stop spending time with my mistress

I LOVE polishing. Now that the nasty work is done and I have the right compounder, the right polish, the cyclo, well, it has become a pleasure to polish. I am working one panel at a time and just rolling with it. Anna will never be the perfect polish poster girl. She has bad skin that shows her age. No problem with me, I prefer the older lady. Here you see the effects of steel wool. One of the previous owners used steel wool and mineral spirits to polish the curb side and it has left scratches that just will never come out.

This is the effects of acid rain. I have shot close to 50 pictures trying to capture the effect it has had. The picture here does it no justice, but there are serious streaks of pits. I can very clearly see the lines the rain has created. These are all so deep that there will never be any chance of getting these out. The only possibility is panel replacement, which is not going to happen. I can easily live with this, it all good.

I never rebuilt the window up front, so I thought I might remove the outer seals and try to just replace them if the buthyl behind the glass was still holding the seal. Well, it was good all the way around the glass panel, except the top right hand corner. I figured that it was high enough and the rubber would help deflect the rain, so I could just cut a corner and not do the buthyl and new glass. I put on the bottom gasket and the side gasket and "CRACK" right in the spot where the buthyl seal was not strong.

So, a new piece of glass, new buthyl, new rubber glass gasket, and new inner bulb seal and we are good. I even detail polished all around the window frame. Front end is looking really sharp now.

Anna got new some new bling from Daddy

I felt so bad about the scratch I created that I had to do something nice for Anna, the guilt has been tremendous... A song just came on the Itunes I am listening to and it it could not be more fitting... John Prine, 'That's the Way the World Goes Round'...

I know a guy that's got a lot to lose.
He's a pretty nice fellow but he's kind of confused.
He's got muscles in his head that ain't never been used.
Thinks he own half of this town.

Starts drinking heavy, gets a big red nose.
Beats his old lady with a rubber hose,
then he takes her out to dinner and buys her new clothes.
That's the way that the world goes 'round.

So just like the fella in the song, I bought my old lady some new clothes.

New numbers always makes a lady that much more elegant. The last set of lettering were too thin and were easily lost in the reflections. I thought she needed something better.

I know I will get lots of questions on how I did that, so here it goes in advance. The decal comes in a sheet like this. I went to Fastsigns, and Angel asked me what I wanted it to say, how big, what font, and what color. They lay it out and 24 hours later you receive a sheet that looks like this. I then cut it apart into lines.

The next thing is to position it exactly where you want it to be. Tape is used at the center of the line to hold it in place.

Next, you peel back half of the back sheet and tear it off. Slowly you rub it into place from the center.

Then you peal back the other side and apply that. The last thing is to remove the cover sheet.

And then you have something that looks like this....