The $1k Shower Door

I remember clearly the travel day last fall when we stopped at a strip mall so I could get more Tiny House glue at a Michael’s. We ate lunch in the trailer while we were parked, so I quickly threw the glue in the shower because that’s where my Tiny House bin lives.

The Oversight

I remember this day particularly ruefully because, when we stopped next, we discovered our glass shower door hanging off the frame and partly shattered on the floor. I must’ve neglected to turn the seemingly insignificant latch that keeps the door in place. Because of that small oversight, the door must’ve opened while we drove down the road, then bumped up and down enough to bend the frame and break. Whoops.

And I mean seriously whoops, seeing as how we’d just pulled out of the Airstream Service Center in Ohio and weren’t going back for eight months.

I’m grateful that superstar friend and fellow Airstreamer Sherri in Tennessee hemmed a shower curtain for me that lasted the entire tragic Era of No Shower Door.

Why was it tragic? Because the whole time you’re in that small shower dancing around trying to wash, turning the water on then off then on then off, the water going from cold to hot to cold to hot—that whole time—the shower curtain is whooshing around and touching you. It’s downright disturbing.

The Mothership

So, fast forward to this week, when we’re back in Ohio for our third visit to Airstream. Most of what’s broken in the trailer is out of warranty so Tracy’s trying to fix it himself, but getting a new shower door frame installed is a job for the pros. And these pros charge $160 per hour. Hence the $1k shower door. My god am I glad it’s back, though.

I’ve written before how cool the Airstream factory is, with its tours and museum and lots full of the rarest Airstreams waiting for repair. (Most Airstream dealerships have service centers, but their quality varies, so if you have a tricky problem or a precious trailer, you go to the Mothership for repairs.)

The service part is a stressful visit, though. First, ya gotta park in the on-site parking lot (I won’t call it a campground), which is a weird set of spiraling spots designed to force you into getting your fragile Airstream as close as possible to a bunch of strangers’ fragile Airstreams. When you finally finagle this maneuver, you realize there’s nowhere to put your truck.

I say this so many times: “Who designed this campground?? Clearly, it was someone who’s never been camping.” Oh, the irony here.

Okay, next, you have to pack up for travel and prep for service (I had to move all my crap out of the shower) and be out of your trailer by 7 freaking a.m.. That’s so a guy on a tractor can show up (at a random time: he just starts at 7) to tow your home and every thing you own into a service bay.

Then comes the wait. An hour? All day? You know how this goes for your vehicle. Now imagine someone is holding your home hostage indefinitely. It’s nerve wracking.

The Long Day

This time during our service day, we ran errands in a nearby town (yes, I bought more glue), and as we were grabbing take-out at lunchtime, we got the call that the trailer was ready.

Great, we’ll take our lunch back and eat it in the trailer. But when we got there, the tractor guy had dropped our trailer in the service center driveway, not realizing we were going to spend another night there. (Dude, we left our wheel chocks at our parking space. Follow the wheel chocks!)

So, with grumbling stomachs and Thai food getting cold on the floorboard, we had to do the hardest things we ever do: hitch up (with the monster evil hitch), back up (repeat and repeat) in that driveway with delivery trucks coming and going, then back into our spot next to the other trailers. Then reconnect power because the trailer got cold, and let Banjo pee because she’s spent all morning in the truck, and finally sit down to eat lunch.

Looking at our new, $1k shower door.

What exciting adventures we full-timers have! When I told Sherri that we were keeping her shower curtain just in case, she said, “You better not do that again!” So, now I have a special checklist for prepping the trailer after lunch stops. Knock on glass, I won’t do that again.