Yahoo Autos 2011 Airstream Avenue RV
Once you’ve stopped for the evening, converting the Avenue from traveler to dining car and sleeper takes a few minutes. Push a button, and the couch at the back of the van slides flat on motorized tracks to become a two-person bed. The middle captain’s chairs swivel, and a two-piece table can be assembled and inserted into a mount on the floor. If you wish to set up chairs outside, a motorized sun shade can be deployed from the side of the van to make a comfortable lean-to from which to observe the scenery.
The four-burner cooktop runs off a 9.9-gallon LPG tank-good for many, many meals-and the adjacent sink (as well as the shower) draws from a 34-gallon freshwater tank. The interior lights and the various electric pumps run off either twin auxiliary batteries, shore power from outside, or, if necessary, a 2.8-kilowatt onboard gasoline generator slung behind the rear axle and operated by a hidden control panel above the bed. There’s even a 13,500-BTU air conditioner and a 16,000-BTU furnace (fueled by LPG) to make the interior perfectly comfortable as needed. A skylight with a built-in fan can be cranked open if natural breezes are preferred
Tight but Fairly Comfy
The sofa bed is fairly comfortable, but since it’s designed to be slept in with the bodies width-wise across the van, anybody taller than five-foot-ten will find his/her head and feet bumping into the van’s sidewalls and will have to sleep at an angle. This is another downside of opting for a smaller RV.
The van’s narrow width means there’s no actual bath “room,” so when nature calls, you open the door hiding the toilet and shower and pull out a curtain that slides around you on a circular track in the ceiling. The curtain thus extends the privacy space to a comfortable zone, but it prevents passage from the front of the Avenue to the back. The toilet functions as per those found on boats with a gravity drain and light swirl of water; drain channels in the van’s floor funnel shower runoff back to the 21-gallon gray-water tank.
Owing to the Avenue’s limited capacities, you quickly become stingy with the fresh water. A couple of showers and a few after-meal cleanups dropped the tank volume to half (digital readouts on the control panels supply all tank levels and battery charge states), so after that, we went on a tighter water ration. In contrast, the LPG supply seems adequate for months on the road.
The cluster of olive-drab vehicles in the parking lot of an Arizona National Guard facility on the east side of Phoenix told us we had arrived at Papago. I’m not sure what we were expecting-perhaps a full armored division-so the 30-to-40 vehicles were, at first glimpse, something of a disappointment. But we soon found enough items to engross our attention, including a group of WWII-era jeeps like the one we drove in Normandy in 2009; a rare and authentic-looking M3A1 White scout car from the same period; and several vehicles from the Korean and Vietnam war eras, including a former British Army Daimler Ferret armored car.
After giving Papago and the companion swap meet a couple of hours, we steered the Avenue north toward Sedona, Arizona, to visit our former colleague Patrick Bedard. Offered a bed in Bedard’s rather sumptuous house, which was recently built to plans entirely of his own design, we declined and slept in the Avenue with the parrots. Despite near-freezing temperatures outside, we were quite warm and comfortable.
Right-Sized for a Couple of People
The Avenue is, despite its weight and 21-foot-long bulk, fairly easy to drive with predictable handling and solid brakes, and the 490-mile slog home to L.A. passed comfortably except for the previously mentioned stiff ride. Fuel consumption was never better than 10 mpg, which, though hideous, is actually a decent figure in the RV world. With the 6.6-liter Duramax diesel that became available in the Express 3500 this year, we’d expect mid-teens to be possible if you’re easy on the throttle.
The Avenue is large enough to make cross-country travel for two seem luxurious, yet small enough to go where ordinary cars do at the gas pumps and drive-throughs-but be sure to check the overhead height, as the Avenue is more than nine feet tall. It’ll definitely fit in most private driveways without drawing attention from those who enforce local anti-RV-parking ordinances. If it were any smaller, life aboard would be a constant chore of musical chairs for people and things. If your idea of camping includes air conditioning and satellite TV but you don’t want to drive something the size of a Greyhound bus-or even a Mercedes Sprinter-the Avenue could be your rig.
You Might Also Like
