Airstream rally makes for happy campers

They call her the Flamingo Lady.

“There are 2.3 million real, true-to-life flamingos,” said Linda Shelton. “There are 10 billion plastic ones.”

Even though she’s probably told that joke more times than she can count, she still laughed at it as she showed off her Airstream trailer Tuesday at the Taylor County Expo Center. About 60 trailers total have gathered for the week for the 49th annual Region 9 Airstream Rally, part of the larger Wally Byam Caravan Club, International.

“We call them ‘rigs’,” she said. “At one time, we would have over 500 trailers.”

But as the club’s membership aged, the number of rigs diminished. Shelton said her parents had been members of the club for over 40 years.

Setting out on the road in an RV is the dream for a lot of folks but Airstream trailers have their own fan base. Unlike any other trailer, their rounded edges and aluminum skin harken back to a time when anything futuristic showed off features like this.

“They’re aerodynamic, for one thing. Pulling a box trailer will just beat you to death,” Shelton said. “On this, half the time you don’t even know the thing is behind you. Mine is 34-foot, and I have pulled it for years by myself, easy-peasy.”

The club will hold activities all week long, including seminars, games and a flea market. Shelton’s rig stands out for the plastic pink flamingos she’s decorated it with. She and her husband Gary traveled from Georgetown with their two dogs; a long-haired Chihuahua named Princess and a miniature schnauzer called Rosco P. Coltrane.

She keeps a U.S. map on the inside door of the trailer, with an outline for each state. The ones she’s visited are filled by stickers in that state’s shape, while others wait their turn.

Of 26 states visited, most are in the southern tier except for some in the Midwest. Part of the strategy of taking a road trip with any trailer is making sure it’s the right time of the year.

The hardest trip was a journey to Santa Fe and the twisty mountain roads of New Mexico. But the tightest place she’s taken her trailer?

“A service station,” she said. “Let me tell you, most service stations are not built for pulling your rig in to get gas.”