[VAC] Call me 'Tuna'

["Robert C Townsend" <rctowns@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Just joined the listserve, my name is Robert Townsend, but everyone
(including my sainted mother) calls me 'Tuna' (that story for another time).

I'm nearing my 50th birthday, and am a full-time 'graduate special' in the
field of clinical and experimental behavior analysis at the University of
Nevada, Reno.

I've owned two Airstreams in the past, and am looking for another at the
present time.
I have a few questions, though:

1) What is the smallest Airstream ever made? What's its overall length?
2) What's the difference between a 'Bubble' and a 'Bambi'?
3) What is the gross weight of that smallest Airstream?
4) What is its 'towing weight'?

The answers I've managed to come up with so far are as follows:

1) The 'Bubble'. 15' - 16'.
2) no answer, yet.
3) not sure.
4) not sure.

The first Airstream I owned was a 20' 1965 'Travel Twin' (Globetrotter)
which I bought used on July 8th, 1976 in Dover, Delaware, for the express
purpose of transporting my worldly goods, myself, and my two cats
across-country to California. I towed this beauty behind a 1959 Bentley S1.
(picture available upon request).

I was immediately captivated by the Airstream mystique. I had not even
considered where I might be 'parking' my trailer when I acquired it. On the
way back from Dover to Rehoboth Beach, where I was staying with friends, I
saw a small signpost by the side of the road, pointing along a small roadway
that disappeared into a grove of trees. The sign, which was small and low to
the ground, read simply "Land Yacht Harbor ---->".

I knew virtually nothing about trailering, but I did know that the Airstream
I'd just purchased was also referred to as a 'Land Yacht'. I slowed, and
made the turn onto the small road - actually a little more than a one-lane
blacktop driveway. As I passed through the grove of trees, I was met with an
astonishing sight: A grassy meadow filled with gleaming silver Airstream
travel trailers! (picture available upon request).

In a daze, I drove up to the office, registered, and thus began my
love-affair with the Airstream and the people who appreciate them. I toured
the country, living in my little trailer, and after a year or so, settled in
a little trailer/mobile-home park in Santa Monica, where we spent the next
couple of years in domestic bliss... When I moved into an apartment a few
years later, I rented it to a friend, who 'loaned it' to a young couple who
absconded with it in the dead of night. I never saw it again.

My second Airstream I acquired in 1994 - it was a used 27' Overlander, early
'70's vintage, I believe. It was sitting in a vacant lot, overgrown with
weeds, behind a real-estate office in Half Moon Bay, CA. I was in
transition, moving back to the mainland from Hawaii, and needed a California
'base of operations'. We lived in a small park overlooking the Pacific Ocean
at Pelican Point, near the south end of Half Moon Bay.

When I moved to Reno in January of 1995, I moved into a townhouse here, and
sold the Overlander to a gentleman in San Francisco, who wanted to use it as
a separate living unit for his teenaged daughter (what an excellent idea!).

I'm now looking for a vintage 'Bubble' - or the smallest, lightest Airstream
ever made - when, with your gracious help I've located one, I'll let you
know what the intended tow-vehicle is...

Thanks in advance -

Tuna
rctowns@attglobal.net