The Bird Nest

A long story, about small birds, a big Bird
When you have an airplane habit, and go to lots of airshows in your Challengers, you appreciate a comfortable place to spend nights, so a mobile flight base is in order, and it's even better if it's a "Bird". We've been avid RVers for many years, starting with backbacks and climbing gear, and progressing through worn out truck campers and Winnebagos, and then on to diesel pushers, and now to our ultimate and probably last coach. We've found motorhoming at airshows and car races to be a lot of fun, and have enjoyed our coaches as ground support bases when we fly our Challengers to airshows for a weekend. They come in handy for chasing trains as well.
We first fell in love with BlueBird Wanderlodges somewhere back in the mid 1980's and have been wanting one ever since. We always planned to get a mid 80's silver pusher, but never found just the right one, and then deep in the bowels of a google search ... We found a dream Bird in Nashville the summer of '07 and set out on a grand adventure to look her over.
Our routing took us through Illinois and near the Challenger factory, so we stopped into visit the team at Quad City Ultralights in Moline Illinois. It was really neat to see the factory from which 4,000 Challengers have emerged, and meet the team that we talk to on the phone so often. If we look a little frazzled, it's because it's about 113 degrees Fahrenheit in the shade and we'd been driving pretty much non-stop, switching each other off in our coach. Imagine building airplanes in that heat. The QC team have been doing it flawlessly for 25 years.	Mike and Tracy at Quad City
We got to Nashville a day or so later, saw the Bird, fell in love with it (perhaps it was the built-in altimeter?) and started the proceedings. She's a bit newer, a fair bit longer, and a lot heavier than our Triple E Empress, and almost everything runs on air - just like an airplane. We like airplanes, and the BlueBird is a fine machine, built just like a jetliner. 25 tons of stainless from stem to stern, and a 500 HP Turbo 60 Series Detroit - kind of like a Hercules! We had a few days to kill so we toured the country side a bit, saw a couple of Challengers at a local airstrip (although no one was around flying in the heat wave) and even got to the Grande Olde Opry where we saw Little Jimmy Dickens, Porter Wagner, and Loretta Lynn among others. So, now this Bird is our home away from home for fly-ins and vacations. You may see our Bird if we deliver your Challenger to a far away place, or if Tracy or I are running ground support for a far away fly-in or airshow. We're likely to play "Up, Up and Away" through her musical airhorns when we deliver a Challenger, so warn the neighbours.
On the way home here with our new toy, the "ChallengerWest Convoy" at Yellowstone Park. Yellowstone is absolutely fascinating. Regulations permitting, we hope to fly over it in Challengers some day not to far in the future. For those contemplating RVing, we know of no better way to travel with kids than in a motorhome (of any size). And just in case anyone is wondering, "No, the airplane business is not this profitable." We do this for fun. We have other business interests that subsidize our airplane and RV habits!