Virginia Highland Haven Airstream Park

On a mountaintop in Floyd County, Va., Airstreamers have spent their summer since the 1970s.

On a clear day, you can see the gorge at Narrows from here, all the way over in Giles County. Evening sunsets are unobstructed and beautiful.

Virginia Highland Haven is Airstream-only, and membership-based. If everyone’s here, then shiny, classic Airstreams are parked in 46 spaces, marked by vegetable and flower gardens, picnic tables, hummingbird feeders, lawn chairs and grills.

The 75-acre park was established in the 1970s, and it’s a quiet little community from May to mid-October, populated mostly by retirees. Non-members can stay as guests if there’s an open space, and on this particular weekend there’s a family with young children. The property includes hiking trails and a lodge (with piano, video library and laundry). Members sign up as hosts for one week every year, organizing entertainment (movies, potlucks) and handling parking of guests, and the board of directors elects a president every year.

“Airstreamers are nice people,” says Laura Dixon, who’s been coming to Virginia Highland Haven for more than 19 years. The shareholder/members organize potlucks and picnics. Guest Byron Blizzard’s early experiences were with a group: “The first caravan I went on was with my grandparents, in 1983,” he says, to California.

“When you buy an Airstream, you buy into a family,” says Laura Dixon (of Greensboro, N.C.), who’s been coming here with her husband Dick since 1988.
Abe Lincoln (yes, really) and his wife Melissa are from Richmond, Va. (he is 47, she is 53; they still work and drive back and forth through the summer). Melissa, who works for a florist, is the gardener: growing cherry tomatoes, phlox, hydrangeas, cardinal flowers – “for the hummingbirds.” Abe takes us on a tour, a bumpy ride on the back of a John Deere Gator down hiking trails to a waterfall and stream.

On one hand, life up here is simple. “Deer every day, turkey pretty often,” says Abe. “The raspberries come in first and then the blackberries.” There have been three bear sightings so far this week. On the other hand, Airstream life is helped along by much more modern conveniences – GPS, wireless internet and remote-controlled awnings. But in the end it’s all about living, Jack D’Atre, (from Vancouver, Wa., with his wife Phyllis) seems to suggest, summoning up an oft-repeated adage from older Airstreamers to younger ones: “The aluminum gets in your blood and keeps you young.” This article appeared in the magazine BlueRidge Country May - June 2008