Goodbye, weekend...

Well, here we are again as Sunday night winds down.  It was a fairly quiet weekend here, much appreciated after a few weekends and weeks of craziness.  We drove no further than the shop where we buy most of our meat now, the 3 Sisters Farm shop.  Twice.  Saturday we went to stock up on meat for the next couple of weeks, and then we returned home to a message that they had pig liver for us.  For Michael, that is.  I'll be eating salmon that night!  He's very excited, and we drove back down there today to pick up the pig liver.  For Michael, not me.

Even the girl at the farm store gave us funny looks when we came in to pick up our special order.  Ha!

Anyhow, yesterday on the way home Michael exlaimed "Fly agaric!"

SCREEEEEEEEEEECH!!!

Oh wow.  I've never seen these little devils in the bright red flesh.

I'm so excited!

But they aren't trailers, are they?  Maybe I should get a little teardrop and paint it like one of these.  That would be cute!  If I were inclined to give our trailer a theme (I'm not), fungus would be high on the list.  Along with clowns, or creepy dolls.  Fortunately for all of you, I'm not inclined to give our trailer a theme.

I did see a cute trailer while out on the dog walk today.  It passed us as we were walking, and I managed to catch the name as it drove by.

Ummm... what was it again?  It was a long walk, and I had to call 911 to report a guy passed out (dead?) on the sidewalk.  We didn't get too close, but it was obvious he needed some sort of assistance.  I see all sorts walking the dog around town these days.

I wracked my brain when I got home, and all I could remember is that it started with a "C" - I think.  I checked a couple of trailer manufacturer lists, and the name that jumped out was Cardinal.  I'm sure that was it!  I don't have a picture of the actual trailer that drove by, but it looked a lot like this ~

That little point in the back is a dead give-a-way.

Cute little thing, isn't it?

Art!

Our dear friend Christine did  a great rendition of our trailer today!  She also did a couple of others - and will be happy to do a custom job or YOUR trailer if you want!

Or a tiki.  Or a Sasquatch.  Or kitchen towels and potholders.  Shameless promotion?  Of course.  She's an artist that deserves support.

That's a nice one!

So is that!

Check out more of her art HERE!

Enjoy...

Trailer, trailer... it's all the same!

I've noticed that in my search for vintage trailer information, I often stumble upon movie trailers.  Darn you homonyms!

Tonight I did a search for 1967 vintage trailer advertisements.  Just like that - no quote marks.

Oh my.   This turns out to have nothing to do with travel trailers (or trailer parks).

Indeed, it appears to be a very strong moral lesson aimed particularly at young ladies of a certain age.  Watch the amusing and somewhat disturbing movie TRAILER...

AND LET THAT BE A LESSON TO YOU!

I was really looking for something more along these lines... honest!

Honest.

Eye candy

Today was a big day - I hosted an author brunch event for teen summer reading winners, and in the afternoon we had a panel even open to the public.  It all went really well, but last night I slept poorly - waking often and having strange dreams.  Needless to say I'm a bit on the tired side tonight.  And my feet hurt!

I've decided to post a bit of eye candy tonight.  As you might guess, the logical step beyond a vintage trailer is to of course add a vintage towing vehicle!  Or vice versa, if you're somebody who started with the cars.  It's going to be a good long while before we can add a car, but it's fun to look!

Why not start with this lovely procession of cars and trailers passing by?  They could almost pass for a picture from the past, if it weren't for those two modern lurkers in the rear!

Ooooh, look at this pair!  A 1956 Chevy and a Serro Scotty trailer.

Here's a cute little trailer and a nice truck!

And our last photo for the evening - a Studebaker pickup and a 1961 Winnebago trailer.  The best thing about this photo?  They're CAMPING.  In a campground!

Oh.  Now that I look at the other pictures along with it, it's still a trailer rally of some sort.  But they're CAMPING!

Enjoy the sights... see you soon!

Who knew?

You may or may not know that I'm a Librarian - and now that I've stated it you can't not know.  Unless you're late to the blog and never see this post.  No doubt I'll mention it again for the latecomers.

ANYHOW... working in a public library can be something of a trip at times.  And I'm not talking camping trip!  We get all sorts coming through our doors - all ages, and many variations of mental stability.  Some are easier to deal with than others, and there's one patron in particular who I really like but who has some severe mental issues that really seem to have taken a turn for the worse lately.  Full on paranoid schizophrenia.

This has to do with trailers, I swear it!

This afternoon she called while I was on the desk, and she had a question about the cover of a book she had checked out earlier.  The bar code we put on the book covered some words, and she wanted to know what they said.  I looked it up online and

OH MY GOD LOOK AT THOSE TRAILERS!!!!

The patron was particularly interested in what it said there at the top and exactly which words were capitalized.

Patron:  "and are the W's in Willy Wonka both capitalized?"

Me:  "yes, both W's are capitalized, the "m" in meets is not, but the "T" and "M" in The Matrix -

OH MY GOD LOOK AT THOSE TRAILERS!!!!

They do bear a suspicious resemblance to this...

Sort of.

I've been meaning to read that book.  It's just moved a few more notches up towards the top of my stack.  I want to find out what's up with those trailers on the cover.

Actual camping...

Not long ago, on the Facebook site for vintage trailers, somebody posted a picture of their trailer out on some adventure.  The first comment posted was something to the effect, "It's so cool you actually take your trailer out and use it!"

WHAT?

Isn't that what they're for?  I realize some people treat them as little doll house toys to be fixed up and fixated upon, and that's their choice.  But these old trailers weren't always little showpieces, and probably have all sorts of stories to tell of their adventures in the past.  I dredged up a few photos of trailers in action...

1973

1950's or 60's

1967

Trailers are for camping!  We can't wait to use ours again.  It's in the throes of staining and varnishing inside though... it will be a while before we can breathe properly inside it.

Summer is over, anyhow...

Relaxing...

Sort of.  It always takes a couple of days to get into the swing of not working, and not jumping out of bed at six in the morning to get ready for work.  I did manage to doze off again, and could call it a proper sleep in this morning.  Got going slowly, and took a long (1.5 mile) walk with Syd on a new route we've been enjoying.

We're really starting to focus on what needs to be done before we leave on  Wednesday - only two days to get everything ready!  We bought a few things for the trailer - a tiny coffee maker and some kitchen implements.  It came with a lot, but there were a few things that Michael wanted to get.  Tomorrow we start packing in earnest, and cleaning up the house before we go.

Now that we have an Aloha trailer, I've begun to notice tiki stuff everywhere.  Spotted today at K-Mart:

Groan.  No, we did not buy it.  But I bet it looks good when its eyes are lit up!  We're not particularly interested in any sort of theme for our trailer.  We just want it looking good and feeling like home away from home.

I also spotted a cute little trailer parked at the end of the Wal-Mart parking lot.  There's usually one or two rigs parked down there, taking advantage of the free camping.

I was making the rounds of all the places today looking for a permanent coffee filter for our new coffee maker.  No luck - if I don't find one at the last stop on Tuesday we'll just have to get paper filters.  Oh well.

I spent more time in the trailer this afternoon, reading and doing a little bit of artsy stuff.  It's a nice little spot away from the distractions inside the house - especially the computer!  I can watch the neighborhood go by - okay, I mean I can spy on the neighbors!  Our street is pretty sleepy most days.  There was a little girl walking up and down the street today with a toy playing Christmas music.  It sounded like an ice cream truck, so I was really confused until I saw the girl and her toy.  Then it was just eerie.

Tuesday Treasures

1967.

It was a good year, so I hear.  The summer of love and all.  I was only two, so I don't have much in the way of memories of that year.  I probably had a favorite teddy bear, and played with some toys.

But lots of people were making memories with their trailers.  It was the year our trailer was built, and plenty of people were out and about having fun with trailers of their own.


Hook 'em up and hit the road!

Leona had a good time in 1967.  She got out, saw some mountains, and stood near some snow.

 

Leona's trailer, parked in front of her house presumably!  Is that an airplane shadow?


And how about some camping in sunglasses style?

How did they fit all of those people into that trailer?!!!!

Book Review - Trailerama

Trailerama - Phil Noyes


If you're looking for a book to satisfy your lust for visual images of vintage trailers, then this is it!  Noyes has pulled together an impressive collection of ephemera related to these old beauties, and organized it in a manner that even a librarian could love!  I sat for an hour or so and paged through this book, enjoying every image and the sparse but pointed commentary.  Trailerama is an interesting peek into the world of life in a mobile home - small or large.

Advertisements and old photos combine to create this nostalgic look at the culture surrounding trailer life.  A lot has changed over the years, but the love for a little mobile home away from home hasn't diminished.  We still yearn for the chance to get out and see more of the world around us, and this glimpse of the trailer lifestyle will inspire even the most immobile to head for their nearest state park, trailer in tow.

It's all about hitting the road and having a good time.

Destinations...

Once one has a trailer, one must find a destination!  Today we go to state parks, national parks, and RV parks - depending on what's available at our intended location and how much we want to pay.

But back in the day, "back in the day" (as they say), people hitched up their trailers and headed for trailer parks.  Or trailer courts.  Either way, a term we associate now with permanent living used to mean the same thing as RV park.  A temporary tourist destination.  At some point meaning and intention shifted, but the signs for these early parks are still out there - the shining beacon meant to lure the weary traveler in.

I bet these were quite the places in their heyday...

Eye Candy

I'm not going to lie - if money was no object, I'd rush right out and find my own Holiday House trailer.  I love the big window!  The beautiful aluminum features, so striking when polished!

The Holiday House trailers are rare indeed.  There are so few of them that I keep running across the same pictures no matter where I go online.

Oooooh.... aaaaaahhhhhhhh...

The Holiday House trailers were built by the employees of Harry and David (the fruit people!) during the off-season as a means to  retain skilled employees in the off season.

Fruit.  Trailers.

An obvious connection!

The big hitch switch

Which hitch?  This hitch switched out without a glitch.

This hitch didn't fit the fitting on our Durango, and we wanted to upgrade to modern towing technology, so away it went!  We upgraded to this lovely hitch kit.

And we'll be able to tow anything we can possibly dream of!  Not to mention, should somebody rear-end me I'll be in great shape.  They won't!

We had the trailer towing electrical rewired today too - that should take care of everything!  Turns out there was an issue in "THE MODULE."  It has been fixed now.  Our plan is to pick the trailer up on Wednesday and bring it home.

Syd is wondering what the big deal is.

He has yet to learn how this adventure will improve his life.