Into the desert...

October 8th, 2017 Day 2: Susanville, California to Mina, Nevada (250 miles)

On Sunday morning I set off for nevada. Some people might consider these drives across the desert regions of America boring, but not me! I love all aspects of changing scenery when I am on a road trip. Be it the lush green forests of Oregon or the arid red dirt and rocks of New Mexico, I find myself feeling truly inspired by the symmetrical patterns and variety that nature reveals in all of its forms as I drive.

 I am also a sucker for old dilapidated sheds, houses and historical buildings which is why I prefer to travel on my own rather than in a caravan with others as I tend to have so many "Stop the car!" moments where I just have to get a photo that it would probably drive anyone traveling with me crazy. Most of these stops also involve getting into chats with admirers of the Hudson as was the case when I doubled back to admire this lovely old church in Doyle. The guy who has been restoring it drove past and was tickled pink to see us parked outside and also stopped for a chat and took some photos.

From Doyle I drove past Reno on the I-80 when suddenly all traffic was being redirected off the highway in a detour that took me so far off the beaten track that I was hoping I wouldn't run out of gas as Doc Hudson only has a 150-mile maximum range.  The GPS kept saying "turn around when possible" and seemed to have no recalculated course for me to follow and there were no signs telling me how to get back to my route.

 So I just continued on the 439 south to Silver Springs where I thankfully found a gas station and a very helpful Nevada Highway Patrolman Trooper Rick O'Dough who not only owned a 1962 shasta but gave me directions to the 95 with the recommendation to fill up again in Hawthorn as it would be 100 miles to the next gas station in Tonopah. I thanked him profusely for the tip and  set off again.

I arrived in Mina at as the sun was setting behind the mountains and pulled into the Sunrise Valley RV Park, and took my leftover pizza to the nearby gazebo where some other RV'ers were also having pizza and introduced myself. People are always genuinely surprised when they find out I am traveling on my own.  You meet so many more people when you travel solo than you would if you were with someone else as you tend to stick together when you're with others whereas I have to be more outgoing and open to meeting strangers if I want to talk to anyone at all while I'm on the road! 

I find that most people are very kind and intrigued and, touch wood, I have never felt uncomfortable with anyone yet, but I always do have my trusty wasp spray on hand if I ever did get into a bad situation.  I would never want to let fear of danger stop me from living life the way I do or feel that I am in more danger just because I am a woman on my own. I trust in the inherent goodness of most people and have been blessed to find that true for me so far.

Loving the road tripping life!

I AM THE ROAD TRIPPING QUEEN!

Gosh it has been a while hasn't it?
And I realize that I have a LOT to fill you all in on since last I wrote. So many awesome road trips, so many adventures and, as is often the case, I've been so busy being out there on the road collecting other people's stories for my Vintage Trailer Magazine that I have neglected my own blog a bit. Sorry about that! I promise to fill you in on where I have been and what I have been doing now that "Rosie" has been tucked away for the winter and I have some home time for a change.

I have only recently come back from a mega 4,000 mile trip from Oregon to New Mexico where I attended the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta with my Sisters on the Fly.
This is one of those things that has been on my bucket list for such a long time and I have to say, it far exceeded my very high expectations. To be surrounded by 500 hot air balloons as they inflate and take flight is truly a sight to behold that I can only describe as total sensory overload.  But I'm getting ahead of myself now with lots to fill in before we get there...
Lets start at the beginning of this road trip.

After having spent the previous day packing everything I would need for the next 3 weeks on the road into the trailer and the Hudson, I left Oregon at around 10.30 a.m on Saturday the 7th October and drove 330 miles to Susanville, California where I stayed at the same RV park I had stayed at on my way to Reno for Hot August Nights: Susanville RV Park. I wrote in my journal at the end of each day and kept records of the roads I drove, each time I filled up with gas, and how much I spent on gas, food and accommodation on each day. I had planned each day's drive to be progressively less than the previous one to allow for the chronic fatigue and difficulty seeing out of my left eye that I have been battling since I got Bell's Palsy in August. Although it still is affecting me slightly, I am one of the lucky ones as some people never recover from the facial paralysis that this nasty illness causes. I was fortunate that the worst of it only lasted about two months for me.

The day Bell's Palsy struck - it was really scary!

Determined as I am,  I was not about to let the lingering symptoms of this darned thing prevent me from pursuing my road tripping dreams. I ended my diary entry on that first day with the words:
"I AM THE ROAD TRIPPING QUEEN".

I ended up having to make what was supposed to be the Sept/Oct issue of Vintage Trailer Magazine the Nov/Dec issue #36 as typing on the computer was virtually impossible during this time.

Yesterday was a wonderful moment when that magazine was delivered and I got to sit and read it from cover to cover for the first time. I love that moment as much as any of my customers as working on it over a period of time in separate pieces never gives the same feeling as when you have that hard copy of glossy paper magazine in your hands! It is always my favorite day. I'm like a proud mama holding her newborn baby for the first time every time.  Although this one took a while coming I think it is one of my best issues yet. Isn't she beautiful?

To order your copy or to subscribe go to: www.vintagetrailermagazine.com

Springtime in Oregon

Spring is here and the sun is shining and I am so loving being back in my cute little Oregon home with the deer in the back yard, my friendly neighbors, the gym down the road and my sister nearby. Life is good!  Now I can get back to doing what I love most... making more of these:

I'm now back in the Vintage Trailer Magazine Oregon office overlooking the blossoming trees and enjoying the sunshine streaming through my window, although it was a real treat to have a couple of days of snow when I first got back from Australia. Snow in March? Such a surprise when last winter I had been here it had not snowed once all winter! I love snow...

My house backs onto a forest and the deer often come out to nibble on the grass, and I can see them from my kitchen window. This little cutie was staring straight at me the other morning!

Since I've been back I've been really enjoying catching up with my sister and her family and we are both getting very excited about being able to go camping together now that her vintage Shasta Compact "Pheobe" is all restored, registered and ready to hit the road!
Here she is putting her new tags on after our trip to the DMV. Happy days!

Meanwhile, my 1949 Crown "Rosie" been taken in by an Oregon restorer who now has her shiny new skin on from front to back, new checkered flooring down and has replaced all the faulty wiring. He is now rebuilding all her internal cabinetry so she is all set to take me camping this summer. So far I have booked us into eleven events this year starting with Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly Weekend in April. It's going to be a busy year for Vintage Trailer Magazine!

It was lovely to catch up with Ann Kruger again last week at the monthly Oregon Sisters on the Fly dinner get together. Ann's sweet little pink and white 1959 Aloha "Dixie" was on the cover of Vintage Trailer Magazine issue #31 recently and she is just as lovely as her trailer is!

I'd better get back to work now as I am putting together the next issue of the magazine now but I will be sure to post more updates soon!

To order subscriptions and back issues of Vintage Trailer Magazine go to: www.vintagetrailermagazine.com 

Rosie's make over begins...

Rosie is a cute little 1949 Crown "canned ham" caravan that we found for sale in the yard of a Salvation Army thrift store across the road from the Hot August Nights Swap Meet two years ago. I wrote all about her in a previous entry and you can read all about it HERE

After having spent the last two years locked up in a shed in Oregon, the time has finally come to give her the make over she deserves.

Her old axle and bearings were pretty crappy and it had a 5 by 5.5 stud pattern that limited our options somewhat, so once she was rolled out of the shed, she was hoisted up onto stands and the temporary wheels we had put on her to transport her from Nevada to Oregon were removed.

We ordered some shiny new chrome smoothies and Coker whitewall tyres and a brand new axle, hubs and bearings online and Noddy set to work replacing the old ones with the new ones in the car park of our hotel.

Noddy had been quite confident that we could do the rest of the restoration work ourselves as we have now done up four  caravans together and they all came out AMAZING. The problem was that we both have very busy schedules and Rosie was going to be a big job.  She had suffered quite a bit more structural damage than we had at first noticed, and having been transported hundreds of miles with missing windows had made it worse. The once intact ceiling had been sucked out through the missing window in the door revealing some major rot in the supporting timbers and the side panel had come loose. After re-bracing her temporarily with some extra timber and boarding up all the missing windows to make her air tight again, we both agreed that it was time to call in the experts.

After having sussed out quite a few vintage trailer repair places around, we decided on Retroluxe Vintage Trailers in California. Firstly because I liked their cool name, secondly because in our email communications they had always been great to deal with. The third and main reason was that their prices seemed reasonable (as always, we work to a tight budget!) and the work that they had done that I had been watching on their Facebook page was impressive.  Feedback from their customers was always glowing and Scott had years of kitchen and cabinetry making experience under his belt that I thought would come in handy in repairing the extensive timber damage in both Rosie's structural framework as well as in her internal fixtures. Scott 'gets' the hot rod-yet-original kind of look I was wanting. It was great to be able to meet him, Wendy and co-worker Damon at Pismo a couple of weeks ago to talk about our plans to start work on Rosie.

One week later we set off on the 8-hour drive from Oregon to Northern California with our 1975 Ford F250 truck and our new-shoed Rosie in tow...

Once we crossed the border, we stopped for a break and a photo of Rosie with Mount Shasta - isn't she just the cutest?

The next day we caught up with Scott and Wendy for breakfast at a local eatery and then spent a great day sightseeing around the area, antique shopping, checking out the great collection of second-hand caravan parts and retro wares at the Vintage Deluxe Travel Trailers Shop 

We even found this old US Military Airstream Bambi for sale on the side of the road.... very tempting!

Later that afternoon we chilled out and brainstormed our ideas for Rosie over a glass or two or three of particularly scrummy wine on the deck of the Iverson Winery vineyard.

The next day Scott cast his expert eyes over our Rosie and we talked in depth about what we wanted to get done, what was required and how much it would all cost. 

"I'm not afraid", declared Scott 

"We can do it!" said Wendy

  I breathed a sigh of relief and dreamed of what kind of fabulous interior style I will do once she is all done... Stay tuned!

New additions to the VCM family

The Vintage Caravan Family keeps growing...

Two new additions recently joined the Vintage Caravan Magazine stable.  Both in need of restoration, I thought I'd introduce them here so you can see the "before" shots!

Firstly let me introduce the as yet un-named 1963 Sunliner:

She is about to undergo a complete chassis and drawbar rebuild as she had quite a bit of rust underneath and the tow coupling had been completely cut off. I'm still brain-storming on ideas for colours and styles for her, I think it will come to me when we get to spend a bit more time with her...

Love the cool quilted ceiling - reminds me of the inside of those old prams!

Then there's Rosie, we picked this little cutie up from the Salvation Army in Reno

Can you believe it? They sell cars there! It was sitting in the lot across the road from the Hot August Nights swap meet and as we left, I spotted her instantly.  Initially I just wanted to get a photo of her, but she proved to be so irresistible that  I couldn't bear the thought of letting anyone else get her. So now we have a Reno baby as well!

Lisa Loves Rosie!

She had been towed in that morning but her tyres were very perished and cracked, so we put some brand new tyres and wheels on her, drove her down to the DMV to get her inspected and walked out with brand new Nevada plates to put on her.
Rosie is a 1949 Crown trailer made expressly for Al Rose the Trailer King (according to her her ID badge near the door)
These types of aluminium caravans (or trailers as they call them in the U.S.) are commonly known as "Canned Hams" due to their rounded shape. Rosie is 12-foot long and surprisingly roomy and high inside.

She's a bit shabby inside and has some water damage to the interior walls, so a lot of them will need to be replaced, but we're lucky that all the internal fittings and fixtures are still there, so it shouldn't be too hard to fix her up again.

She even has all her original light fittings, very retro cool!

And look what we found inside!

A cool old kerosene lamp

And a canned ham! Really!