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 

The Mercury gets a new butt

Having suffered a bit of water damage in her rear end from having been sitting in a field knee deep in snow, the back half of the Mercury has had to be completely rebuilt.  The floor under the bed was completely rotted and needed to be replaced and the timber that connected it to the chassis had suffered from water damage as had done the rear interior panels.

Luckily, the damage was only in the rear of the caravan under the bed where there was no Lino flooring, so it hasn't affected the plan to save the original flooring if we can. The J rails were unscrewed  and the skin peeled back and the old floor, interior panels and perished beams were all ripped out .

Once the chassis was exposed, the caravan was hoisted up and the metal chassis was wire brushed and treated with a rust inhibitor in preparation for a repaint in black Rustoleum.

Once that was all done, the rotted timber floor and support beams were replaced with brand new treated timbers and marine grade ply and glued, clamped and bolted back together.  This van is going to be so solid and waterproof after all this that it should last another fifty years!

My sister's dog Rosie has become quite the "trailer dog" and loves spending time with us out when we are working out in the caravan

So now the next step is to remove all of the J rails and remove the perished old chewing gum type sealant that had allowed the water to come in and reseal the entire caravan with a urethane sealant and brand new screws  - replace all the window rubbers and get stuck into sanding the entire outside back to raw metal - Oh joy!