June 2018

Greetings from the vintage trailer rally in Roslyn, Washington! Even though I no longer own a vintage trailer, I’m here to commune with old friends. I first attended this rally in 2010.

In 2007 I purchased a 1955 Hanson Love Bug “canned ham” trailer. (For those unfamiliar, imagine a can of ham flipped on its side, add wheels, and voilà.) The Love Bug, manufactured in Glendora, California, came in various lengths; my trailer, the shortest at 10 feet long, was the “Camper’s Delight.”

For over a year I refurbished the trailer, updating the electrical and propane lines, adding a Fantastic Fan, ordering a mattress for the “three-quarter double” Murphy bed, and designing a paint job.

Planning to decorate her with a motif from the 1950s, I settled on a poodle theme. I would have named her Mimi, but I was afraid my friend Mimi would think that was creepy. Instead, she was christened FiFi (lawyer friends joked it should’ve been “Fee Fee”), the pink French Poodle.

(Photo: Lance Wagner)

There’s not much room in a trailer that is six feet wide and 10 feet long (which includes two feet of tongue). FiFi had a cold water sink, propane stove, small closet, and no toilet. I pushed my space outward, adding every accoutrement in pink that I could lay my hands on. Luggage, sit-down cocktail bar, beach area complete with pink pool and pink tiki umbrella, classic pink bicycle … It’s funny, I never really liked pink. But, once that pink racing stripe was painted on the trailer, it was all about the matchy-matchy.

Because of FiFi I met two neighbors up the block, who saw her in my driveway and ended up buying a vintage trailer too. We attended the Roslyn rally in 2012, where we met another couple. Now, those two couples are the best of friends and retired in the same neighborhood in Sequim! Fate is funny that way.

I not only credit FiFi with introducing me to some of my best friends; she also introduced me to camping. Before FiFi I spent a total of two nights in a tent, and that was during the Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Three-Day Walk. Before FiFi I had no experience in towing anything, backing anything, campgrounds, camping, leveling, water hook ups, electrical hook ups, or holding tanks. (The only thing FiFi taught me about holding tanks was that they exist, and she had none.)

FiFi also taught me valuable lessons about stuff (See: Too much of). I have this tendency to take something totally fun and gild the lily until it sucks all the joy out of it. When there was room at the campground to bring everything along, it took me over three hours to set up camp, and when friends approached to say hello, I looked at them with wild, kaleidoscope eyes. They would back away saying, “We’ll catch up with you later!”

(Photo: Dave Cody)

One year at a rally, watching my seemingly endless labor as I set up, a concerned friend commented, “You know FiFi is fabulous all by herself without that other stuff, right? It doesn’t look like you’re having any fun.” In the last couple of years I pared down greatly – the first step culminating in The Great Purge of 2015.

Without FiFi, I would not have woken up one morning and said to myself, “I think I’ll buy an RV and travel the country.” Had there been no FiFi, there would be no “The Lady is a Tramp.”

I chuckled when people asked me if I was going to travel the country in FiFi. This lifestyle change was never meant to be an exercise in deprivation, and FiFi as my one and only home was just a little too much roughing it for me. Like most of my other material possessions, I sold FiFi in 2015, and she was one of the hardest things to part with. She is enjoying her retirement as a garden structure in a Seattle neighborhood overlooking the water, an extra bedroom for houseguests.

Will I ever own another vintage trailer? I guess the first question to answer is, “Will I settle down again or keep traveling?” Stay tuned.