About the trailer...

This is our trailer. We got it almost two years ago, the day after Christmas. El Esposo found it on Craigslist and we drove up to get it immediately because we didn't want to lose the opportunity and we knew nothing about the "old trailer" market. Why were we so anxious to get an old trailer at a good price? NOT because we were planning to restore it. No. We had construction scheduled for early spring and we were planning to use the trailer as a substitute room for the Aunt while the construction was going on in her room. It turns out the construction didn't happen early that spring. It didn't even happen late that spring! As you probably know from reading this blog, construction started last fall. It was finished in early June.

When we first picked up the trailer, I started thinking about keeping it. The people who sold it to us were an older couple who invited us in for tea and told about their adventures in it. The wife told me (while her husband and EE were looking over the mechanical aspects and out of earshot) that her husband just couldn't handle it anymore. He had liked it for fishing and even when she stopped camping, he would take it out for solo fishing trips. But the last time he had fallen in and she really didn't want him going fishing alone anymore. We hadn't planned to use the trailer for anything other than a room for the Aunt, but now my emotions were involved. We should camp in it! We should continue to make memories with the trailer. Sentimental me!

The conversations with them and their memories of the trailer made it sound as if the last trip had been the previous summer, or maybe a year before. After getting the trailer home and going through it, it became clear that the trailer had sat idle for a long time--maybe closer to a decade than a year. The Seattle friends helped us clean it out during a visit, the Seattle boy wanted to sleep in it and was so excited. "This is like heaven," he said, stretched out on the upper bunk in the front while his mom prepared for a creepy night in the old musty trailer. But then the sneezing started and didn't stop until they came in--no sleeping in the trailer that night! By September we got it cleaned out and used it as the Aunt's temporary digs.

After a year and a half in the backyard, EE was ready for it to go. It was going to the Junior Giants. There would be no fixing it up. The roof had leaked. One corner was rotted. It wasn't charming. We have too many projects at the house.... Ha ha ha!!!! After the camping trip he was once again talking about fixing up the trailer. You may have seen his comment after the camping post. You have seen my post about looking at vintage trailer restoration resources. You know what is coming next...

Before:
After:
The dinette/bed is out, the kitchen (stove, icebox, sink, counter) has been removed. When I got home from work yesterday I said, "Lets take off this paneling so we can see how much damage there is to the frame."

As always, I will keep you posted on the progress of the "Sprite Caravan Renovation Caper!"