(no subject)
Well, the camping weekend was fun! It was a BEAUTIFUL drive up there Friday afternoon (I left work early) that took about two hours. I was in the Catskills! I didn’t know that’s where I’d be - I thought they were further west. I passed through miles and miles of cornfields, woods, little towns (both cute and shabby) and consistently thought, “what the heck do people DO around here? Like, to survive? Where do people WORK?” I guess I’m used to large businesses that employ hundreds/thousands of people; there seemed to be NOTHING VAGUELY OF THE SORT there. Like, I’d love to live in the country like that but how the hell would I do it? Work in a coffee shop?
Still, it was a beautiful and restful drive.
The campground was very nice, very well appointed and spotlessly clean. All the sites had FULL hookups for trailers, including sewer hookups (which I’ve never experienced before) and so there were none of my usual concerns about water usage. I could have taken a shower for as long as it would have taken for the propane (heating the water) to run out, when normally I’d have to be careful not to fill the waste-water tank while taking a shower. Nothing will keep you more aware of water usage than the threat of having to schlep 300 pounds of water to the dump station!
There were many other vintage trailers at the campground, it being a theme for the weekend! There were vintage Airstreams (going back to the 1950s! Though they all look the same!), Shastas, Tag-A-Longs, Bolers, Argosys, there was even a 1984 U-Haul - did you know U-Haul used to rent campers? I didn’t - and there were quite a few with vintage tow vehicles as well! There was even another 1963 Shasta Compact there. I met a lot of nice people, too.
Here is a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air and a similarly-aged Shasta trailer; there were other such amazing combinations as well:
Saturday was an “open house,” where everyone was invited in so see everyone else’s trailers - one thing about the vintage trailer crowd is they like to show their stuff - and I was torn between wanting to leave mine and walk around to see everyone else’s, or stay and show off mine. I spent about an hour hanging out at mine, meeting people and showing them Coraline (each tour being very short, natch), then did the rounds myself, leaving a sign on my trailer saying “Welcome in!” and hoping that people would just help themselves to a look. One thing about these trailer-enthusiasts is that they are trustworthy not to mess things up - and there was nothing I was particularly worried about people stealing.
At one point, a couple came by and looked inside and all around, then the woman asked, “are you Larry?” Um. “Yes?” Turns out she’d asked me a TON of questions on Facebook about how to do stuff on the trailer, because she and her husband were refurbishing their own 1963 Shasta Compact (which, as I mentioned, was there). That was neat. They were nice.
I made “For Sale” signs and put them up in the windows, and a few people seemed interested, but anyone discussing price was either joking or completely off-base. Not surprising, really.
Saturday after the open house, there was a potluck for the vintage trailer crowd. My contribution was the Velveeta/Ro-Tel queso dip that we make, in a fondue pot. In hindsight, it is perhaps more a party food and not a buffet food, as I think people did not know quite what to do with it. I figured out pretty quickly though that chips +chili (a potluck staple) +queso makes pretty damn good nachos! There were probably 100 people at the dinner, which was much more than I’d expected!
After dinner, I went around to try to chat with some of the trailer owners I’d missed during the open house, and ended up sitting with the Shasta Compact owners and a few other folks around a campfire, late into the evening. There was a gay couple there, Joe and Eric, who had a 1971 Shasta that was a freeking time capsule, I swear. I had a nice long talk with them around that campfire, and it allayed some of my concerns about the camping “scene” - namely that there are campers and there are Vintage campers, who tend to be more like the SCA of camping. Full of weirdos anyway, so what’s the big deal about an alternate lifestyle? They said they almost never have any sort of issues at all, even at non-vintage events. Even if someone is momentarily taken aback, because they have no exposure to gay people normally, they come around as soon as they realize that they are no different than anyone else. While it’s true that this country has been set back about 25 years in some ways by recent events, people are still basically good. It was good to hear.
I spent a good portion of Sunday morning hanging out with Joe and Eric, who are from northern Massachusetts and are retired (but working retirement jobs), and got a good look at their trailer, which was unbelievable. Straight out of the early 70s, with avocado green appliances (all of which were original and worked perfectly), original upholstery and paint. It really was a time capsule. It was really nice getting to know them.
I got back home around 2 in the afternoon, TIIIIRED, and not from lack of sleep! I’m more and more of an introvert as I get older - being “on” for a whole weekend had really tuckered me out!
Still, it was a beautiful and restful drive.
The campground was very nice, very well appointed and spotlessly clean. All the sites had FULL hookups for trailers, including sewer hookups (which I’ve never experienced before) and so there were none of my usual concerns about water usage. I could have taken a shower for as long as it would have taken for the propane (heating the water) to run out, when normally I’d have to be careful not to fill the waste-water tank while taking a shower. Nothing will keep you more aware of water usage than the threat of having to schlep 300 pounds of water to the dump station!
There were many other vintage trailers at the campground, it being a theme for the weekend! There were vintage Airstreams (going back to the 1950s! Though they all look the same!), Shastas, Tag-A-Longs, Bolers, Argosys, there was even a 1984 U-Haul - did you know U-Haul used to rent campers? I didn’t - and there were quite a few with vintage tow vehicles as well! There was even another 1963 Shasta Compact there. I met a lot of nice people, too.
Here is a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air and a similarly-aged Shasta trailer; there were other such amazing combinations as well:
Saturday was an “open house,” where everyone was invited in so see everyone else’s trailers - one thing about the vintage trailer crowd is they like to show their stuff - and I was torn between wanting to leave mine and walk around to see everyone else’s, or stay and show off mine. I spent about an hour hanging out at mine, meeting people and showing them Coraline (each tour being very short, natch), then did the rounds myself, leaving a sign on my trailer saying “Welcome in!” and hoping that people would just help themselves to a look. One thing about these trailer-enthusiasts is that they are trustworthy not to mess things up - and there was nothing I was particularly worried about people stealing.
At one point, a couple came by and looked inside and all around, then the woman asked, “are you Larry?” Um. “Yes?” Turns out she’d asked me a TON of questions on Facebook about how to do stuff on the trailer, because she and her husband were refurbishing their own 1963 Shasta Compact (which, as I mentioned, was there). That was neat. They were nice.
I made “For Sale” signs and put them up in the windows, and a few people seemed interested, but anyone discussing price was either joking or completely off-base. Not surprising, really.
Saturday after the open house, there was a potluck for the vintage trailer crowd. My contribution was the Velveeta/Ro-Tel queso dip that we make, in a fondue pot. In hindsight, it is perhaps more a party food and not a buffet food, as I think people did not know quite what to do with it. I figured out pretty quickly though that chips +chili (a potluck staple) +queso makes pretty damn good nachos! There were probably 100 people at the dinner, which was much more than I’d expected!
After dinner, I went around to try to chat with some of the trailer owners I’d missed during the open house, and ended up sitting with the Shasta Compact owners and a few other folks around a campfire, late into the evening. There was a gay couple there, Joe and Eric, who had a 1971 Shasta that was a freeking time capsule, I swear. I had a nice long talk with them around that campfire, and it allayed some of my concerns about the camping “scene” - namely that there are campers and there are Vintage campers, who tend to be more like the SCA of camping. Full of weirdos anyway, so what’s the big deal about an alternate lifestyle? They said they almost never have any sort of issues at all, even at non-vintage events. Even if someone is momentarily taken aback, because they have no exposure to gay people normally, they come around as soon as they realize that they are no different than anyone else. While it’s true that this country has been set back about 25 years in some ways by recent events, people are still basically good. It was good to hear.
I spent a good portion of Sunday morning hanging out with Joe and Eric, who are from northern Massachusetts and are retired (but working retirement jobs), and got a good look at their trailer, which was unbelievable. Straight out of the early 70s, with avocado green appliances (all of which were original and worked perfectly), original upholstery and paint. It really was a time capsule. It was really nice getting to know them.
I got back home around 2 in the afternoon, TIIIIRED, and not from lack of sleep! I’m more and more of an introvert as I get older - being “on” for a whole weekend had really tuckered me out!