Thursday, September 30, 2010

The Adventure Begins

My boyfriend, Steve, and I are always building or renovating something. We just finished restoring my '66 Chevelle and will soon start working on his '48 Ford Pickup. We love vintage trailers and thought it would be awesome to have one to pull behind the '48. So the search began. Who knew that vintage trailers were so popular. Anything in reasonable shape and reasonably priced goes FAST, so when we responded to an add on Craigslist on August 27, 2010 we really didn't think that this was the one. The add was posted a couple hours before we saw it and figured it had already been snapped up. Off we went to the Clackamas County Fair for a day of demolition derby and corn dogs...yumm! When Steve's phone rang while we were checking out the animals and he saw it was an Idaho number he almost didn't answer it. He did answer it and it was the trailer owner. After 30 minutes of chatting and getting all the info, Steve convinced me this was the one and we needed to go pick up the trailer today. Only one problem, the trailer was in Bend OR and we were in Portland, it was 2 pm and we were supposed to be having a family day with his three lovely daughters. We went to the demolition derby, finished up with the fair, headed home, rounded up some cash and set out for Bend at six in the evening. It is over a two hour drive and we were hoping to get there before dark so that we could actually see the trailer before buying it. We got there, we checked it out, we bought it. No title (I know a lot of you are thinking that this was our first mistake and I will tell you more on this later), no located VIN#, and no knowledge that it would actually tow all the way home. We were told we had bought a 1956 Westerner. We got home fine  albeit late, parked and went to bed. These are the first photos.








1 comment:

  1. Jeanne and Steve,
    Wow! What a daunting and amazing undertaking. I can only say I'm glad it's you and not me.
    You definitely are the right people to take this on - diverse skill sets, tools and very obviously - a little crazy.
    Jeanne, I appreciate the humor in your posts. Smiling in the face of adversity is a wonderful virtue. Keep looking for the humor in the seas of aluminum. I've done some overwhelming projects myself so could completely emphasize with your melt down over the polishing. I could definitely envision the 'bathrobe' incident.
    Good on ya, for all the hard work! I am looking forward to your continuing progress.
    Kelly (from Bend, where the trailer was awaiting your rescue)

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