Those Were The Days

Grandparents and Trailer My Rving adventures started on January 21, 1948. It was my 7th birthday and what a wonderful gift I was receiving! We lived in Detroit and we were setting out for an adventure in Tucson, Arizona. My father drove pulling a trailer that looked like an Airstream – but probably was not. My mother, brother and fraternal grandmother were also along for the ride. My maternal grandparents (pictured) had already made the trip to Arizona (I don’t know the identity of the woman in the doorway). The trip took eleven days and with no video games or TV it must have been quite a challenge for my mother to keep my brother and me occupied. I remember holding my breath as we struggled to go up hills (or were they mountains?). When the car sprung a leak in the gas tank, we all pitched in (including my grandmother), chewing gum to plug the hole in the tank. We didn’t last long in Arizona and made the trek back to Michigan after three months. However, those three months provided a lifetime of memories and led to years of camping experiences with my parents and then my husband, children and grandchildren. From that tin can trailer with no TV or bathroom, through tents, pop-ups, and trailers, we now travel in a Class A motorhome with a TV, microwave, air conditioning etc. – but most importantly – a bathroom! Submitted by Marilyn Kaczander-Cohen of Oak Park, MI as a part of the RV Centennial Celebration “Share Your Favorite RV Memory” contest. Do you have a favorite... Read more

Living the Dream

Back in the 70’s most kids my age were interested in sports, hobbies, collecting baseball cards and the like.  Not me.  For reasons unknown to my family and the scientific community, I became fascinated with all things related to recreational vehicles, sometime around the age of ten.   The reason this may seem a bit unusual is that I had never been camping, and was living in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, New York being raised by a single working mother.  Although I had many responsibilities in helping raise my two younger sisters and looking after our house, my favorite pastime was collecting nearly every brochure from every trailer, motorhome and RV accessory manufacturer in the country.  I also wrote to every state, requesting their official highway roadmap and campground information on the hope of someday visiting their state.  We didn’t have much money, so I couldn’t join the Good Sam Club, but I was allowed a subscription to Trailer Life magazine and eagerly awaited its arrival every month to read the latest news and product reviews.  In fact, hardly a day went by that something related to my dream of RV travel didn’t arrive in the mail!  I carefully cataloged every bit of it and could quote you the cost, specifications and capacities on any rig, along with the towing and overnight parking regulations in most states east of the Mississippi.  I studied each brochure and kept careful notes and drawings in a book.  With the smooth and cunning moves of... Read more

Don’t Cry Over Spilled Milk

When I was younger my parents bought a used motorhome. My dad was so excited about the new ride that he wanted to show his best friend what it looked like on the morning before a trip to Florida. We were all packed and ready to go except stopping at Lawson’s to get milk. My mom went in to get it and was putting it in the refrigerator when my dad took off. She lost her balance and the 1/2 gallon cardboard carton went flying, hit the dashboard and exploded. My dad sat in the driver’s seat dripping with milk and I think steam was coming off his drenced head. He didn’t say a WORD. My mom kept explaining that it wasn’t her fault because he took off before she put the milk away and had the fridge door closed. It was Sooooo funny, but we all were afraid to laugh. A long time had passed before we told that story and roared with laughter about it. I can still picture my dad with milk dripping off his nose. Submitted by Margie Bryte of Rootstown, OH as a part of the RV Centennial Celebration “Share Your Favorite RV Memory” contest. Do you have a favorite RVing or camping memory you’d like to share? Submit your favorite memory here!  Read More →

Baptised Into Camping in a Grand Way

My wife and I began camping when we purchased a used tent from a co-worker in 1964. The co-worker had purchased a new Apache Buffalo pop-up trailer. In March 1964, we went camping together to Cave Lake Park in Pike County Ohio to initiate their new trailer and our introduction to camping. During the night, it rained like cats and dogs for hours. The lighting lit the tent up enough to read a newspaper. When we got up the next morning, a 2.5gal bucket on the table was half full of rain water. My wife slept through the storm and knew nothing about what went on. I didn’t sleep during the storm and was concerned as to how durable the Sears “Ted Williams” tent would stand up to such a storm/downpour. We were in among a lot of medium size trees which protected us from wind for there was none. The other couple was concerned about us being in the tent which they been camping in previously. After getting up, we explored the campground and discovered that the lake(about 30 acres or so in size) had rizen about 3 feet flooding the small cave that was the attraction there so that you could not enter into it. The lakes overflow spillway had water at least a foot deep running over it. We learned later that there were tornado’s in parts of Ohio during the night and how bad the storm was. What bothered us later was that we didn’t know about how bad it was at the time and to think we were out in it in a 10×13 tent. My co-worker and his wife initiated their new... Read more

As The Twig Is Bent

I’ve only been RVing for a couple of years and still consider myself a beginner. But I realized recently that my first venture was actually many years ago. I was only about 12 years old, but it made a lasting impression on my mind. In 1948 my parents decided that a warmer climate might be good for my handicapped step-father. So in the fall they bought a used trailer, put the furniture in storage, and we left Wisconsin for Arizona. The trailer was no shiny production rig; it was a plywood, home-built unit of about 24 feet in a rather ghastly shade of green. The hitch was a bolt dropped through a hole in the end of the tongue into a matching hole in the hitch on the underpowered (60 horsepower) car. It was pretty rough-and-ready, but something that I thought was slick was that the table folded up to close off the cupboard. We piled way too much stuff in the trailer and headed south, taking a route that avoided a large hill outside town. I have no idea what they expected on the road ahead, but that hill was nothing compared to some of the mountains we crawled over later. First off, one of the trailer’s wheels came off. This happened two or three times before my parents figured out that the axle was slightly bent, causing the wheel to shear off the lug bolts. In Illinois they got that repaired and had a real ball hitch installed. We started out like a clueless bunch of dust-bowl refugees, but we learned quickly. We made it to Arizona, stayed a couple of months, and then pressed... Read more

RV Pioneers, Off to Mexico

As a young forester in northwestern California in the winter of 1954 I found that my work in the mountains was limited by snow and winter weather and my employer allowed me a three week vacation. My wife, Billie and I borrowed a 13 foot Aljoa trailer from a brother-in-law and took off in late December for Mexico. We had a new 1955 red Ford station wagon and our four year old son Kevin along with us. Down the central valley of California, across the Tehachapi mountains, and across the border into Mexico at Nogales we traveled, oblivious to what high adventure lay ahead. We continued south through Hermosillo to Guaymas where we met the Gulf of California. We snorkeled in the relatively warm water, walked the beaches, checked out the shopping, and visited the cathedral like church. Around a point from Guaymas we found a deserted beach on San Carlos Bay. Off in the distance we saw what appeared to be another gringo. We got closer and greeted each other and told the man we came from a little town in northern California that he probably never heard of called Ukiah. Oh yes he said , I have heard of it, my name is Paul Poulos and I am the major of Ukiah. So much for the small world theory. My wife Billie, having grown up on an apple ranch, had lots of experience driving trucks and tractors so she had no trouble driving our car and trailer on what were rudimentary, no shoulder roads. Billie had more than her share of driving from Guaymas on, where the road to Tepic crossed six rivers,... Read more

Camping, Crutches and Rain Don’t Mix

Our 1st RV was a 1970 Volkswagen Campervan, which we purchased in 1979 in Mississippi. This was the style with a cot in the pop-up area, and an infant sling over the front seats. We were planning on taking the boys (aged 1 1/2 and 3 1/2) to Disneyworld, camping at Fort Wilderness, and wanted to have a “shakedown” cruise in advance. Given the tight sleeping confines of the VW, we had also purchased a tent as “auxiliary sleeping quarters”. The weekend before our first trip, I broke a metatarsal in my foot playing soccer, and was on crutches, with the foot wrapped in an ace bandage. We decided to go ahead with the weekend, and set out for the campground on a Saturday morning in early April, usually good weather in Mississippi. We arrived at the campground in off and on light drizzle, and managed to set up up camp, with me hobbling around on one foot. By early evening, the drizzle had turned to a fairly steady rain, and we retired early for the evening, with my wife and the boys in the VW and I in the tent. By the next morning, the steady rain had turned into a solid downpour, and I ultimately broke camp by hopping around on one foot while striking the tent, and then just stuffing it into the back of the VW, soaking wet and a complete mess. All the while, the folks in the motorhome in an adjacent campground sat inside, warm, dry, and with hot coffee. We then headed home, somewhat wet and disheveled. Nonetheless, we still went to Fort Wilderness, had a great... Read more

West Coast Trip

My brother and I left Eugene, Oregon last February and traveled down Pacific Coast Highway 101 with a Dodge Dakota pulling a lightweight 26ft Passport. My first coastal trip and by trailer, the Pacific Ocean was a breathtaking visual experience at every turn. Below Eureka we continued inland heading now through forests where the giant redwoods seemed like an enchanted fairy tale. Further on the lush green hills of the wine country reminded me of Ireland. Outside of Hollister we had a blow out on one of the trailer tires. The telephone road side assistance was terrific. Seeing the Golden Gate bridge and San Francisco was a sight to behold. We visited Alcatraz and then on to LA nestled between two mountain ranges. We drove down Rodeo Drive and finally arrived at Grauman’s Chinese Theater. This was certainly a dream come true, I was standing where legends had left their mark. We left LA where people wore gloves, hats and polar fleece at 60 degrees (I’m from NJ so that made me chuckle) and off to the Grand Canyon. After two gas scares, fill ups were too far apart, we made it to Williams, AZ. Daylight was fading as we drove the last hour and half to the national park, arriving around 11pm at the Grand Canyon, the temperature had dropped to 14 degrees. Boy was that a cold night setting up the trailer and then having the propane tank run out while we were sleeping. The next day we awoke to a blizzard and waited out the snowfall to tour the canyon. I cannot put into words... Read more

Kit-Ten Trailer

About 1950 my folks borrowed my Godmothers “KIT TEN: trailer for a fishing trip. Yep. It was ten feet long. cooking and sleeping the three of us. Learned to fly fish and catch a fish that week up in the forest and of course the American River. That started it all, and 62 years later my wife and I are still at it. Went yesterday looking at some new places to get to the woods. Submitted by Gary Case of Manson, WA as a part of the RV Centennial Celebration “Share Your Favorite RV Memory” contest. Do you have a favorite RVing or camping memory you’d like to share? Submit your favorite memory here!  Read More →

A Tear Drop

I was only 5 years old when my folks towed a Tear Drop trailer from L.A. to Oklahoma in 1952. They towed it in a ‘50 Chevy 2 door sedan. I do remember quite a bit of that trip. I remember we never stayed in camp sites. We would pull off the side of the road and spend the night there. We took Route 66 all the way there and back. Quite a trip! Submitted by Robert Billingsley of Los Angeles, CA as a part of the RV Centennial Celebration “Share Your Favorite RV Memory” contest. Do you have a favorite RVing or camping memory you’d like to share? Submit your favorite memory here!  Read More →

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