home is what you make it

I know they've been popular for a while...

the "vintage trailer",

but let me start this story with a little background.

You see,

me and trailers, we go way back.

Mom, the boys and I even lived in one from the time I was four until she met and married Dad, when I was nine.

Childhood.

That trailer was the prettiest little home in the world to me.

It was really a mobile home of sorts, circa 1950 something I think.

It rested under the hanging eucalyptus branches on my grandparents property in Murrieta, California.

The kitchen was my favorite. Long wide windows wrapped around all sides of it...the kind with the slats of glass that you had to crank to tip open..letting those Santa Ana winds breeze their way through to the picnic bench table where we gathered for our meals.

Yep, that mobile home was home to us and left a lasting impression for all things "vintage" and
"well-loved."

Fast forward a few years to 1984, my brothers and I sunburnt, happy and free on The Strand, in Oceanside, California.

Mom met Dad on the fourth of July at a beach party. Dad lived practically on the beach. Surfing and the City of Carlsbad were his life...until he met Mom, and her three rug-rats.

Soon enough we were spending every weekend with "Mike".

The Strand was exactly that. A tiny strip of a road, covered more with sand than pavement, lined with beach cottages. (If you've ever seen the movie Top Gun, I guess one of The Strand cottages is the house of the girlfriend...I wouldn't know, Mom & Dad said that I couldn't watch it no matter how badly I longed to be an F-14 jet pilot when I grew up.)

"Mike" was a beach bum bachelor who lived in the back of one of those cottages with a surfboard mailbox. His house was really just one room and we thought it was "rad." But, there wasn't enough room for the five of us so, the boys and I "had" to sleep out in the Aristocrat Trailer, settled happily in a hillside of ice plant.

How could I not love old trailers after that? Lorn, Garth, and I would fall asleep to the sound of the waves crash-crashing...wake up with the sun, chow down on C-3PO cereal ("Mike" bought sugar cereals for us, he was a keeper), throw on our bathings suits, slather on the zinc-oxide, and spend the rest of our day on the beach.

Best memories hands down.

After Mom & Dad married, the Aristocrat sat next to our house in Vista, California until I graduated from high school. It was my play house, my hang out, and my "get-a-away from it all" refuge. (I'm actually tearing up as I type this...so silly), but for a little gypsy girl like me...those trailers were home.

Sometimes I wished I had a "regular" house, like my friends..but now, looking back on it, I feel so blessed.

My childhood was very unique and free.

I hope to pass down that sense of adventure to our kids.

Which brings me to the 1967 Red Dale.

I've been running by it for two years now, resting quietly in the neighborhood behind us.

About a month ago I finally got the gumption up to ask about it.

It wasn't for sale..initially, but they were gracious enough to let Aaron and I take a look at it.

It reminded me so much of both the 1950's mobile home under the eucalyptus and the 1960's Aristocrat on The Strand.  The perfect blend of my childhood.

Well, long story short...the owners let us buy it!

So, I have a trailer again.

And it won't be for "glamping" or painting in pastels.

Of course we'll clean it up a bit and make it our own...but,

the Red Dale will be for adventure and for memories,

the kind that Abigail, Benjamin, and Elizabeth can take with them and make their hearts smile too.