Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs

Dreams of National Parks and Nostalgia

----- Perfect week for this chapter, Thanks Ken Burns! ----

It was a couple of months before I drove up to Long Beach to get my Styleline that my wife started looking for a 12 or 14 foot “can-o-ham” style travel trailer. After digging around on Google, Craigslist, Ebay and Flickr she had decided that if we were going to get an early ‘50s sedan, then we had to have a vintage family camper to match.

The Shasta’s were the cool ones, and it turns out, everyone that is into these things knows it. Way too desirable, all the ones that are listed anywhere are already restored and are very expensive. Way out of our league.

She would email sellers on Craigslist and never get a response. Not that we had the loot to pick one up… but I’m sure that if she found one that was reasonably priced and not a POS, we would have scraped the cash together to nab it.

You see, what she was thinking was this: Get a 50's Sedan. Get a vintage travel trailer. Pack up the boys and vacation at a National Park. Grand Canyon, Tetons, Jellystone. Sounds like heaven...

Fast forward a couple of months. I have the Styleline running on the stock driveline. The fuel pump fails. I get it running again, but I want to drive it around for a bit close to home just incase it decides to die on me. So, I’m tooling around on a street just a couple of blocks away from home…

There is this travel trailer sitting in front of a house at the end of a loop. Flat tires, dirty. Yellow. I pull past it and in the driveway is an all stock, rusty 1929 Model A Pheaton and a custom Ford Shoebox. The garage door is open, and inside are two more hit rods, a 1932 Ford pickup and a 30 or 31 Model A coupe… I gotta meet this guy!

I knock on the door, one of the kids inside yells “Dad, one of your friends is here” (I must have the “look”). When he comes to the door, I ask “Is that your travel trailer?”. “Yeah” is the answer.

“Wanna sell it?”

“No, man. You can have it”

Kick ass! We talk for a while and Adam (that’s his name) and I arranged for me to get the trailer once his family is back from Portland. Turns out he is relocating, and had no idea what to do with the trailer in such a short period of time.

I really wish I had met him a long time before that day. Nothing like meeting someone so into what you are into, that lives less than a mile from your house a month before they are leaving for good.

The last thing I did before leaving Adam’s house was to figure out the bolt pattern on the trailer’s wheels. They would have to be replaced. 5 on 4.5” - Early ‘70s Mopar… that meant a trip to Sweetwater Auto Wrecking.

Sweetwater is an interesting place, run by this guy Mark and his dad. They specialize in Dodge, Chrysler and Plymouth. I always put on my best “Yes, Sir” attitude when dealing with Mark’s dad (Mark is never around). Real proper, conservative… maybe a little of the old “Get Off My Lawn”. He gave me grief for parking the Chevrolet out front.

We make a deal, 2 straight wheels for $10 and a box of stuff I had left over from my ’63 Plymouth project.

Once they were sanded up and painted as close a blue to the Chevy as I could find in the spraypaint aisle at Home Depot, I was off to Welch’s Tires in Barrio Logan to get a set of used tires with the whitewall shaved wide.

It’s a 12’ 1965 Cascade. It needs work (a lot), but we are a step closer to the having our picnic basket stolen by Yogi and Boo Boo.

  • Joe
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all

Previous article

In-n-Out alters iconic symbol to reflect “modern-day California”

Keep Palm and Carry On?

----- Perfect week for this chapter, Thanks Ken Burns! ----

It was a couple of months before I drove up to Long Beach to get my Styleline that my wife started looking for a 12 or 14 foot “can-o-ham” style travel trailer. After digging around on Google, Craigslist, Ebay and Flickr she had decided that if we were going to get an early ‘50s sedan, then we had to have a vintage family camper to match.

The Shasta’s were the cool ones, and it turns out, everyone that is into these things knows it. Way too desirable, all the ones that are listed anywhere are already restored and are very expensive. Way out of our league.

She would email sellers on Craigslist and never get a response. Not that we had the loot to pick one up… but I’m sure that if she found one that was reasonably priced and not a POS, we would have scraped the cash together to nab it.

You see, what she was thinking was this: Get a 50's Sedan. Get a vintage travel trailer. Pack up the boys and vacation at a National Park. Grand Canyon, Tetons, Jellystone. Sounds like heaven...

Fast forward a couple of months. I have the Styleline running on the stock driveline. The fuel pump fails. I get it running again, but I want to drive it around for a bit close to home just incase it decides to die on me. So, I’m tooling around on a street just a couple of blocks away from home…

There is this travel trailer sitting in front of a house at the end of a loop. Flat tires, dirty. Yellow. I pull past it and in the driveway is an all stock, rusty 1929 Model A Pheaton and a custom Ford Shoebox. The garage door is open, and inside are two more hit rods, a 1932 Ford pickup and a 30 or 31 Model A coupe… I gotta meet this guy!

I knock on the door, one of the kids inside yells “Dad, one of your friends is here” (I must have the “look”). When he comes to the door, I ask “Is that your travel trailer?”. “Yeah” is the answer.

“Wanna sell it?”

“No, man. You can have it”

Kick ass! We talk for a while and Adam (that’s his name) and I arranged for me to get the trailer once his family is back from Portland. Turns out he is relocating, and had no idea what to do with the trailer in such a short period of time.

I really wish I had met him a long time before that day. Nothing like meeting someone so into what you are into, that lives less than a mile from your house a month before they are leaving for good.

The last thing I did before leaving Adam’s house was to figure out the bolt pattern on the trailer’s wheels. They would have to be replaced. 5 on 4.5” - Early ‘70s Mopar… that meant a trip to Sweetwater Auto Wrecking.

Sweetwater is an interesting place, run by this guy Mark and his dad. They specialize in Dodge, Chrysler and Plymouth. I always put on my best “Yes, Sir” attitude when dealing with Mark’s dad (Mark is never around). Real proper, conservative… maybe a little of the old “Get Off My Lawn”. He gave me grief for parking the Chevrolet out front.

We make a deal, 2 straight wheels for $10 and a box of stuff I had left over from my ’63 Plymouth project.

Once they were sanded up and painted as close a blue to the Chevy as I could find in the spraypaint aisle at Home Depot, I was off to Welch’s Tires in Barrio Logan to get a set of used tires with the whitewall shaved wide.

It’s a 12’ 1965 Cascade. It needs work (a lot), but we are a step closer to the having our picnic basket stolen by Yogi and Boo Boo.

  • Joe
Sponsored
Here's something you might be interested in.
Submit a free classified
or view all
Previous article

Reader writer has twins, buys Plymouth Signet

Good-bye to the 1965 Rambler
Next Article

It's a Runner

Ask a Hipster — Advice you didn't know you needed Big Screen — Movie commentary Blurt — Music's inside track Booze News — San Diego spirits Classical Music — Immortal beauty Classifieds — Free and easy Cover Stories — Front-page features Drinks All Around — Bartenders' drink recipes Excerpts — Literary and spiritual excerpts Feast! — Food & drink reviews Feature Stories — Local news & stories Fishing Report — What’s getting hooked from ship and shore From the Archives — Spotlight on the past Golden Dreams — Talk of the town The Gonzo Report — Making the musical scene, or at least reporting from it Letters — Our inbox Movies@Home — Local movie buffs share favorites Movie Reviews — Our critics' picks and pans Musician Interviews — Up close with local artists Neighborhood News from Stringers — Hyperlocal news News Ticker — News & politics Obermeyer — San Diego politics illustrated Outdoors — Weekly changes in flora and fauna Overheard in San Diego — Eavesdropping illustrated Poetry — The old and the new Reader Travel — Travel section built by travelers Reading — The hunt for intellectuals Roam-O-Rama — SoCal's best hiking/biking trails San Diego Beer — Inside San Diego suds SD on the QT — Almost factual news Sheep and Goats — Places of worship Special Issues — The best of Street Style — San Diego streets have style Surf Diego — Real stories from those braving the waves Theater — On stage in San Diego this week Tin Fork — Silver spoon alternative Under the Radar — Matt Potter's undercover work Unforgettable — Long-ago San Diego Unreal Estate — San Diego's priciest pads Your Week — Daily event picks
4S Ranch Allied Gardens Alpine Baja Balboa Park Bankers Hill Barrio Logan Bay Ho Bay Park Black Mountain Ranch Blossom Valley Bonita Bonsall Borrego Springs Boulevard Campo Cardiff-by-the-Sea Carlsbad Carmel Mountain Carmel Valley Chollas View Chula Vista City College City Heights Clairemont College Area Coronado CSU San Marcos Cuyamaca College Del Cerro Del Mar Descanso Downtown San Diego Eastlake East Village El Cajon Emerald Hills Encanto Encinitas Escondido Fallbrook Fletcher Hills Golden Hill Grant Hill Grantville Grossmont College Guatay Harbor Island Hillcrest Imperial Beach Imperial Valley Jacumba Jamacha-Lomita Jamul Julian Kearny Mesa Kensington La Jolla Lakeside La Mesa Lemon Grove Leucadia Liberty Station Lincoln Acres Lincoln Park Linda Vista Little Italy Logan Heights Mesa College Midway District MiraCosta College Miramar Miramar College Mira Mesa Mission Beach Mission Hills Mission Valley Mountain View Mount Hope Mount Laguna National City Nestor Normal Heights North Park Oak Park Ocean Beach Oceanside Old Town Otay Mesa Pacific Beach Pala Palomar College Palomar Mountain Paradise Hills Pauma Valley Pine Valley Point Loma Point Loma Nazarene Potrero Poway Rainbow Ramona Rancho Bernardo Rancho Penasquitos Rancho San Diego Rancho Santa Fe Rolando San Carlos San Marcos San Onofre Santa Ysabel Santee San Ysidro Scripps Ranch SDSU Serra Mesa Shelltown Shelter Island Sherman Heights Skyline Solana Beach Sorrento Valley Southcrest South Park Southwestern College Spring Valley Stockton Talmadge Temecula Tierrasanta Tijuana UCSD University City University Heights USD Valencia Park Valley Center Vista Warner Springs
Close

Anchor ads are not supported on this page.

This Week’s Reader This Week’s Reader