TCT Campfire

2013 Modernism Week Vintage Trailer Show

Mar 122013

On an absolutely beautiful morning in sunny Palm Springs a group of volunteers and friends waited in anticipation for the first vintage trailer to roll into the Hilton Hotel parking lot. One by one, as they started to arrive from California, Nevada, Oregon and Utah, the parking schematic I’d spent hours perfecting started to come to life.

It was an honor to co-produce this years’ Vintage Trailer Show with my friend Christy Eugenis – I focused on recruiting a diverse group of 20 vintage trailer exhibitors while Christy set out to find 10 unique retail vendors. Both of us own vintage trailers – she has a darling Aristocrat while my husband Doug & I are vintage Airstream owners – and we had a BLAST!! I reached out to the TCT, VAC and ROVT clubs, as well as the organizers of the Pismo Beach Vintage Trailer Rally and the publisher of Vintage Camper Trailers in my search for vintage trailers from the late 40’s to the mid-late 60’s and am so thrilled with the results.

This is the fourth year of the show, which is always the last weekend of Modernism Week – an 11-day celebration of mid-century modern design, architecture and culture. Christy took my friend Susan Taylor and I to a few of the Mod Week events – we were astounded by the number of people who were looking forward to the Vintage Trailer Show (it was so fun to be able to tell one aficionado that yes, there would be an Ultravan in the show this year!)

As in previous years, two awards designed by Stevotomic were presented at the Saturday Night celebration: the “Peoples’ Choice Award” – which went to a stunning Airstream Flying Cloud owned by Randy & Anna and the “Best in Modernism Award” – going to Jim & Denny’s pristine Holiday House. To the surprise & delight of the show participants two additional awards, also designed by Stevotomic, were presented as well: the “Best Original Vintage” – most original inside & out, with decorative changes only – went to Glenn & Teresa’s Airstream Ambassador and the “Best Vintage Flair” – most representative of the style, fashion & era of their trailer – went to Alan & Jaysa’s Aladdin Sultans Castle. Thanks Stevo – that was really fun!!!

In addition to the 20 vintage trailer exhibitors, there were three mobile retail vintage trailers; another six retail vendor booths, the Airstream Land Yacht Concept trailer as well as a presence from Airstream Los Angeles.

Thank you Alan & Shari from Bluesteel Airstream Photobooth for sharing your photos from the show: http://www.bluesteelphotobooth.com/modernism-week-vintage-trailer-show-in-palm-springs-event-photos/. More photos, blog posts and media coverage from the event can be found on our Facebook page at:

http://www.facebook.com/VintageTrailerShowModernismWeek2013?fref=ts

A HUGE thank you to each and every trailer owner and retail vendor; to the amazing Mod Week Volunteers; for the support from my friends Jim & Lynda, Clifford & Vanessa and all of our friends from the Airstream community, my co-conspirator Stevo and, most importantly, to Forrest and Terry Bone for their passion for the vintage trailer community. Little did Doug & I know that by purchasing a ’62 Shasta five years ago how it would change our lives unimaginably…and now we can’t imagine a life without the friendships that have come from this love of vintage trailers.

Safe travels & happy camping everyone -

Mona & Doug Heath

2013-2014 Calendar Submissions

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Feb 092013

Call for submission for this year’s Tin Can Tourists Calendar – ”It’s All In The Details” is the theme. If there was ever a group into getting the details correct it is the Tin Can Tourists. Michael Lambert would like folks to send in a photo of the whole rig and a few up close detailed shots of the decor or finishing touches that they have incorporated. Each month will feature a different unit with the detail shots featured. The due date of March 1st to be included in this year’s edition.

The Calendars will be available at the 16^th Annual Gathering in May and via mail orders in June.

Email them to Michael Lambert at michael.lambert@sympatico.ca

Michael does a great job on the calendar, but he needs material to do the great productions.

Submission PDF – 2013-2014 Calendar

2013 TCT at the Florida RV Super Show in Tampa FL

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Jan 212013

2013 TCT at the Florida RV Super Show in Tampa FL

Jan. 21, 2013

Madison, FL – Panama City, FL

Didn’t even set my alarm for this morning and slept in until around 8:30. I got up and ate some breakfast and walked around the park for a while checking it out for future reference. After my walk I decided to go ahead and finish the rest of my trip home. Traffic was very slim as it is a holiday and I was able to make it home just before lunch. It felt so good backing to trailer back into its parking spot and being home! I had a ton of fun, but it was very tiring and it is good to be home.

Tim Heintz

Tin Can Tourists South Eastern Representative

1950 Spartanette Tandem

2013 TCT at the Florida RV Super Show in Tampa FL

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Jan 202013

2013 TCT at the Florida RV Super Show in Tampa FL

Jan. 20, 2013

Tampa, FL – Madison, FL

After 4 full days of showing our vintage trailers, I am happy that we are finally on our last day. It has been a very intense week and I barely have a voice left. This morning promises to be a great weather day with sun all day and a little wind. As usual things started to get pretty busy early on and it was amazing to see all of the vendors selling new RVs marking them down as much as an additional 30% off! I could not believe how many of these rigs were being sold, many of the vendors had signs showing home many they had sold or at least how many orders had been placed over this last week and some were well over 30-40 rigs per vendor!!!

By late morning I was exhausted and really couldn’t talk much more so I finally gave up and put a rope across the living room in my trailer so people could just step in to see the front half of the trailer and I put a rope across the rear door so they could see the back half. I decided to just sit back and relax for the rest of the day and answer only the questions that were asked by the people looking at my trailer. I figured since I planned on pulling out like most other members after 5 pm I better rest up a little and not tire myself out too much as I had a long drive ahead of me unlike most of the other members.

Around 2pm I think all the other members were about ready to pack up as we were all worn out, but we still had 3 hours to go. Many of us started to pack up a few minor things a little early just to get ready for the time we were allowed to leave. Thankfully by 4 pm the crowds were really thinning out and even the big RV vendors were getting ready to pack up. Most of us were just about ready to pull out around 5 pm and as soon as 5 did come around most of us were ready to hook up and leave. However we had a little planning to do in order to figure out what order each trailer had to get out of this small area we were parked in. Thankfully the Fairgrounds started to take the fencing down right at 5 pm and many of our trailers could pull straight out where the fence once stood. After we got a few trailers out we helped the 1912 Camp Wagon be pushed over to the flatbed trailer that the owner used to haul it on……it is a heavy wagon especially when there are no horses to hook up to it!

When 6 pm rolled around I was the last trailer to pull out that was leaving today. A few of the other trailers were going to stay the night and pull out first thing in the morning, but I wanted to get a head start on my 400 mile trip home. It felt so good to hit the button on my GPS that actually says “Take Me Home”!!!

By the time I made it about halfway home I was starting to get tired, so instead of pushing on I decided to pull over for the night. I stopped in Madison FL at a really neat Campground “Yogi Bear’s JellyStone Park” http://www.jellystonefla.com/ which is running their winter special rates and it was well worth it as it is just a fun park to stay at. I wish I was not so tired but I am going to call it an early night and get a full nights rest.

Tim Heintz

Tin Can Tourists South Eastern Representative

1950 Spartanette Tandem

2013 TCT at the Florida RV Super Show in Tampa FL

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Jan 192013

2013 TCT at the Florida RV Super Show in Tampa FL

Jan. 19, 2013

Tampa, FL

Last night was a very interesting night as there were sounds of very large motorhomes being moved right outside my trailer quite late. Went out to see what all was going on and to my surprise the dealer right beside us was moving several BIG rigs out. They told us they had sold and they were bringing in new rigs to replace them. I have been seeing other rigs being moved earlier throughout the week and early in the morning but did not think much about it. The dealer said all of the vendors there to sell rigs have a separate parking lot with extra rigs to fill sold spots when a new one is sold. They can’t afford to let a sold rig sit in their area when they can move a new one in that might sell. After all the moving went on last night I still could not get to sleep and I was up most of the night. I finally gave up on sleeping early this morning and tried to get ready for the so called ‘Big Day’ which promised to be the busiest day of the whole week. So I started with breakfast then it was on to making my bed, doing the morning dishes, and a few other small things to get ready for the crowds today. As usual it started to get busy by 9 am and there seemed to be much larger crowds early on. It was a full morning of giving tours and by lunch I was already losing my voice.

With the day getting later and the entire RV Show coming to a close tomorrow many of the vendors must have been putting items on sale. People that were coming in to tour the trailers had some very large and full bags. Most of the trailers here on display were small enough that they had the doors roped off so people could just look in. After several large bags had knocked a few items over in my trailer I went ahead and roped my trailer off at the front and back door and figured everyone could see the front half from the front door and the rear part from the back door. Plus I was running out of voice and it allowed me to take a break and try to recover my voice. I usually lose my voice when we do a show for one day; this 5 day show has been quite intense!

By late afternoon the show was really slowing down and we had already decided we were going to close a little earlier as we were all having a get together for dinner with sub sandwiches and desserts. We had a great time at dinner as it was really our first time all together since we have arrived. After dinner most of us called it a very early night which has been very common with such an intense show that lasts 9 hours every day! So far we all have shown and given tours of our trailers for 36 hours, with another 8 hours to go tomorrow. Most times I am not ready to leave a Rally, but it will be nice to get back home where I can rest and get back to my normal routine.

Tim Heintz

Tin Can Tourists South Eastern Representative

1950 Spartanette Tandem

2013 TCT at the Florida RV Super Show in Tampa FL

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Jan 182013

2013 TCT at the Florida RV Super Show in Tampa FL

Jan. 18, 2013

Tampa, FL

Woke up this morning and had to turn my heater on high! It was 38 degrees this morning and freezing cold outside. As soon as I turned my heater on I got back into my warm bed for another half hour, it was that cold this morning. Finally I started to move around a little better (after thawing out a bit!) Got breakfast cooked and started to get my trailer set up for today’s show which was not a lot to do, just make the bed and do a few of last night and this morning dishes. By the time the show was to start the weather was starting to warm up a little and before long we were back in the lower 60’s. The crowds were very large and we ended up being busy all day. Got a lot of the typical visitors with stories of family members’ old trailers and trailers they lived in many years ago that were just like the trailers we have here on display.

Around lunch I had an older woman come tour my trailer and she was surprised to see a small vintage cook book that was hand typed from the hospital she worked at in the 50’s located in Murfreesboro TN. As she went through the small binder book she saw all kinds of names from old friends, staff, and even some of her old patients from many years ago (she had been a nurse at the Hospital). She started to tear up as many of her old patients had since passed away, but she was so happy to find that the book was still around. She sat in my trailer for a long time going through the books every page. When she finished she tried to hand it back to me but I told her she could keep it and take it back home with her to Murfreesboro TN. She was so happy to be able to take the book back as she couldn’t wait to show it to her old friends and the daughter of one of her past patients.

The rest of the day was just as busy as ever since it was getting warmer, but the wind was still blowing quite a bit. Many still had to keep their awnings down for the day since the wind was so bad. Once 5:30 rolled around the crowds started to slow down quite a bit and we started to close up for the day. Many of us were going to meet at the Cracker Barrel down the road at 600 but when we arrived there was an hour wait so we decided everyone was on their own. Hunt and I were in one vehicle and we decided to head back to our trailers and just cook for the night. After dinner I decided to call it an early night since Tomorrow is Saturday I can only assume it will be one of the busiest days yet!

Tim Heintz

Tin Can Tourists South Eastern Representative

1950 Spartanette Tandem

2013 TCT at the Florida RV Super Show in Tampa FL

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Jan 172013

2013 TCT at the Florida RV Super Show in Tampa FL

Jan. 17, 2013

Tampa, FL

This morning the weather was warm and the crowds started to show up right at 9 am to get an early start for the first full day of this event. Unfortunately it was not long at all before the wind started to kick up and clouds moved in. The temperature dropped very quickly and it started to rain with very high wind gust. Many of the smaller rigs had to take their awnings down and the oldest two rigs (1912 & 1916) had to close up and even be covered to protect them from the rain. After the main storm passed, which was really just a lot of wind and colder weather, the forecast promised a better day, but it never happened.

Later in the day since it was slow I got my computer out to get another weather update. I was surprised to have an email from a friend showing that all our vintage rigs had made the online web page ‘Vintage Car Talk’ Here is a link to the photos that were posted: http://www.vintagecartalk.com/archives/tin-can-tourists/

The rest of the day was filled with high winds and much colder temps with that annoying misting type rain. So I suggested that we all close our rigs for the day and if they wanted could head into some of the venues and take part in the actual RV show and see what all they had in the large buildings out of the bad weather.

Seeing some of the Huge Brand new rigs were really something, they had motorhomes so high priced (around 2 million) that before you could enter the coach you had to take your shoes off!!! Much too rich for my taste but still very fun to see in person. I also got a chance to stop by the Hymmer Trailer Display, which was a very cool vendor to check out. Hymmer is a German RV Company that shipped several of their rigs to the show from overseas and they were not even for sale! They just brought them over to see if there was a market for them here in the USA because before they go and produce a line of trailers to run off of American Power they want to see if there is a market over here. The Design of these trailers/motorhomes was very cool. “IF” I ever wanted to buy a brand new trailer, I would rather have a Hymmer if they start producing a rig converted to American Power, cable, plumbing, gas, etc… If you ever get a chance to check one out do it! They are very cool!

After I toured the Hymmers it was about time to close up the show until tomorrow. Hopefully Tomorrow will bring much better and drier weather.

Tim Heintz

Tin Can Tourists South Eastern Representative

1950 Spartanette Tandem

2013 TCT at the Florida RV Super Show in Tampa FL

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Jan 162013

2013 TCT at the Florida RV Super Show in Tampa FL

Jan. 16, 2013

Tampa, FL

Didn’t wake up to my alarm this morning!!!! At 5 am most of us were awaken to the loud voice of Charley Belcher from Tampa’s Fox News! With the weather so great we all had our windows opened and Charley’s voice was coming from all direction just outside our camp area. As I got up to see what was going on I noticed all the other vintage trailers’ windows shutting!!!! We knew they were going to shoot video this morning, but we were told they would be in our area at 830am….never mentioned they would be right next door to us at 5 AM!!!!

We only have one more rig to pull in today but it is the smallest rig and we have a very easy place to pull them into.

At about 8am the Tampa News Station wanted to film some of our vintage rigs. They ended up filming a couple of our rigs including my 1950 Spartanette, the 1916 Expanding Apartment on a 1924 Ford, and the 1912 Camp Wagon. Here is a link to the two video segments:

http://www.myfoxtampabay.com/story/20600007/2013/01/16/rv-super-show There are a total of three videos, one is about the new rigs, so one vintage segment is on the first page and you need to click next for the second page with the first vintage trailer segment that was filmed.

We figured today would not be too busy as it is just what they call Industry day and kind of a pre-start to the main show. By 9am people started to walk around and notice all the vintage rigs in our area. As soon as the shuttle service started to run (which was a 3-4 car like tram) we really got busy since one of the main stops were right in front of our rigs. Surprisingly we were busy most of the day with very few slow times. People were very excited to see all the vintage rigs as we have a great selection of rigs spanning 72 years! From as old as a 1912-1984 we have some of the coolest rigs to see! Many people kept commenting how our area was the best part of the show…..many said once you see one trailer at any other vendor you had basically seen them all, but our area had so much diversity and was very interesting to see all the vintage rigs. After such a busy day the crowds started to finally slow down around 6pm and we all started to close up from today’s open house. Many were ready to head out to get something to eat, cook in their trailers, then off the bed with such a busy day! Tomorrow might bring rain and a little wind so it might be a little slow tomorrow but we will have to see!

Tim Heintz

Tin Can Tourists South Eastern Representative

1950 Spartanette Tandem

2013 TCT at the Florida RV Super Show in Tampa FL

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Jan 152013

2013 TCT at the Florida RV Super Show in Tampa FL

Jan. 15, 2013

Tampa, FL

I never sleep well the first night wherever I am camping, but with all the generators, stadium lights, and some kind of birds making noises all night was not helping! I finally fell asleep around 1 am only to be awakened by the birds again. Went back to sleep only to wake up at 3:30 am and could not go back to sleep and with no power this first night I couldn’t even get up and do anything since it was still dark, although the stadium lights were still blasting through my windows even with the curtains shut. So I tried to go back asleep and finally about 5am the stadium lights went off and that helped me to go back to sleep for a few hours. By 7:30 am I was up and ready to get the day started and knew I needed to figure out where we were going to put all these trailers that were going to be coming in throughout the day. Took me a few hours but I finally had all the trailers mapped out and marked where each one would be.

Now I had time to finish setting up my trailer, which many know takes hours for me to get everything just right. By around 11am vintage trailers started to arrive. Thankfully since I already had all the spots marked out, everything went smoothly. By 4pm almost all the trailers had arrived except 2 and they were in the only two pull through spots so there was no issue in trying to squeeze them in.

After such a busy, and slightly stressed day trying to fit all the vintage rigs in such a small space I was more than ready for a good night’s rest. I have no doubt I will sleep ALL night tonight as I am about to pass out already!

Tim Heintz

Tin Can Tourists South Eastern Representative

1950 Spartanette Tandem

2013 TCT at the Florida RV Super Show in Tampa FL

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Jan 142013

2013 TCT at the Florida RV Super Show in Tampa FL

Jan. 14, 2013

Panama City, FL – Tampa, FL

Woke up this morning after very few hours of sleep due to a late night of packing up my trailer. It would not have been such a late night until I went out into my trailer yesterday to find a family of mice had moved into the trailer and made a mess of things during the few days I had the trailer without power and my electronic rodent devices were not working since there was no power. Thankfully the mice only chewed the non-vintage items and things that were not too important, they just scattered chewed up paper everywhere and I felt the need to wash, clean, bleach, and scrub every surface of the trailer and every item in the trailer!

So after throwing a few last minute items in the trailer I was ready to hit the road…..almost…..grabbed my prescription allergy medicine to only see that I had about 2 days left, so now I had to wait until the pharmacy opened up to pick up the refill. I jumped into the vintage Mustang to head to town since I had the truck hooked up to the trailer but the car would not start! So I cranked up my truck and decided to pull my Spartanette through down town to pick up my meds then head out of town from there. Well that took a while with all the work traffic but I eventually made it there and was finally ready to leave town around 10 am…..several hours later than I planned.

Not long before hitting the road I realized I forgot to check the air pressure in the trailer tires, so I decided to stop at a truck stop about 20 miles down the road. Pulled into the truck stop, went in to get some late breakfast then out to air up the tires. Back the trailer all the way out to the Air machine, got out and walked up to the machine only to find an ‘out of order’ sign on it! Figures, so I drove on for about 30 more miles until I came across another truck stop. Backed in got out, and again an ‘out of order sign’! Just my luck! I got back on the highway and drove on for another hour until I hit one of the big truck stops on I-10. Found a huge Pilot Truck stop and thankfully it appeared to be working, put four quarters in it and nothing!!!!! By this time I was a little aggravated and hit the top of the machine with my hand and it started pumping up! I quickly filled all of my trailer tires since all were about 10 psi low and finally I had nothing to stop me now!

About 100 miles outside of Tampa I got a call from a few of the other trailers that were arriving a day early with me to set up. They were at the gate we were told to be at but they found the gate chained shut! The number we were to call was in my trailer so I told them to go around to the other gate and I would pull over in a few miles to get the number. Thankfully they called me right back and told me the other gat was opened and they were allowed to go on in and wait until I got there so we could decide where everyone needed to set up at.

I finally pulled into the grounds about 6 pm only to find that our designated area was smaller than we were planning!!!! I have 15 trailers going to be here tomorrow and know I have to figure all my planning all over again. Thankfully we finally figured out where the three of use needed to be and we went ahead and placed our trailer in place and got set up. I was exhausted and decided I would get up early in the morning and measure out with a 100’ tape where all the other trailers will have to go. It should be an interesting day tomorrow as I had the much larger planned area packed tight, now we have lost about a 10’x35’ area but the same number of trailer!

Tim Heintz

Tin Can Tourists South Eastern Representative

1950 Spartanette Tandem

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