From TCT member Bob Gallagher:
A great thing happened at the TCT rally in Bend, Oregon this past weekend. A bit of a long story, I’ll keep it as short as possible, but it involves connecting with the original owner of a rare 1950’s Airfloat and involves the 91 year old gal in the photo. It starts a couple years ago when my loverly wife Jacyn Giesbers-Gallagher and I were at a vintage trailer rally at Valley of the Rogue near Grants Pass, Oregon. We were camping our 1955 Airfloat Cruiser. After unhitching we were headed into town in our 1961 Dodge C-500 truck to poke around. On a backroad and BAM! there’s a little Airfloat Skipper sitting beside the road! We threw out the anchor and came to a screechless halt. We found the owner and got a tour of the trailer. A really neat, and REALLY worn out little Airfloat Skipper. And the odd feature, it is the only Skipper I have ever seen with a bathroom. I got the owner’s contact info. A few months later we were at the Mt Baker rally in Lynden, WA and a really nice guy stopped by on open house day to talk about Airfloats, and if maybe I knew of one for sale. That dude, Jesse Dasovich, contacted the owner, swung a deal, and now has the rare little Skipper near Spokane and is doing a super-duper restoration of it. Flash forward to this past Saturday. Jacyn and I are at the Bend rally and a really nice old lady stops by and tells me she has some questions about Airfloat trailers and someone pointed her over to me (we were Airfloatless, camping our 2-story trailer instead). She tells me how her mom special ordered a small Airfloat, she wanted it with a bathroom. Over the last couple decades the trailer had sat and was in terrible condition and when the mom past away a family member sold the trailer…near Grants Pass! I showed her pictures and she immediately said it was the same trailer we had spotted and passed to Jesse! She was sooooo excited to know her mom’s old trailer had been saved, she was sure it was scrap by now and gone for ever. She was very excited to connect with Jesse and I can’t wait to hear more of the details of the story. Anyway…..what a great experience to find that rare old Airfloat, help get it to the hands of someone who loves it, and then run across a member of the original family who loved it when it was new 60 years ago 🙂 🙂