From our weekly issue dated October 01, 2008

Ye olde editor is not much of a camper, preferring nice motel rooms with all the amenities, but years ago we had a 14-foot Western camp trailer. It was kind of a classic, with the pine paneling and interior roof, and what I called the Roy Rogers upholstery (fake brands and steer heads) on the dinette that made into a bed.

Fourteen feet isn’t much space, but we were smaller then. Using our Poor Man’s Suburban, we hauled the trailer north in 1974, on the occasion of our 10th anniversary, while Jan’s parents stayed at our house with our three children. It was cold in that trailer, but if you bundled up in a double sleeping bag, and shared your warmth, it was great.

We chose November for that ‘74 trip, looking for somewhere to relocate from Poway in San Diego County. As it was November, and we were in Northern California and S.W. Oregon, well, it was chilly and rainy. In fact, we celebrated Thanksgiving in the trailer. Jan fixed scallops we had purchased on the coast. It was on that outing that we “discovered” Illinois Valley. It was much more rural and remote then. Although the valley had five grocery stores.

After returning home, I tried to get a job with Bob Grant, who owned the “Noose” with his wife, Jan. He wouldn’t hire me, saying that the economy wasn’t that good, and he couldn’t afford me. (Does this sound like a familiar refrain?) So we subscribed to the newspaper, and eventually moved to Escondido, where we lived for around two years before I got a job in Brookings.

Oh, about the trailer, the kids and I took it into the desert on the eastern edge of San Diego County once. It was an interesting weekend with the four of us in there. But we had a fine time. It was a bit of a trick to cook on that propane stove, but we managed.

We loaned the trailer and our Suburban to friends once, and they returned the trailer with dents in it. Seems that they didn’t know how to back up and crank the steering wheel properly, so they backed one side of the rear of the Suburban into one corner of the Western. Ah well, no big deal. I used a plunger and some big suction cups to pull out the dents. Looked OK.

I have to admit that backing the Western through our front gate from a narrow dirt road in Poway was not easy. But I never caused any dents.

Dents or not, the trailer was used more as a playhouse by our kids and their friends than for camping. We eventually sold it to a young woman who was leaving home. Don’t know if she was heading north, but if she did, I hope that her fortune is as pleasing as ours for coming to Oregon.