About Birdie

“Hey, Hon, could we go take a look at this trailer?”

Bob thought I was going to pick out a teardrop trailer, just a spot to catch a few winks, but I didn’t want to cook an omelette in the rain, and he likes to linger over coffee and his newsfeed in the morning in a cushy spot. When I first saw Birdie, it was everything we both wanted in a sweet little package — all right, emphasis on “little!”

The idea for a camper trailer came from my work as a captioner for the Arizona Department of Emergency and Military Affairs, which has a wonderful program that trains and sends ASL interpreters and captioners to disaster events like wildfires, floods, and other emergency incidents. The program is known as Emergency Response Interpreter Credentialing or ERIC. We provide communication access to people who rely on alternate forms of communication like American Sign Language and CART captioning — which is a speech-to-text service delivered by a live steno captioner in real time. We might be dispatched to a school cafeteria, a church, a fairground — oftentimes in small communities — or to a rough fire camp, and the assignment could last for weeks. The hotshot crews, fire fighters and first responders, operations and command staff are all well trained and well provided with more than ample meals, medical services, team management and good communications — like a small pop-up city — but we all report prepared to rough it a bit. My first several wildfires I slept in my car, my choice, but it was — let’s just say rustic. And to respond to an emergency incident meant that I had to bail on my regular jobs and clients on short notice. Not good. So I began to wonder if there wasn’t a way to solve a couple of those issues with a single move, like maybe… get a small trailer.

Let me stop here for a brief moment and say that my husband Bob is a retired firefighter and a homebody. He was born and grew up in the middle of a large, industrial city. We first tried tent camping early in our marriage. He was truly superb at doing what all his training had taught him — fire suppression. The poor guy absolutely could not get a campfire going, but he out-fished me for an embarrassingly long time to make up for it. He’s just more comfortable in his own surroundings at home. His idea of a nice long vacation? Ideally, three and a half days…. including the travel time. So I asked myself: Is there a way to help him feel more comfortable away from home? Maybe take “home” with us? Perhaps we could… get a small trailer?

And so the search began. We agreed it needed to be small enough for me to handle by myself if need be, to have a functional kitchen, enough tech for me to work on the road, a comfy bed, a place to linger with coffee and a read. It needed to be snug and private, light enough be towable with a normal sized vehicle, with lots of versatility for both hookups and off-grid camping, and enough storage so we didn’t feel like all the comforts of home were still at home. And it needed to have a full bathroom.

For months I scoured on-line classifieds, pinned relentlessly, saved photos, floor plans, buying tips, and cautionary advice about water damage, frozen slide-outs, dry rot, and poop pyramids! After a bit, I realized that what kept surfacing in my selections were the vintage trailers. I liked that they were made of wood and metal rather than laminates and fiberboard. I liked that they mostly all seemed to have interesting little personal bits like curves, nooks, colorful sinks, interesting windows, and wings! They seemed to reflect an optimism and eagerness to move toward the horizon, even with flat tires and peeling paint. It was something about the hitch and tongue — I swear — like an arrow pointing to somewhere else. Just over there. Up the road. Around that hill. And so we… got a small trailer.

Bob emphatically stated that I bought the very first thing I saw, but I maintain I’d had months of silent looking, clandestine shopping, and website voyeurism. I was pretty sure I knew what I was looking for; I just didn’t know what I was looking at.

. . . . .Vintage Adventurer. . . . .

My appreciation and love to Robert W. Reid for granting the use of several of his wonderful photographs.