Chapter 3 "EUREKA! I found it!"

We Found IT!!!!! 

A 1963 Shasta Compact.

Debra, who had the Inspiration Trailer, contacted a friend only known to me as "The Trailer Whisperer"  and sent me a message that one was found for sale on Craigslist in El Cahon, California.

HOOOOOOORRRRRAAAAAAYYYYY!!!!!!

I have since learned and will share with you several places to find vintage trailers for sale. 

Tin Can Classifieds

eBay

Craigslist

Facebook Vintage Camper Trailers For Sale

Sisters On The Fly

My Vintage Camper

Amysvintagetrailers.com

Flyte Camp

Vintagecampers.com

And numerous trailer groups online such as:

Southern Vintage Trailer Friends 

And the old tried and true search down country roads and older lake resorts to find bargains. 

Ours was not down a country road or a bargain, it was across the continent and $5,500. This is how it looked:

"Not bad", you say? "Looks pretty good", you think?  Well, that's what I thought, I would find out otherwise......

So, I called the number. Got a nice young man, father, business owner. I asked if it was towable, yes. Did the stove work? "Oh yes, baked some great birthday cakes over the years." "It has modern air bag suspension so, you can lower it and it will fit in a garage." "Hmmmmmmm", I thought, bonus! "Does it leak?" I asked. "No. But there is a small cut in the aluminum above the front window I did one day when I turned with my hatch up", he said. "An easy fix", he said. "It's a good little trailer we took to the beach all the time when my son was little", he said.

What did I know? 

Sounded reasonable.

I should have asked if there was any rot or if the axle was boogered, and would I live to regret the aluminum nitrogen canister the size of a large torpedo........ but I wasn't as INFORMED as I am now.

I then committed the CARDINAL SIN of Vintage trailering. I offered to buy it sight unseen.

 
IN THE IMMORTAL WORDS OF GEORGE HERBERT WALKER BUSH, "READ MY LIPS!" Don't ever, EVER, ever, never, under ANY circumstances buy a trailer LOOKING AT PICTURES. Photos make everything look better. Whether it's a house for sale, an Internet profile picture, or a vintage trailer, a photo will always make it look better. For one thing, you can't smell a photo. These trailers are old, many of them are "gotten at" as the Southern expression goes. While ours didn't stink there were a host of special surprises awaiting us. But I'm getting ahead of myself.
 
I thought for one brief moment, "I'm buying this and it could be a total redo...." Well, we have done houses that were gut jobs, how difficult could it be? HahahahHaha! I still chuckle at that memory.

What is it about Traileritus that makes you throw your better judgment out the window? It's like turning into a Pod Person.... POSSESSED!

The man had a hydraulic Low Rider business so he took credit cards..... Hmmmmmm. I could charge it and if it didn't pan out and I could dispute the charge just in case it was really horrible. He agreed to take the payment but I would have to call him the next day. There was a man who said he was coming by in the morning to see it who called before me. WHAT?!!!  I spent a fitful 24 hours waiting to hear if I would have to start the search all over again. After a little while, I felt better about the situation because that's an honorable thing for a seller to do, taking people in order of inquiry. I just didn't want another person to get it!

The man who came didn't buy it. OMEN

I POUNCED, ignoring what should have been a sign from someone who was actually there...... while I was on the phone giving my card number to the man his call waiting beeped in and he excused himself. When he came back, there had been a lady on the other line hollering, "I'll pay more, I'll pay more!" I felt fortunate, at least for a while......

Now came the task of getting it to Arkansas from Southern California. I began what would become the epic task of hiring a long haul carrier. CROOKS! That's what they are crooks! At least the one we hired was. If you don't believe me, just give it a try......

Several pick up dates that were promised came and went. Finally, one day the broker said, "What are you in such a hurry for? It's just an old trailer..." *INSULT* and none of his business, his only business was to get it to me when they said without damaging it for the price they quoted. Never mind my motivation.  He cooed assurances it had been transferred to a "distribution center " where it was fenced and guarded. Those were the exact words, fenced and guarded.

I called the seller and it had indeed finally been picked up and was now in Los Angeles on its way and would be delivered by Friday at 11am. I could check in at any time to see where it was en route. So I did. "It's in Flagstaff, he said. I checked the next day, "It's in Albuquerque", he said. Then Amarillo, then Oklahoma City, and finally, "It will be delivered tomorrow."  It wasn't there tomorrow morning or afternoon. By this time I'm concerned and loosing my cool. I called again at 4pm and was told the clincher, "Now now Ma'am, the driver lied to me, it's still in LA but we're working on it."

I lost it.

Pure and simple, nearly climbed through the phone line.
 

I demanded to speak to someone else. I got another broker and explained the whole situation, apparently he felt sorry for me, and broke protocol by telling me the driver's name and phone number...... wait for it......in Sun City, CA. I called and spoke to Rocko, the son of a Baltic refugee who owned a flat bed and towed things for a living (in the LA area) NOT cross country. He was really nice but he had been duped by the carrier as much as I had. I pleaded with him not to move the trailer AND TO NOT LET ANYONE PICK IT UP.  I would check in with him every day on the way to LA to get it so he would know where we were ....... you heard right, we were going to get it and TOW it back OURSELVES. Never mind we had never towed anything before.... not even a city block much less across country some 1400 plus miles. The bigger issue is that someone somewhere was taking advantage lurking behind a slick professional looking website and he wasn't going to beat me.  Oh, and the trailer was not in a secure fenced and guarded facility.... wait for it......wait for it....... it was parked on the street in front of Rocko's house.

 

Did you know you can drive from Little Rock to LA in 2 1/2 days? It can be done but I don't recommend it.

Each day I checked with Rocko, assuring him I would make it worth his while. And when we arrived, true to his word, the trailer on the street where he lived. He had watched over it ever since he picked it up waiting for another carrier to come and get it who never arrived. The broker didn't even call during the time it took us to drive there.

We were very happy to see the trailer in person and at first glance all seemed reasonable.

Word to the unwise, leave your rose colored glasses at home.

The running lights hookup did not fit our truck so Rocko was helpful and took us to a local auto parts store. While he was wiring the adapter for us, I looked under the trailer and I noticed something for the first time, something that didn't show in the pictures. Remember what I said about pictures? There was an odd square tubular steel bar that dropped below the axle, or was it the axle itself?  This must have been whatever the guy who came to see it noticed and walked away. It was maybe two inches above the pavement and below the rims of the wheels. Any bump and that thing would careened or skidded or worse. It could not have been street legal. 

I immediately called the seller. I asked him what it was. He had customized the undercarriage so, that when he let the gas out of the air bag hydraulics, it would settle on the bar with no need of jacks. I said, " That would be fine on city streets but on freeways it would be disastrous. I told him we had come to LA to tow it back but could not tow it in it's present state. I knew he welded so I asked him if we brought it back to him would he fix it for the road and he said he would. So, back on the flat bed it went, and we followed Rocko back to El Cahon that very night. I had given him the money the carrier never paid him and another $400 for the trip south. 

We spent a night in a horrible motel nearby to the low rider shop and the next morning I was prepared to leave the trailer there if he didn't do the work and bail. There was another issue, the tops of the wheel wells had been cut out for the tires to pass their confines when at its lowest clearance. This would not have done well in the rain as it would have thrown water inside the trailer. Something else the pictures didn't show......  He fixed that along with the axle and while he was working we went to the local revenue office, had it titled in our name, and called our insurance company. 

When they were finished at the shop, the man even took Dave for a towing lesson, which was nice.  Anything else I figured we would fix. And there would be things to fix. 
That very day we headed east out of El Cahon over terrain that was mountainous rock that looked like the surface of Mars! And the WIND....... This was August and I HATE the heat, hate it. I know the Good Lord teaches us not to hate anything but I'm certain he meant people and not the Heat!  Yes, yes, I live in Little Rock and it's hot right now WITH humidity and I hate it. We are not summer campers, at least until we retire to the Oregon Coast. 

By the time we got to Yuma, it was 117 degrees and when we stopped to eat I had the conscious thought I could die in the distance from the truck to the restaurant right there in the parking lot. Did I mention our truck is black? Bonus! We took it slow but the trailer seemed to be swerving at times and we discounted it to the wind. The return trip took much longer than the drive out. We did not camp in it on the way back, for one thing, we didn't bring any bedding and the vinyl cushions held little appeal plus we didn't have a power cord so, without a/c it was a no go.

Arriving in Phoenix was met by nightfall.  So, we turned on the lights. No running lights on the trailer.  We had turn signals and emergency flashers which was of some consolation. The only option was to drive with the emergency flashers on. 

*Blink blink,* *blink blink*, *blink blink*, into the night and as it turned out, all the way home. 

Somewhere in eastern New Mexico we drove straight through the convergence of two massive thunderstorms. So heavy was the rain that we pulled over and stopped. My dear sweet husband turned to me with a most serious expression and said, "I can't do this, I've tried not to say anything but the trailer has been all over the road and it's not been good for me, I'm sorry." There we were in the middle of nowhere in the pouring rain yelling a screaming at each other in a way that wasn't normal!  I screeched "FINE! Just FINE! We will just unhook it and drive off!!!!" Following that declaration was me kicking and slapping the dash board for a long minute then silence fell and the rain stopped. We talked about just getting it home that we sensed something was wrong but didn't know what it was.  We drove on. My darling little Chihuahua, Lucy, slept through it all.

Somewhere outside Texarkana we stopped for gas. I had been checking everything at every stop and I notice this time a silver stripe on the inside of one of the tires. Quickly checking the other tire revealed the same thing. The brand new white walls had worn through during the trip both on the inside. That meant one thing. The axle was bent or at the very least not straight from all the rearranging that had occurred in its past. We prayed a lot the rest of the way home hoping they would hold. Thankfully, they did,  but I knew we had a lot of work to do. 

*I'm certain my dear sweet husband Dave achieved a kind of Sainthood here on Earth for enduring this journey*
 

By the way, during the trip back I called my credit card company. You see, I had charged the fee for shipping that never happened. I asked them to check our charges to see we had actually gone to get the trailer ourselves. They would find all the gas, hotel, and restaurant charges in a direct line there and back. The card company pulled the payment to the shipper. I got a phone call the next day from the same slimy broker that gave us all the grief saying he would sue and turn us in for collection and they would confiscate our trailer until the bill was paid.

What utter crap. 

  

I told him he'd never get the trailer. It was in a secure facility, fenced and guarded.

He never called back, the Rat Bastard.