In 1998, The Vintage Vacations website had been up and running for just a few short months, but after meeting a few hand handfuls of vintage trailerites in the southern California and a few more by internet, I desided to organize my first "Vintage Vacations Spring Antique Travel Trailer Rally" The event was held Easter weekend at the Blackstar RV Park in the hills above Orange County Ca. where I live.
With 29 vintage rigs in all, We all had a blast on what turned out to be the coldest Easter on record for the area, so cold in fact that it snowed on the hills above us! There were about 150 people that showed up for the open house to view all of the trailers on hand
That year we were honored to have Ruth and Jack Bowlus, (the wife and son of Hawley Bowlus, creator and builder of the Bowlus trailers) visit with us and later joined us for a wonderful catered B-B-Q dinner by "Chris and Pitts" (a long time favorite in the so cal area) which was followed by 16mm films and tapes of old trailers from my personal archive collection.
Easter morning we had a wonderful pancake breakfast, spent a few hours saying good-bye and then we all drove off looking forward to the next event.
Well, that is where it all started, and since that time the Vintage Vacations rallies have grown is size and popularity by 10 fold. The last rally had 123 units in all and about 8500 visitors to the 4 hour open house that is always held on Sat from 11:am-4:pm
The past 4 Spring rallies have been held at the Newport Dunes RV Resort in Newport Beach Ca. The Dunes is a great venue for us as all of the spaces are laid out like tract houses and that make for an easy way to move around, see the trailers and meet our fellow trailerites.
I did not hold a Spring rally in 2005 as I had to much on my plate and the fact that I did something that I have wanted to do for several years, I took off by myself with one of my trailers and drove to Camp Dearborn Michigan to join up with 100 other trailerites at the Tin Can Tourist 05 spring rally, What a great event Forrest Bones puts on! After the rally, I spent another 2 weeks driving home on small country roads.
Plans are in the works now for the 2006 Spring rally.
From time to time over the past few years I have held rallies other than the Spring events to bring fellow trailerites together for one reason or another. In the Summer of 2004 I held an event at "Historic Camp Richardson" in South Lake Tahoe. After spending about 3 weeks on the open road with my family and 1947 Westwood Coranado trailer, camping on the Oregon and Washington coast, visiting with friends and shopping for antiques we worked our way down to Tahoe where we met up with about 80 other vintage trailerites for a wonderful weekend.
I have also held several other smaller rallies over the past few years to give new and old friends a chance to get together for a weekend of quite camping without the hoopla and crowds of an open house I have also held several events such as the rally that I put together for the History Channel filming of the show "Wheel Estates" A program that they filmed around Vintage Vacations, My shop, Myself and the folks that live in this wacky world of nostalgia!
For more information on past, current and future rally plans, click on the links below.