When I think about the whole Trailer Project, you know what gives me pause? The responsibility? The money that will inevitably be spent? The daunting task of driving across the country with a 5,200 lb antique? My Dad’s wrath if I wreck the family treasure? No. Well, actually Yes to all of them. But the Real Scary Thought is that (God’s Voice) I will build it … and no one will come. Now, that would be an epic  DISASTER.

So, I am opening up the Cause. I need help. I need talent. I need ya’ll to get invested in this so that you will actually show up and have Fun there when it is all done.

Consider this the all-hands-on-deck call. I need your contribution: time, ideas, talents, energy, support, whatever.  If you are willing to give something of yourself to the Trailer Project, then you are Part of it.

Give as you are able. I need design help, builders, visionaries, dreamers, company on a 2,315 scary-and-fun -as-hell road trip. I need to locate the perfect piece of land in Central Texas- less than 2 hour drive from Downtown Houston. I need iPod playlists, folks. I need support and enthusiasm.  I need people to keep me from going back to my responsible, practical ways. Keep me (dis) honest.

First step: I need brainstorm input on what would make a get-away a place you would want to go to. I need you to be part of the journey and the destination.

And it needs to be Fun.

So, the trailer dilemma. It’s cool. I mean Really Cool. It’s been in my family forever. 20 years longer than I have, to be exact.

In case you did not know me in the 90’s, you may not know that I am big time Vintage Girl. I worked at vintage store- and a silver jewelry shop- most of my trip through college. I am a leopard-skin kinda gal who has been trapped in corporate America for 10 years. I’ve been nice. I’ve been respectable. I’ve been upper middle class. I’m a mom. And now, it’s time to be just a little BAD. Irresponsible. Fun.

Ring. Ri-ng. Riiiinnng! “Daddy, I want the trailer!”

Ok. How am I gonna pull this off? Unlike my loner younger years when I shunned too much companionship and anything that looked like, heaven forbid, help, I am now much, much smarter.

 I lived, alone for 10 years in a Victorian tear down. No Central AC. In Houston. What I learned was that I was tough. And cool. And LONELY as hell. So, belatedly I figured out how damn wrong Mazlow was about the pyramid of needs. Food? Shelter? 401K? Shit. What a person needs is decent freakin’ friends. They are the ultimate survival secret and if you don’t have them you ARE starving in a gutter even if you don’t realize it.

I have a little kid. She’s 3. I am all up-to-date on my classic bedtime stories. Well, do you remember The Little Red Hen? You know: She Found Some Wheat? “Who will help me plant/ reap/ grind the wheat?” Well, she had a bunch of lazy-ass friends who would not do jack squat to help her. “Not I!” they gleefully cried, which is the bedtime story equivalent of not answering cell phones or replying to text messages. In the end, LRH whips up some fabulous bread and wadda ya know. All the friends are ready to Party. And LRH has a clue by this point and shuns them with a big ole No Way.

Now. Is the point of the story that LRH showed them in the end? No. I think not. Pay attention! LRH was left eating bread alone, people.  The point is that LRH had a bunch of loser friends who needed dumping sooner, not later. She should have found some peeps who thought helping her was part of the Party. Then she would not have eaten enough bread to make herself sick primarily to spite others.  I mean, honestly, self-righteousness does not equal FUN.

This moral was not lost on me. I’ve spent 20 years cultivating the most bad-ass set of friends you’ve ever seen. I mean, my friends are the Justice League of America. They provide a quality of protection against Life’s Cruel Disappointments that is generally reserved for fiction. Only they are Real. Real and Really Talented. And probably slightly off-kilter, but hey, look who they hang out with.

Thus, I am taking my trailer project to my Little Black Belt Hens (LBBH?). We are sooo gonna make this one Secret Lair to write home about.

 

Perhaps you heard about my near- apocalyptic 2008? If not, skip it. It is behind us now.

So. 2009. Having lost all rational fear, resistance to risk and much of my sanity (see 2008) I decided I need to have FUN in 2009. It is clearly time to cash in on my inheritance.

Now, some people get bequeathed fancy jewelry, some people get choice real estate, others receive 50 years worth of National Geographic and Reader’s Digest.

I pity them.

I hit the Mother Load of Inheritance. Rather, I hit the Father Load, to be more accurate.

My Daddy, bless him, bought a 1950 Spartan Royal Mansion Travel Trailer w-a-y back in 1949 as a returning GI. The Cadillac of silver bullet trailers. Yessiree. And he is giving it to ME. 
So…hooo. I got myself a 5,200-pound 33-foot behemoth of a trailer. Did I mention that said jewel is currently abiding in Salem, Oregon, while I happen to live Deep in the Heart of Texas?  Might as well also come clean and drop in that I’ve never driven anything bigger than my 2000 Jetta.

No problem. Because I am having FUN in 2009. What could possibly be more fun than an insane, likely dangerous and highly dubious project concerning a subject you know little-to-nothing about coupled with a non-existent budget? That is a Westerners idea of Bliss, you Eastern Zen-types.

I mean, all I have to do is move the damn trailer 2,315 miles across the country (It’s only 33 feet plus the 17 foot 1980 Ford Econoline Van!) Find a temporary place to stash it (Um, I live downtown), restore the MF, buy some land, landscape the Hell out of it, and my iconic retro-modern get-a-way will be the Envy of Everyone. (Mwa-ahh -haa-haa  evil-genius laugh obviously obligatory here.)

Hummmm.

I feel I need to elaborate a teensy bit on the whole 2008- scared- me-to-near-death thing... Ya’ll: I now laugh in the face of small chartered planes, certified letters from the IRS, mammograms, and the health risks associated with movie theater popcorn.  I’m corrupt, man. Nothing scares me anymore. This might not actually be a good thing (survival instincts blah, blah, blah, responsible role model, etc.)

But WTF. It is what it is. And I’m scared of NADA, people. Do your worst- or your best- either way. BOO. I won’t blink.

So, on the one hand, I got a trailer. On the other hand, I got nothing to lose. Let the FUN begin.