Shopping spree

It was a beautiful Fall day today here in Maryland. A perfect day to go shopping for trailers. I make it sound glamorous, but it really was not.

In Maryland one knows they are in Western Maryland when they pass through Sidling Hill. Though it is a few ridges away from the actual Eastern Continental Divide, I always look at this pass as the door way to the West. Everything is a little different on the other side.

It is a totally different world where seeing the first snow over on this side or a Black Bear crossing the highway is common place. I never seem to have my camera out at the time the wild life crosses the road.

Things are usually different when you pass this sign too. Last year a very well liked club member passed on. He owned a number of rigs and I was going out to see if I might be interested in them. Rumor had it there was a factory built 1963 catering trailer along with a 1981 34 footer and Bill's trade mark Overlander. Bill always camped in a 1975 Overlander. The 63 was what I was most interested in.

I could tell right away the food service window was not a factory job. The factory would never leave a window in the opening and the steel piano hinge was a dead give away. The trailer also just did not look 1963 to me.

Serial number 249055 sure did not sound 1963 to me. That serial number reads twenty four feet, 1959, #055 off the line.

I am not going to comment on who sold it originally. Jacksonville is just few miles down the road from West Virginia.

The front window frame is gone.A sheet of plexiglass has been siliconed in the opening. Oddly enough I dealt with this very same issue a couple of months ago. Hope my source has a second window for sale. WBCCI number 16377. That number was issued when the club was strong and had a lot of members. Today if you removed the 10,000 from the number you would be stretching the club count. Times sure have changed.

The skin on this old girl is remarkably smooth and scratch free. There have been some odd patches installed when who ever converted her to a concession rig.

The step is gone and has been braced up with some 2 x4s. The entire floor has seen much better times. Only about 60% of the original fixtures are still present inside. This is okay for I intend to make the food service window more professionally done and the interior will be a blank slate for her next owner. I feel since the hole was cut and her pervious owner changed her use, I will just improve on the change and make this into a real vending rig. I could probably fix the cut out, but it will never look perfect. Vending trailers are very hot right now.

Great window placement on the street side. The skin looks to be in poor shape, but it is just lots of dirt and mold on the surface. You can see a number of those homespun patches on this side. The forward patch is a Herh roof vent put over the original furnace vents.

That is one low down license plate holder. I have never noticed them to be placed so low on the body.

Here you can see that food service window with the original window still in it. Kind of odd configuration if you ask me, but as I have come to learn, people do very odd things sometimes.

This is looking toward the rear. The very nice Princess stove still remains as well as the double sink. Who ever converted her over put plywood right across the entire countertop sealing the fixtures in. No toilet or shower remains in the rear.

Looking forward. Bill used this rig for storage and a work shop where he worked on old tubed radios.

There is the inside of the food service window. Anyone looking for a 1981 34 footer? That is for sale too. So, I am very happy with my purchase. She will need major work to her. Needing to be rebuilt from the rubber up. I feel confident that someone out there will want to make this trailer their new business venture.

Another deal I worked out was salvage rights to this trailer. At one point this was a 1964 Overlander. Tom said that this trailer has given parts to eleven others trailers. Some times a trailer needs to be sacrificed to save others. I was not the first to go at the hulk. I might add that this photo was taken after I had gone at her with the sawzall.

I cut out the complete door and hatch with frame from this side.

A few items I salvaged.

A complete door with the internal jamb frame. Now if someone was going to put a second door into a 1964 Sovereign, they have what is needed.

More hatches, two complete Herh roof vents with motors and lifters, Bowen water heater cover, and two complete windows with screens and cranks. When I left, there was virtually nothing left on that trailer to use.

I headed back East again. Up, through, and over Sidling Hill again.

Back out onto the Piedmont again.

At one point I needed a pit stop. I took an exit and made a right and another right to "just see where the road took me". It took me to the C&O Cannel. Sandwiched between the cannel and I70 was this graveyard. The youngest grave was from 1828.

1828 was before much of the West was made into States.

1828 must have been a very bad year, for three of the tomb stones had that year on them.

One never knows where a right and another right might take you. No wonder Wally made that suggestion often.