Nostalgia is a wonderful thing!

Nostalgia is a wonderful thing! I love the older travel trailers and I always have. They have a lot more character than the trailers that are coming off the manufacturing lines today. I hate to say it, but I think they were built better back then too!

Back in 1990 when we bought our first new travel trailer, there were a multitude of RV companies producing travel trailers. You will still see many of those manufacturers names on trailers today but they are now made by a conglomerate that gobbled up a lot of independent manufacturers back when the industry was struggling in the mid 2000’s.

Prior to that there was actually healthy competition in the RV market place. Travel Trailer manufacturers knew they had to build a great product to compete against everyone else. Manufacturing a dud travel trailer would most likely kill their business.

When I think back to our first Travel Trailer, a 1971 JayWren, I remember all the nice wood paneling inside. For a 16 foot trailer it had plenty of room for our young family. What it lacked in amenities it made up for in character. I often look on-line out of curiosity to see if one is up for sale.

Now my buddy Allen just found a really nice 1996 Jayco Eagle. It is very reminiscent of our 1990 Mallard Sprinter and our 1992 Prowler. We made some great memories in those trailers.

Allen is a handy guy so he is digging into the trailer and making sure that every system is 100% before he hits the road. From Tires, brakes, and bearings, to the LP system, He is on top of it all! Just like every other Travel Trailer owner, he is probably going to be an Amazon Junkie.

Last weekend Tammy and I went to see Allen and Joans Jayco. Even Tammy felt nostalgic about seeing their trailer. Earlier in the morning she said “I’m so excited for them, remember that feeling of buying a travel trailer, how exciting it was?”

It really was bittersweet to walk through that trailer. It brought back a lot of nostalgic feelings of when the kids were young and we would be cruising down the highway on the way to a campground. We would stop at waysides and have lunch, walk Shana, and then we were back on the road again.

My daughter Jennifer was always a great co-pilot but she always wanted to try and talk me into an “all-nighter” in order to get wherever we were going faster. My son Jeff on the other hand was the easy going “I’m going to take a nap” child. You could barely get the Van started and he was sleeping. So traveling with our kids really wasn’t an issue. Our White Shepherd Shana was like having another adult along on the trip.

This was all before smart phone apps and other technology that simplified travel. Tammy would always be flipping through our AAA triptik map. She made sure the vacation didn’t go off the rails by keeping me up to date everything related to navigation.

Nostalgia is a wonderful thing. Not only does it invoke some great memories but it might go a step further. As a result I’m going to try to put a vacation together where my kids, their spouses and my grandson, Trent, all end up at our first Travel Trailer Vacation spot in the Black Hills.

More than likely this will be a 2022 trip. Trent will be able to do the same things his Mom did when we were camping there 32 years ago. I can’t wait to see how he reacts when he sees “the heads” (Jeff’s term for Mount Rushmore when he wa a 5 years old); or when he sees the badlands.

Who knows, someday Trent might be having the same nostalgic feelings as he packs his own children up for a camping trip! I hope so, Nostalgia is a wonderful thing!