Spartan, My Spartan
Your skin is tattered, your face scarred and worn with the passing of time. Oh to know the history in those blemishes. To be privy to the life experiences that wrote their legacy in your aluminum visage. Although we will never know the fullness of your story, we take great pleasure in bringing your youthful appearance once again into the light of day. It is our privilege to grant knew life to old bones, providing a make-over of passion and purpose to relieve you of the pains of neglect and the slow death of weathered abandonment.
So begins the struggle for renewal and revitalization of an uncommon but worthy relic of bygone years with the love of adventure to be recreated and exercised with delicate refinement and renewed vigor.
Are We Crazy???
Why, oh why would we want to give up 2,000 sq. ft. of luxurious living space, comfortable furniture, a nice back yard, fenced privacy, and storage space galore, to move in to approximately 250 sq. ft. of portable tin can?
Having traveled around the world for work assignments ranging from months to years, and dragging our household goods from country to country, we have begun to realize that all that stuff is not so necessary... Are there things that we need? Absolutely! But those things are, in fact, very few. And rarely are those things that we could not replace easily at any given time. Sure, we have keepsakes that we would like to hand down to our kids and grandkids, but the question will always be "will they value these things like we do?" When asking that question with due consideration, the answer is often no. Now if we are talking about the Harley... that is another story and they will likely fight over it when we are gone. They will be collecting their own stuff and don't need ours to add to their clutter. We enjoy traveling, but while we are gone, somebody has to take care of the aforementioned "stuff". Now our stuff is somebody else's problem too.
With this understanding and perspective of "stuff", we decided that a portable life might be a bit more to our liking. So, the process began to offload stuff and figure out what our version of minimalist looks like. This is an ongoing negotiation, as many of you can imagine. Everyone has their own version of minimal (including the two of us). With the goal of this process being to find our idea (and ideal) of the perfect portable house, we began our search for said portable house.
We began our search by attending a large RV show in Dallas. Talk about information overload! We saw all kinds of very nice, very cool, nifty gadget loaded gizmos and doo-dads. And almost crapped ourselves at the prices... discounted no less... they were crazy! But we looked, and we dreamed, and we planned, and we looked at our budget, and we dreamed some more. We weighed the cost of buying new (and upgrading our ½ ton truck in the process) and the cost of slightly used (and truck upgrade) and a slew of other combinations of these. We looked at how much we could pull with the ½ ton and whether we could tempt fate by going over the manufacturer recommended towing limits. We considered the benefit of a Class A Motorhome (and choked at the sticker shock). Then we started rationalizing what we could do and how long we could use <insert option variable here> and we dreamed some more.
Then the cheap bug hit. Did I mention I am a tightwad and I hate spending large amounts of money? It doesn't help that my beautiful bride is also very penny-conscious and keeps my occasional toy expenditures to a minimum. Toys are the one thing I don't mind spending money on, and my toys are never cheap.
Where was I... oh yeah... Cheap bug. So, I said to myself "Self, we should look at old trailers that we can remodel..." And the hunt for a project travel trailer began. I have always thought Airstream trailers were really cool. They fit into my nostalgia frame quite nicely, along with old Volkswagen vans, tin Coca-Cola signs, and classic cars/trucks (50's trucks especially). Google-mania ensued and I found myself looking at a very long list of cool trailers that were in dire need of renovation with price tags that came nowhere close to accurately reflecting their current state of disrepair. I even drove out to the west side of Weatherford, Tx to look at one that was sitting in a pasture, dented, leaking, with flat, dry-rotted tires and (of course) no title. And I actually considered buying it... for too much money. But wait! On the drive back home, we saw another, similar model (1972 Sovereign) in much better shape, and double the price... and my dream died just a little.
Back to the Google drawing (Searching) board and more random and often over-priced results. Here is when we caught a glimmer of inspiration. During one of those long, drawn out search nights, I came across a cool looking trailer. Not an Airstream, but an aluminum dream with sweet curved windows and a profile to make the most detached passerby stop and stare. And I looked again. And again. Then I finally worked up the nerve to suggest a peek to my lovely bride. This picture of elegance and dreamy curves was our first glimpse at a 1949 Spartan Royal Mansion. Then I found out where it was located... and cringed a little. I had never heard of a little town called Breckenridge, Texas before. Breckenridge, CO... absolutely! But the other was, well, foreign to me at least, but not to my lovely bride. She being a Texas girl and myself being from Georgia. Google Maps we go. Ok... so it is only about 2 hours from Fort Worth. I have traveled longer distances for a burrito (True Story). We decided it was worth it to take a peak, so we called the seller and arranged a time to go out and take a look. That was a loooong two hours. Google maps lied to us! (or it could have been a touch of fat-finger) but we finally made it to the destination (after a phone call or two and some corrections to our target destination). The trailer was a looker for sure. And look, we did. And look some more. As chance would have it, sitting right next to that '49 Royal Mansion was another Spartan as well. So, we looked. You hear stories from time to time of the proverbial "love at first sight". If you can imagine 2 Spartan trailers lined up like a beauty pageant and the audience (me) trying to judge the winner... I looked... and looked... then I made the fatal decision to "take a peek inside" the 2nd Spartan. And the rest, as they say, was history. That 2nd Spartan was a 1952 Royal Spartanette. My imagination was set on fire and I had made the decision with one minor oversight... I had to convince the boss (lovely bride) that this was the right choice. My sales pitch was either flawless, or she is far more gracious than I deserve, but in the end (give or take a few weeks and extra trips to Breckenridge) we sealed the deal and brought our sweet chariot home for the next stage of life...
Love at first sight