Of Vintage Camper Shows and First Journeys

It's been an amazing week for Sweet Melissa's rehab team! The Hubs and I pressed forward to finish the final details as the day of Stone Barn Farm's Vintage Camper Show in Dexter, Kansas drew near. Burned some serious midnight oil doing things like last minute paint touch up, getting an official weight certificate from the public scale, cleaning the camper one more time, purchasing a spare tire and deciding how to stage the Mobile Scout for the show.

Early Saturday morning we pulled out of the driveway and rolled down I-35 and US-160 to Dexter, KS, by way of Oxford to pick up a fellow camper and sister-in-law. Sweet Melissa pulled straight and true at 65 mph, in spite of some serious crosswind. So glad to know she'll be easy to tow to the campground!

It was the Field of Dreams for the two of us, being greeted by the sight of a field full of canned ham campers.This little beauty, for example, was outfitted as a food trailer. Pretty eye-catching, don't you think?

And this gorgeous trio of trailers was glamped to the max by some savvy women who'd come down to camp the night before. We gained a lot of inspiration by talking to the owners and feasting our eyes on their accomplishments. 

 Equally inspiring were these classics, including a clever little 1930s teardrop, whose owner also creates custom teardrops to suit his customers' needs. God bless Yankee ingenuity!

Even our hostess for the camper show got into the act, bringing out her Serro Scotty as a 'before' showing before she starts her rebuild.

Our neighbors for the show are bringing this classy canned ham back to life and added plenty of color and fun to the day.

Also had a great time looking at the campers brought to sell at the show. The white and tan Winnebago sold that afternoon! Can't wait to see it prettied up later on down the road.

This is a good time to tell you that Sweet Melissa won an award! She took second in the show, right behind Krickett, this spiffy Comet from Fort Scott, KS. What a beauty!

One more camper photo to share, a sister Mobile Scout. She's a 1962 10' model, cute as a bug and owned by a fellow Wichitan. The Hubs had a great time swapping camper lore and repair tips with the owners.

All in all, a fantastic first outing for Sweet Melissa. Fourteen months of crazy, grubby, knuckle-scraping work and we're overwhelmed by how well she turned out. Would we do it again...hmmm, maybe. But it's going to be awhile before we take on that big a project again!

Here are just a few more pics of the second place princess in all her glory. I've added BEFORE photos for comparison. A little better, don't you think?

Dinette Before!

 Dinette After!

Before!

After! 

Thanks for hanging in with us as we stumbled, fumbled and prayed our way through her rehab. We've got a bit of fine tuning to do, now that she's been road tested (better clearance lights, adding sway control), but for the most part, she's ready for the campground. Stay tuned for our camping adventures!