Slab City

One of the places I want to go in the trailer is "the slabs," aka "Slab City."

If you saw Sean Penn's movie Into the Wild you might remember it as the place Alex goes on his way north from Mexico toward Alaska.

It seems to be an artists' colony, hippie community, senior citizen enclave, snowbird winter visitor center, and self-reliant survivalist habitat all rolled into one.

My kind of place!

Many, if not most, of the residents live in trailers--but it's not a trailer park because there's no electricity and no dump station. I'm not even sure if there's a water hook up.

It's in the middle of nowhere--so much so that it's sometimes called "East Jesus" (an American nickname for any very remote and largely uninhabited place). It's between the Salton Sea and something called the Chocolate Mountains (love that name!), not too far from the Mexican border.

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It's located at the site of a World War II Marine training camp. When the military abandoned it after the war, all that was left were the slabs that had been the foundations of the Quonset huts.

One description I found on the net says: "Slab City is mostly a community of retirees, vagabonds, and people with an anti-government (libertarian) bend who park their RVs and busses here during the winter months. Rent is free, there is no electricity (limited solar and generators), and no running water except for the community shower which utilizes the local hot spring."

I can't get there fast enough!

The Rockford Files

I've become a huge fan of The Rockford Files. They show it every day here on the Retro Channel, and I never miss it! After all, he lives in a trailer.

His is way bigger than mine, of course, but it is turquoise and white.

The show is, what, 30 years old, and it's interesting how values have changed since then.

Today, a good credit score is a reflection of moral character. Jim Rockford, on the other hand, has an impeccable moral character yet has horrible credit, and is in constant danger of having his trailer repossessed.

By the way, I checked out trailer parks in Malibu (Rockford lives in Malibu in the series), and the monthly price for a space is $2000 . Jeez, I can get an apartment in Bel Air for that! (Well, a small apartment. . . .)

I'm Ba-a-a-ck!

I haven't had much to say about the trailer because we haven't yet hit the road for our maiden voyage.

I posted that picture in the last blog entry, below, for the folks in an online trailer forum because I was trying to find an adapter so that I could hook up to electricity at a campground. It turns out adaptors for that fifty-year-old style of electrical "inlet" don't exist. Not at all. I would have had to pull out the whole inlet and replace it. This turned out to be unnecessary because the former owner located the cord.

The plan is for the maiden voyage to be just a short overnighter to the countryside where I'll try to find the farm once owned by my great-great-great-grandfather.

The big trip will be to Montana in August. There's a company there that specializes in vintage trailer restorations, and I'll have them go over the trailer with a fine-toothed comb to check for leaks and other problems. Also, I'll have them install a shower, hot water, and other necessities.

Then I'll be totally able to live in my new home!