Teardrop Stories

One of the things that I heard when I started exploring teardrops is that people are very interested in them.  I read lots of stories of people stopping teardrop owners at gas stations and at camp grounds and asking lots and lots of questions:  "Do you sleep in there?"  "Where do you get dressed?"  "What is that thing?"  Those are just a few of the questions I heard people would ask.   So, when we started out on our very first road trip, I was ready for the 'looks' and the questions.

It started right in my own neighborhood.  I was finishing preparing the teardrop for the trip when a family of four stopped on their bikes in the street in front of our house.

"Did you make that?"  "Do you know how to weld?" the father asked.
"No, I restored it." I answered. "It's a 1947."
"I have a 1947 too.  It's a little taller than yours.  I bought it thinking it would fit in our garage, but its too tall to fit, so I have it in our driveway.  Stop by anytime and take a look at it if you would like."

Hitching it up and starting our 2,300 mile road trip northward, we got lots and lots of fun looks and double takes.  More than a few times I saw people point and get very animated when they saw us on the road.

The Carpe Diem at the rest stop in Escanaba, Michigan.

Whenever we pass a 'classic car,' we see a big smile on the driver's face.  There's a mutual respect for the labor of love put into bringing a piece of Americana back to our modern times.  

When we were camping at Agawa Bay in Canda, which was our first 'official' night in the teardrop where we had to 'pay' to camp, we loved seeing people walk or drive by and look.  We saw a modern, factory made teardrop in the campground.  They didn't seem very interested in us, but we were fascinated by their teardrop's pop up expansion design.  It looked much like ours, but when they parked, the whole roof lifted off to create a huge living room and a second 'bunk.'  When we got home we looked into the design and found out more about it.

It is called a Safari Condo Alto.  It's a slick design that surely game me trailer envy.  We didn't bother the owners, but we did walk by several times, v-e-r-y slowly.  

When we had it parked in my brother-in-law's driveway, we had several families stop to inquire what it was and what it looked like inside.  

As we started back from our visit to Athens, we stopped for gas in Nelsonville, Ohio.  One gentleman came up to me in the filling station.  

"How old is your teardrop?"

"It's a 1947."

"My dad had one just like that," the man from Tennessee told me.  "I had my first spanking in a teardrop like that!  My dad said I was misbehaving and he tossed me inside.  I'm 67 years old!"

"Well, that's how old this teardrop is!"

"I think we had the same one, but yours in a lot better shape than I remember ours.  Everything that should be old, is new!  You've done a really nice job on that thing.  It's beautiful!"

"Thank you!"

"We passed you several times on the freeway, I was hoping you would pull over so I could talk to you.  I was telling my son all about the teardrop when we saw you on the freeway."

It's wonderful how the teardrop pulls people together like that.  There's something about them that breaks down barriers and encourages people to share and ask curious questions.  One of the things I hope to be able to do with this blog in the future is to record those stories.