Saturday, April 17, 2010

Happy trailers to you: Bisbee, Arizona's Shady Dell vintage trailer park



Nine vintage trailers await you, including...

The 1957 Airfloat (that's the inside below).

Interior pics are from The Shady Dell's website. Go visit them!

The 1949 Airstream, left, and the '57 El Rey (lawn flamingos come at no extra charge).

Here's the interior of the Airstream...comfy!

This is the 1950 Manor, stately and proud...

...and equipped with a kitchen Lucy would love.

The 1950 Royal Mansion is fit for a king.




Jen is ready to help you at the front office.

We've already done a few posts about how awesome a place Bisbee, Arizona is but everything else this cool town has to offer the eccentric roadside attraction fan pales in comparison to The Shady Dell vintage travel trailer court on Douglas Road. Nine beautifully restored trailers of different shapes and varieties dating back from 1949-57 (plus a 1947 Tiki bus and a 1947 38-foot yacht!) are lovingly arranged in a gravel court with picket fences and trellises. And you can spend a night or two in one of these aluminum dreams, each equipped with vintage accoutrements, like working percolators and period 2-color TVs, to make your visit a retro dream come true. Unfortunately, we were on a rather tight schedule so we couldn't stay overnight in one of these tin can mansions, but we did get to walk around and gawk at them and have a nice chat with Jen, who, with her boyfriend Justin, his mother Annette and their friend Ken run the place. The park dates back to 1927, as a traveler's oasis along Route 80, the old road from Savannah, Georgia to San Diego, California and sister to the more famous Route 66. Today the park is a living, breathing museum of the good life of the 1950s open road, when Lucy and Desi led the way in "The Long Long Trailer." Fancy some bacon and eggs and a cup o' joe? Nestled in the property is Dot's Diner, a tiny gem that diner aficionados will recognize as a 1950s Valentine model. We'll do a post about Dot's later. So come on, eccentric roadside fans...pack up the station wagon and head down to Bisbee. They've got it made in the shade.

5 comments:

  1. Absolutely awesome. I gotta go there. Very cool post. Thanks.

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  2. I loved this so much I posted to the SCA's Facebook page.

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  3. This is superb! Puts the parade of rockstar busses that hurtle down the I-75 in Florida to shame.

    I want to crack a Schlitz and sit outside one of these gems, wearing my "I Like Ike" button.

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  4. Wow! Roadside Nirvana! Thanks for posting these!

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  5. I would like to vist there is used to spend my summers in Arizona when I was younger along time ago mess it my grandparents lived along the Colorado River out there in if I spelled it right erinbrugh two places for the other name but wished they were still alive to go back out there .

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