I’m spotting enough out-of-state vehicles on the highway through my town to win the License Plate game. Schools have started around here, so the cars with families are either on their own way home or trying for one last getaway before Labor Day, the formal end to summer.
This end-of-season traffic also includes the trucks and enormous trailers hauling stock to the Colorado State Fair (either direction, just take exit 97A, Central Avenue, here in Pueblo).
While I enjoy going to the State Fair, especially the rodeoing events, there’s another sort of trailer that I’m a tad more partial to – those of Sisters on the Fly.
I’ve posted about this group and book before because it’s written by my friend Irene Rawlings. The book, plus visits to the SOTF website and facebook page, are loaded with images and descriptions of gatherings that are pulling me to join…if only to experience what is bringing smiles to the thousands (15,000 at last tally!) who participate.
For some reason I thought this sisterhood and the wee trailer fascination was localized to the United States, but that was before I saw this photo – taken at Vintage at Goodwood Festival in
Chichester, England.
I had to use a magnifying glass to catch the details of this photograph, which are charmingly similar to a SOTF trailer, such as the portable potted plant outside the welcoming open door and the personalization on the shell – on the left is written I’m not sleepy and amidst what looks like a Wind and the Willows theme is Trixie, the owner I assume, and who is taking a break from walking about the Festival’s grounds in zebra lace up high heels. Trixie appears to be drinking a cup of tea, but with that crystal bottle of libation on the table, who really knows what’s in that cup ?
The photograph is captioned that the lady pictured is outside “…her caravan…” Caravan? I thought caravan was a single file of trucks or cars or wagons or some such. According to my trusty American Heritage dictionary, there is another, chiefly British definition: Caravan – A trailer or dwelling place on wheels. So what looks like a SOTF trailer is an English caravan. Just the sort of minutia I live for!
I wouldn’t have learned this tidbit if I weren’t a subscriber to the Denver Post, as the on-line version of the paper didn’t include this photograph. Nor would I have made the connection to Sisters on the Fly if I hadn’t read the book. Such is the importance of the written word, no matter how we come to it.
xxea
Tie One On…an apron, of course!
