Oops We Did It Again; So Long Trophy Trailer!

Only a few short months ago, I shared the story of our Trophy Trailer and our plans to renovate it. Well, like we often do, we’ve changed our minds.

Life changes, circumstances change, and minds change. At least ours do! I am fairly certain that many of our family and friends probably think we’re a bit “flighty” with all of the decisions we make and then sometimes un-make! I’ll talk more about that in a bit but let’s talk Trophy, shall we?

Should It Stay or Should It Go Now?

We really did have great intentions for this trailer of ours. When we first purchased it, we were sitting in a completely different place. Literally, we were sitting in Colorado waiting for our next great project! Travelling for longer periods of time and exploring the country was our goal and the Trophy trailer would suit those goals nicely. It was big enough for Warren to have a workspace while we were on the road and we would have plenty of room for the two dogs as well.

We went to work on the renovation in the fall of 2019. Basically, we gutted the entire interior of the trailer. We had to. We needed to locate and fix all of the active water leaks before we could do anything else. I worked on tearing everything out that I could on my own. Warren would handle some of the bigger demo stuff for me and then he began working on fixing and sealing all of the leaky places. We did as much as we could before winter weather arrived and then we had to cover up the trailer and wait for Spring to arrive so we could jump back into the work.

Best Laid Plans

But then remember, stuff changes! At the beginning of 2020, you remember all the way back to that time, don’t you? You know, when everything was still “normal”? We began to contemplate selling our home. You can catch up on that development here. That was just one more decision of ours that has probably contributed to our “flighty reputation” with family and friends! Selling our home meant new projects to get the house ready for market. The Trophy trailer renovation was no longer our only project and therefore no longer took precedence.

The trailer then sat. It sat through all of the remaining home renovation. It sat through the sale of the home in the fall of 2020. And it sat at a storage facility until we hooked it up and towed it to southwest Missouri several months later. Yep, Missouri and yep, that’s “a-whole-nother” story and decision!

A Renewed Hope For The Trophy!

Once we got the Trophy back to Missouri we began to get excited about getting back to the renovation. We had projects to complete in our new house but the house was completely livable as it was so we decided to put everything into the trailer project. Well everything when we weren’t out on the lake, that is!

But there was one constant conversation we kept having regarding the Trophy. Now that we had moved to Missouri, we didn’t really see much of a need or even an interest in leaving our new home any time soon to travel the country. The Trophy no longer fit our original purpose for it. But we were torn. We had so many great ideas for what the Trophy could be and we weren’t eager to give up on those plans. We originally agreed to complete the project, maybe take it out on one or two trips and then sell it. Perhaps get a smaller trailer later for shorter trips back to Colorado, etc.

Real Life Happens

We proceeded on the remaining work needed to completely seal the trailer from leaks. Windows were removed and re-sealed. All new weather stripping was added to each window as well. All new rubber trim was installed to the exterior. The roof got a fresh coat of rubber roofing material to finally make her water-tight. Oh and new paint and graphics were added to the exterior as well so she looked great from the outside and she was as dry as could be on the inside.

Summer arrived and it was lake weather (and hey, too hot to work in the trailer anyhow) so we shelved a lot of the work to enjoy our first summer on the lake. By early July though we had another more pressing issue to deal with. Warren’s dad had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. Warren would end up spending nearly two months of combined time in California helping his parents with medical appointments initially and then helping his mom with various tasks after his dad died less than two months after his diagnosis. Family needs came first and it gave us some time to reevaluate our priorities and ultimately the projects we had lined up.

Sealing The Deal

With so much time away from home and multiple projects now lining up for Warren, we decided to kill the plans for the Trophy trailer. There were just too many things going on and if we could find someone interested in taking on a project, we had a sweet water-tight trailer just waiting to be fixed up on the inside. And after only a few short days on Craigslist, someone wanted her!

It was very sad to see the Trophy rolling away from our house. Again, we had big plans for it and thought we would have had the chance to take her on at least one trip! But she went to someone who really seemed to like her and so we were happy to know that the Trophy would get all fixed up eventually.

And we could now move on to the next project…home renovations, again! Followed by a new garage build, a project car finally brought to life, and an old truck needing some love! Oh and work on Warren’s dad’s old Cheetah boat; almost forgot about that!

Decisions, Decisions, Decisions

Okay, so let’s talk about all of our big decisions and what drives us to make such big moves, take such big risks, and change our minds regularly. We get it, most people don’t like change and neither do we, unless we are the ones initiating the change of course! And many people are very happy living in one area their whole life, working for years and then retiring from the same company, and don’t have a desire to initiate any big life changes. But that’s not us.

Warren and I approach life a little differently. And I think we’ve got enough to talk about that subject in another post! So yeah, we’ll circle back around to that one soon! Thanks for hanging in with us on what may sometimes feel like a roller coaster! But as for the rare Trophy Classic Trailer, the dream for her was nice while it lasted. Now that she’s gone, we’ve got room for other dreams and big plans to take center stage and we’re good with that!

{Shelley}