The Sisters on the Fly "have more fun than anyone." They buy and restore vintage trailers and take them fly fishing to some of the most beautiful places in the country. The book is organized around fishing, food, friendship, love and loss. And, of course, around beautiful vintage trailers that have been lovingly restored from "trashed to treasured." The book features dozens of engaging stories by and about the incredible women who restore these trailers, as well as sidebars loaded with both practical and whimsical information for anyone who is ready to find her own trailer and join the Cowgirl Caravan.
Chapter One
How It All Began
The golden age of trailer travel, from the 1930s to the 1960s, was a time when Americans found it easier than ever to get away from it all while taking all the comforts of home with them. A new type of vacation was born that combined the adventure (and economy) of camping without the need to really “rough it.”
During the next four decades, however, people began traveling almost exclusively by plane, over-flying the national parks and roadside attractions that were a part of their childhood memories. At the same time, motor campers became more utilitarian but less interesting as wood and aluminum gave way to molded plastic and vinyl.
Now, Sisters on the Fly—the little girls who climbed into the back of the station wagon pulling the family’s Airstream on a cross-country adventure—are rescuing these relics from fields, ranches and farms. They are finding vintage trailers through want ads, in junkyards and on the Internet. They are restoring their finds to their original glory and creating comfortable spaces in which to make new travel memories.
“Our motto is: We Have More Fun Than Anyone,” says Maurrie Sussman, who, along with her real-life sister Becky Clarke, are the founding Sisters. They were sitting in a drift boat in Montana, happily drinking a glass of wine in celebration of catching a huge, eight-pound Brown trout and thought it would be so much fun to share this experience with friends. She won’t tell who actually caught that big trout because “it is a fish-tale, you know.” Maurrie and Becky were taught how to fish by their mother (who's now 90+ years old), simply known as Mazie, when they were just little girls. She also taught them the art of telling a good fish story.
The group that was started in 1999 by these two sisters soon grew to a dozen who met in Montana for fly-fishing. That dozen grew to more than 1,500 women all over the United States and Canada, each with a vintage trailer and a story about the trailer’s history. The women range in age from 28 to 90. Many of their rigs are from the 1950s and 1960s, range from 12 to 16 feet in length and contain between 100- and 150-square-feet of interior space. Models include the popular Shasta, Scotsman, Aloha, Airstream, Scotty, Holiday, Aljo and Empire. “We find it so comfortable to drag our own bedrooms with us,” says Maurrie. “After a hard day fishing and having fun, it is pure bliss to fall into your own feather bed.”
Becoming a Sister is not difficult. You don’t have to fish and you don’t have to ride horses. You should have a trailer but that, too, isn’t always necessary as most of the Sisters are willing to share. But, you can be sure, that before long you’ll really want to have your own little portable playhouse. So what does it take to be a Sister? Just this: you must want a Sister and want to be a Sister to some of the most independent, freedom-loving, warm-hearted and generous women in the world.
Sisters on the Fly meet in groups of a 10 or more on the Oregon Coast, in the Smoky Mountains, on the great Midwestern plains, in the Ozarks, in the Shenandoah Valley, in Texas Hill Country, on Tybee Island. “We drive the two-lane back roads in a cowgirl caravan and when we stop in the little towns everyone comes out to look at our trailers,” Maurrie says. Sometimes they camp in a national park, sometimes in a rancher’s meadow. “As long as it’s near a beautiful stream, we’re happy” she says.
