Honoring the tradition of full journalistic disclosure-I am a vintage trailer nut. I have written a book about the subject, produced a national PBS documentary about it, and I am often called upon when somebody needs an "expert" on the subject. I have owned and restored many collectable trailers, and about 90 percent of our family vacations involve one of our vintage rigs.

When we were considering a recent trip to see friends in Texas, and I was route planning, I suggested to my wife that we stop in the small mining town of Bisbee, Arizona, to split up the trip. She asked if there was a nice hotel and I replied, "Yes, very nice and very unique," to which she replied, "Sounds great, and it sure will be nice to stay in a hotel for a change." Little did she know we were on our way to the Shady Dell vintage trailer court.

At this point my son was dying to get out and explore, but my wife and teenaged daughter argued well enough to persuade me to push on until we came through the Mule Mountain Tunnel and to the stunning town of Bisbee, glittering in the late afternoon sunlight like a ghost from the 1800s. It's hard to believe that Bisbee, impossibly perched on the side of a mountain, was the largest city between St. Louis and San Francisco at the turn of the last century. We then passed the former open pit copper mine, the Lavender Pit, which is one of the most eerily beautiful sites you will ever see.

We pulled into the Shady Dell just as the sun was dipping behind the Mule Mountain range and the nine gleaming aluminum trailers were in their full glory. At this point the cat was out of the bag and there were some audible groans from the family, but their attitudes were soon about to change.