Despite the rain that pounded the Tear Jerkers “Last Bash” rally, it didn’t keep them from visiting John Norris’s sprawling property on South Whidbey Island, Washington, where they cooked, ate, drank, chatted, drank some more, and carried on as usual before folding themselves into their thimble-sized bedrooms.
They are trailer people and proud of it.
“I love it, the simplicity, the compactness and the people I meet camping,” said Jim Johnson of Ellensburg of his teardrop trailer and lifestyle, reported the South Whidbey Record.
Sitting under a tarp extending out from his tiny blue home, Johnson sipped coffee with others who converged in his rustic living room furnished with lawn chairs.
Meet the members of the Northwest chapter of Tear Jerkers, an international organization celebrating the tiny traveling contraptions and the people who pull them.
The club motto: “Life moves a little slower on teardrop time.”
They plan trips together, share meals and camaraderie at campgrounds or just strike up a conversation when they spot one of their own kind on the road.
“We’re outside people,” said Ed Showacy of Puyallup. “At campgrounds when it rains, we’re still outside while all the RVers are inside their huge campers.”
Teardrop trailers are streamlined, compact, lightweight travel trailers which get the name from their teardrop profile. They’re very light, usually less than 1,000 pounds, so just about any vehicle can tow one.
For the last organized outing of the year of the Northwest chapter that includes British Columbia, they were hosted by John Norris and Tracy Cunningham on the last weekend of October.
Norris fixes up and restores campers on his expansive swath of property.