Welcome to my blog about our journey of purchasing a vintage 1973 Avion all aluminum coach travel trailer in September 2016.

(UPDATE TO THIS POST! We sold our 73 in summer 2020 and bought our “forever Avion” our 1987, 32S a rare front kitchen model. )

BUT….do read on to learn more about us!

I am not quite sure I love the fact that something that was made at the same time I was a sophomore in High School is now considered “vintage”. But we can chalk it up to birds of a feather folk together. In any case I love the quality of the woodwork (no vinyl contact paper wood grain cabinets and 1/4″ chip board or worse) with real wood, dovetailed drawers, full piano hinges on doors and a frame that is built like a Sherman tank. (Pun)

WHY “THE PEWTER PALACE”?

We had been shopping around for about 7 months for the coach we wanted to call our own. On one trip to see a pretty sad, run down 73 Travelcade model we came up with what our name for the one we hoped to eventually purchase would be. For those who do not know me I have a passion for 18th Century American history and in this have been collecting reproduction (all I can afford) pewter dishware and serving pieces for over 20 years. Admittedly I have way too much but when I operated a B & B in a period farmhouse in CT in the early 2000’s it came in handy and did catered dinners and colonial cooking demonstrations for 10-15 people.

Anyway, the sheen and color of the anodized aluminum of the Avions reminded my husband Kevin and I of my pewter…and well calling a living space that is less than 30 feet long a “palace” is just tongue and cheek fun!  So we had our name for her….now we just had to FIND her!  Needless to say the Travelcade was far more a project then we wanted. So the search of Craigslists from all over the USA, a tracking of http://www.RVtrader.com and even “looking for” postings on our personal FB pages finally paid off. We found our coach in the VT Craigslist on a Thursday morning, got out of work that day-drove 2.5 hours into the dark to see her.  Used car headlights and flashlights to scope the exterior. Thankfully the owner could plug the power cord into his adjacent garage so an interior inspection was much easier. We loved her! She was in really nice shape save a few tweaks and had been consistently used which is far better than those left abandoned in fields and backyards.  The owner accepted our offer and deposit and we drove back home another 2.5 hours that same night. This return home trip was filled with excited chatter and seemed to fly.  To top it off, the owner even volunteered to deliver her to our door!