People Used To Live In Those?

In all the times we have traveled through this part of Indiana, we never stopped at the RV/MH Museum.  Today we did.  What a neat place.  They have old campers all the way back to 1916, as you can see from the picture above.  I think my favorite part was seeing the campers from the 40’s – 60’s.  With there shag carpet to the green and gold appliances.  Makes you think, wow, that is what looked good back then?  Then again, wait a few years and people in the future will be saying the same thing about our stainless steel appliances and granite countertops.

I can easily tell you what David’s favorite was.  When he saw this he lite up like a kid in a candy store and exclaimed, “It’s the Urban Assault Vehicle!”.

It was the GMC EM-50 “Urban Assault Vehicle” used in Stripes, the Bill Murray movie.  Oh come on…don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about.  “Razzle Dazzle…Boom Shacka Lacka Lacka Boom Shacka Lacka Lacka Boom Shacka Lacka Lacka Boom!”  Now picture David re-enacting the precision marching scene as he get’s lost in the memories.  You can picture it now can’t you? OK…This’ll refresh your memory, at least as far as the Urban Assault Vehicle goes…

OK…so maybe it wasn’t the exact one.  But it still was pretty cool. Now for those of you who think we’ve completely gone nuts, you must go rent the movie Stripes.  Then come back to this post and commence laughing.

There’s not much more to say about the museum itself.  They have lots of displays of various rv’s from various time periods.  The neat part about this museum is they let you go into quite a few of the rv’s on display.  I don’t know of many other museums that let you touch and walk into display units.  You really get the feel for how rving has drastically improved over the years.  I say now that I can’t believe people used to live in these.  There was one from the 1940’s that a couple had lived in for over 48 years.  Not changing or upgrading anything inside.  Here’s a picture.

One of the museum’s prized possessions is the 1931 Mae West Housecar.  Chevy made this custom housecar for Paramount Studios to entice Mae West away from the Vaudeville circuit to make movies.  It had a small balcony on the back that Mae West used to sit in a rocking chair when weather permitted.

All in all it was a full afternoon of “wow’s” and “I can’t believe people used to live in these!” moments.  The rv industry is celebrating 100 years of history this year.  I can only imagine what people will be saying in another 100 years when our rv’s are on display somewhere.