The Athens Experience

October 10, 2010 – The Athens Experience

Wow. Yesterday was an experience. The Sisters on the Fly event has to be one of the most interesting events I have ever been to. My current life goals have transformed into refurbishing a trailer and living out of it on the weekends, traveling with these amazing ladies across the country. I’m being a little dramatic, but the trailer show was very, very inspiring.

I asked a good friend of mine, Anna, to travel to Athens with me for a day of festival fun and trailer viewing. I had no idea what to expect so I wanted someone along for the ride. The festival was being held at a park in Athens, TX, with the caravan show to follow at the Lake Athens RV Park.  I decided to photograph at the festival as well as the RV Park because JoAnn was planning on performing a song she wrote especially for the Sisters. The song is really funny- it definitely captures a sense of what it is like to be a part of the Sisters on the Fly. One of the verses reads: “Sisters from across the nation hitching up their own creations, never been a sight like this before. We’ve shed our aprons, shed the blues. Hello world! We’ve paid our dues. And we just don’t do housework anymore.” All of the Sisters were dressed up as scarecrows, and JoAnn sang and played banjo dressed in her finest scarecrow outfit. Now, about the trailer show. I explained a bit about the SOTF organization before, but the photographs I made really capture the fun-loving spirit of the group. There were about 50 trailers at the RV park ready for viewing. The sisters had all the trailer doors open for people to come by, walk into, and look around their trailer. We walked around for a couple of hours looking at different trailers and talking to all of the ladies. They are all so proud of their trailers. It became a really strategic event for Anna and I, scoping out which trailers we wanted to look at and trying to pass up some of the less-adventurous ones without being seen. If you made eye contact with any of the ladies, they would point at you and wave you over. A couple of ladies waved us over, made us come into their trailer and then shut the door behind us, talking to us for 20 minutes. Overall it was a very interesting and entertaining event.

JoAnn’s trailer is really beautifully painted and decorated inside and out. She has a wild west themed trailer- with cacti, cowboy boots, and a real tumbleweed for decoration. It really reflects who she is as a person, she loves riding horses and playing old western video games. It’s really awesome to see how her hard work finally came together on the trailer. JoAnn and Marie (and their dog) set up camp outside their trailer with lawn chairs and cold drinks, chatting it up with all the ladies who stopped by to see their trailer. JoAnn was all smiles and got her banjo out to play, saying it made the perfect “trailer-trash music.”

Anna and I sat around the trailer with them for quite a while, so we got to hear a bunch of compliments and praise people gave JoAnn for the trailer. Marie was really proud of JoAnn, every time someone came to look at the trailer she would tell them “make sure you check out the toilet, did you see the toilet in there? JoAnn put the whole thing in by herself.” It was a beautiful day and really inspiring and touching to see JoAnn and Marie so happy and lively. I wish Margaret could have been there.

What more is there to say! These ladies are so intriguing I could see myself pursuing a project just focusing on the Sisters on the Fly organization. That is, after I find a trailer and join, of course!