Vintage trailer owners from throughout California gathered at Smithwoods RV Park off Highway 9 in Felton this weekend for the third annual Trailers in the Trees to show off their decades-old recreational trailers.

Wayne and Kathy Ferguson brought their 1957 apple-green and white Arrowhead, its interior wood gleaming with care and its little table like one from a 1950s diner. Just 12 feet long, the trailer is home-away-from-home for them and his guide dog, a yellow lab named Wiley.

They found the trailer in Santa Maria, rotting and showing its age, and Wayne Ferguson spent two years restoring it. Ferguson, a 54-year-old retired car buff, turned to trailers when he began to lose his eyesight, calling it a new life.

But his trailer history goes back to age 5, when his grandmother would let him sleep in the 1955 Mercury Travel Trailer. But only if he wasn't too much of a rascal.

"I fell in love with them and I've been in love ever since," he said. "They have that sense of Americana that is few and far between these days."

Rally organizer Penny Cotter-Nienow said she and her husband get a lot of friendly honks pulling their 1962 Shasta Airflyte down the road, and have a lot of fun at the rallies.

"People love to see them," she said. "And I love the glow of the wood at night; it reminds

me of camping when I was a kid."

The rally is growing, she said, and she expects as many as 80 trailers next summer.

This year, the public was invited to tour the trailers and many campsites were decorated with antiques to set the mood.

Veronika Morris of Las Vegas peeked inside some of them with her son, Mason.

She admired a 1947 Travel Trailer, which had teak panelling, a linoleum floor and an "icebox" inside and tiny tear-drop taillights on its rounded rear. She laughed at an old calendar inside that listed "Recipes for Keeping a Husband."

"These are outrageous," she said. "They're so much fun."

Jan Cornett sat outside her gleaming "aircraft-style aluminum" Airstream, built in 1952, and mused that she doesn't really know how she and her husband got hooked on old trailers.

"It's amazing; it's a whole different world," she said. "And I'm not sure how it happened to us, but you meet the nicest people."

The trailer passion is growing and more than 200 trailers rolled into a well-known rally this year in Pismo Beach, said Steve Katkowsky of Ben Lomond, who brought his 1951 Vagabond to Smithwoods.

There was no organized vintage trailer crowd when he bought the 23-footer several years ago, he said. Originally purchased at a show in New York, it needed little restoration as it was only used a couple of times and then stuck in a barn, he said.

The old-style vehicles create a different feeling than the new ones, Katkowsky said.

"It's like walking into On Golden Pond' or an old cottage or something," he said. "They're wonderful. And the people are great."

Back at the Arrowhead, Kathy Ferguson was thumbing through a photo album that showed the progression of the trailer's restoration.

A highlight came when they found the original owner, she said, and the woman remembered her family's camping trips in the trailer. She lived in an assisted living facility, but they mailed some photographs to her son, who showed them to her, Ferguson said.

"She was thrilled," she said. "It's just nice to see them saved."

For information, visit vintagetrailercamp.com or tincantourists.com.