A walk in Beverley Hills

Trailer park living has been quite interesting, and really nothing like I would have imagined. Prior to this, we had not stayed at commercial parks for any length of time, and certainly nothing that had a full time living component.

We’re in a park that is about half full time residents in single wide trailers, and transient folks like us in RVs set up to be moved at any time. I’ve enjoyed many walks around the park, especially with friends who have come to visit us to get a taste of the park.

By and large, everyone we’ve met here are incredibly nice folks, and we’ve not had any trouble here. We’ve even made a few friends and it’s been nice having neighbors that we chat with. The age ranges are quite variable, to folks working at nearby places on contract (hospital, construction jobs, etc.), retired folks, folks on disability and young families.

There’s one unit in the back of the park that has intrigued me and friends that we walk by. There is intricate wood carving around the single wide, a work shop, murals and a hand built and painted wooden town model in the front.

I was always curious as to what it was.

This afternoon we had friends visit for lunch, and we went on a walk around the park. As we approached the trailer, the owner was out working on the exterior. I commented on how lovely his model was, he glowed and proceeded to tell us about it. It’s a replica of his home village near Florence, Italy that he reconstructed and he proudly pointed to what had been his home growing up, and the structure of the gender segregated church next door. He also gave us a tour of part of his workshop, and shared his incredible mural with us – another painting of his village interspersed with paintings of the planets.

He also welcomed us to the ‘Beverley Hills’ section of the park, which he didn’t seem to understand how it came to be known as such. I asked him a bit about his life and got a summary of his incredible adventure to his landing at the park.

And then he handed us his card.. and I just checked out his website at http://www.francomagnani.com . Wow, he painted that village from his memory of the last time he was there in 1958. And it matches current photos.

Very cool stuff.

Trailer park living has been quite the interesting addition to our experience set, you just never know what you’ll find tucked away.

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