Enchanted Owner of Enchanted Trails RV Park

Today was laundry day, and while we awaited for the clothes to dry, I saw the nice lady who checked me in when we arrived at Enchanted Trails RV Park and Trading Post.  I had asked her about any laundry facility that day, and she showed me where it was at, and said that we can walk in the back door, or pull up to the front in a car if we wish.  I told her that my wife has M.S., and that I was sure we pull up in front.  Her response was, “I have M.S. too…”

As we were doing laundry, using the modern laundry facilities and not the vintage wringer washer and Ironright presser, I see the same lady.  After a few minutes she walks over to the laundry room and I introduce her to Marcia, reminding her that Marcia has M.S. too.  We had a delightful conversation and we found out that her name is Vickie, and she owns the R.V. Park.

Well, the Librarian in me decides that this encounter deserved a bit of research.  I found out that she was the Past President of the New Mexico Route 66 Association, and in 2014 the Association threw her an outgoing party at the RV park, and gave her a plaque, cake, and made a real big deal of it…she was, and is highly admired by this group.

Vickie told us that she had worked at the park for 29 years now, and bought out the former owners a few years ago.  Well, my research showed that the previous owner to her was her father-in-law.  She told us she had been happily divorced for 20 years, happily in that it was not an ugly divorce.  By the year 2000 she was the owner, and that is when she started collecting old trailers, 2 old Hudson cars, and put the “Enchanted” into the park which already bore the name, “Enchanted Trails RV Park and Trading Post”.

In 1947 the “Hilltop Trading Post” opened its doors, at the top of the hill west of Albuquerque, along Route 66.  By 1955 it looked like this overhead picture below.

 

By 1970, with new owners, it was decided to add an RV park to the trading post.  Since trading posts were dying off, the RV park would attract more visitors to the trading post.  Vickie started working here in 1987, and her father-in-law was the owner by then.  She quickly had an interest into the history of the facility, the history of old Route 66, and well, she made the RV Park into what it is today.

I told Vickie that I could remember when Enchanted Trails was the only thing on top of the hill.  Now there is a Camping World, a Mesa RV dealership, and a Freightliner shop on the north side of the Interstate, and a few more RV parks, a Carl’s Jr., a Con-Way Freight facility, and a large mobile home park on the south side of the Interstate.  We hope that Vickie and her Enchanted Trails RV Park and Trading Post will remain successful for many more years.

Note: All of the pictures in today’s blog were found on the Internet doing my research, with credit given as you hold the mouse over the pictures.