It seemed like all odds were against us that late evening in October. Our beloved car, which gleefully carried us nearly 1,000 miles to this very destination, showed strong signs that its impending demise was rather imminent. Transmission something. Never good. It was also raining. Raining and cameras at night don’t often mix. But we didn’t drive all this way to come up empty-handed. Our gold was out there. So we milled around the dark old ghost town of Griffin, North Dakota, and waited patiently for the drizzle to pass.

Griffin probably hadn’t seen any significant action for the better part of 50 years. In fact, the town’s only residents included a motley crew of forgotten history: an old school house, one lone Milwaukee Road boxcar, dozens of supremely vintage vehicles, a windmill, and something else, something particularly unique. As we approached the western edge of the defunct make-shift town, we happened upon a serious tank of an aluminum travel trailer, a 1951 Spartan Royal Mansion. At 33 feet long and 2.5 tons, so gigantic, it made the Airstream look like an AMC Pacer. Its construction closely resembled a vintage aeroplane, while its internal furnishings—from what we could tell as we peered inside its windows—well, clearly all the comforts of a quaint mobile home straight out of the mid-century.

We found our gold. The rare one-of-a-kind photograph we would share with someone who would appreciate the artistry of this rare piece of history. Even despite barely a smudge of moonlight through the rainclouds, this rare precious metal still gleamed. With the help of a few minutes exposure, a bare flashlight to illuminate the outside, and bursts of yellow light through the windows, we brought the old girl back to life. We gave her a night off from all the other lonely ones, with the soft rumble of the highway in the distance, a country mile from the golden age of which she came.

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