63' Fireball Introduction

The story of my introduction to vintage trailers is quite humorous (now anyway). In 2009 a vintage 1963 Fireball was advertised for free on my local craigslist. It had turquoise appliances and it was free so I went to get it. It was about a 30 minute trip to the trailer which was hard to spot at first hidden in the trees. Anyway, when I opened the door the first thing I noticed was the collapsed roof and then the rot as the trailer sat uncovered for several years after a tree had fallen through it. Now I am a very handy person and can see a diamond in the darkest rough, so I took it. Towing home went quite well. There were no lights, tabs or title so I had my wife and father-in-law drive behind me. As I was cruising down the road I felt a jerk on the back and I saw a large shadow fly away from the trailer. I thought to myself... AHHHHH!!!! The roof had flown off!!!In a panic I took the first side road to think through my dilemma. Meanwhile my father-in-law stopped to pick up the 4x8 sheet of aluminum. He folded up the roof so it would fit in their car and jumped on it to make it fit tight. Good idea at the time. $300 to replace it not so good. Anyway, since my current condition changed to NO TABS, NO LIGHTS, and NO TITLE and now accentuated by NO ROOF it took a while to develop a plan. After awhile passed and no plan came to mind other than driving up a steep and narrow dirt road on the side of a hill which fell to a river we decided to take some roads that intertwined with the highway on the way home. It probably took an hour during which time my phone died and my heart was racing. Well we got her home and parked her in the driveway. I whimpered over my now 2x2 section of roof that was a 4x8 and evaluated the work ahead. The first thing I did was take pictures. This was to help in the restoration so take a look. As you can see from the pictures there a lot of water damage.The roof was completely collapsed in the front. It took a couple hours to clean this guy out. The key is to keep everything that isn't rotten wood or cloth. There a lot of hardware that fell off and you never know what you may be throwing away.