Some post-trip notes, winter preparation and projects

Winter is fast approaching, so I have started enumerating what I need to do before winter.  That checklist is at the bottom.  I wanted to be able to park one of the vehicles in the carport this winter, but that isn't looking probable.  Even if I finish the carport and move the excavator and other equipment from the carport up there, I won't likely move the tractor up there since it needs to be accessible for the snowblower.  So if the tractor is in the carport by the house, I am not sure if any of my vehicles will fit alongside it (it is only 12x20, the size of a single car garage).  Maybe I can finagle at least getting the front end of the CR-V or something in there, but I am not sure if it will fit side by side with the tractor.

For winter projects the biggest ones are the CR-V conversion improvements, and making sure I am ready to build the deck next year.  Here are the CR-V conversion improvements I had in mind: 

• Build my own electrical wiring harness that doesn't fall out for the 12V and doesn't get mutilated when charging the Jackery (there is a reason a new car charger is on my christmas list).
• Raise the conversion a few inches so I can access stuff on the bottom without removing the bedding.
• Add a little more support so it doesn't twist.  After Acadia, I put a strap across the front because the top with the microwave was tilting heavily down towards the bed, even though the bottom was tilted the other way (so things didn't fall off).  I think this is because it only has supports at the back and in the corners; the middle is sagging and twisting.
• Reconfigure the base part to just be what I need.  I didn't use my 2.5 gallon water jug for example, but I had the second power center in use >80% of the time.  
• If possible, I would like to make it so that to change from "driving mode" to "sleep mode" doesn't require moving multiple totes, a cooler, the battery for that cooler, a bag, and the suitcase into the front seat from the back.  Ideally maybe just the suitcase and a single tote.
• Eliminate the cargo net, and replace it with something hard built that I can slide in and out quickly and painlessly.  Ideally remove the time suck of unclipping everything which is time consuming and a pain. 
• It would be nice to be able to remove the spider web of bungee cords I have holding trying to keep everything taught. 
• If I put hooks in and use carabiners, the smaller cargo net might be usable, but having the extra support while driving when not using the conversion might make it a bit easier on it. 
• I need to find a solution to the problem of a wet towel and possible wet carpet squares and the like.  This trip I just spread them out over the totes and stuff in the back, but on rainy days, I also had no place to put the umbrella, so it just got put on top of the towel, and the towel never dried, and then it mildewed.  Plus the umbrella never dried, so it pissed on my head after the second or third time when some of the water ran down inside the umbrella.  
• Something else that would be nice is find a way to leave the shoes outside when I go to bed.  I leave them outside when it is supposed to be dry, but I brought them in and plopped on top of the pile when it was raining.  This both smells bad (despite what cats think of my shoes), and is kind of annoying to have to pull them down and plop them out before I get out of the car.  I did try leaving them under the car, and that sorta worked for the shoes.
• I need to find a way to support the side a little bit more on the bed side.  I noticed several times when I woke up that things (most notably my butt) had started sliding towards the car door since there wasn't as much support on that side. Perhaps I could build a shoe holder or something on that side to hold flip flops (which I forgot on the last trip) that rests on the door sill plate for support
• It might be nice to fix the cut out for car molding too, since that piece has now all but completely popped off now, and sometimes pops in the night. I sanded and cut out sections to go around it, but they aren't sufficient.
• Come up with a way to move the lamp and holder for my glasses and whatnot to the front of the seat.  This way my lantern isn't sitting on my head when I sleep.  The lantern is easy enough to just flip to the front, maybe I can do something similar for the little holder I put my glasses, wallet and so on in.
• I don't know if I have space, but look into some sort of awning that can also double as a privacy screen for the tailgate.  The netting worked fine for keeping out bugs, but did little for allowing me to change and wash up without mooning the campground. 
• Add lips to some of the edges.  I did one set for the stove, but some on top for example might be nice too.
• Figure out why I continually pack waay too much food.  I usually count how many days and bring the appropriate amount with maybe one or two extra meals, but for each of the last several trips I have had waay too much.  The tote of dry goods I brought last time I didn't eat a single piece out of while on the road.
• Figure out why my car charger melted.  The XT60 on the Anker is a nicer plug than the DC8020, but my car charger for that appeared to melt. 

I know it looks like a lot of modifications, but most of these are tiny things, and many of them are gear and/or packing changes.  As noted above, this was the charging situation for the Jackery, because my other cable failed.  I ended up using the propane cylinder to try and keep enough space.

 

I also had a charging cable issue with the Anker.  It looks like it got melted, but it still works fine.  I intend to replace it anyways though since that doesn't strike me as being safe, even if the metal parts all appear undamaged.

 

Thankfully it wasn't an issue, but I noticed on the drive home that my tires were well past their prime and I am surprised I didn't have any issue driving several thousand miles on these.  To be blunt, it is a scary thought to think of having to change a tire on the road since I have to completely remove the conversion to get to the spare (which I have never looked at and might also be flat).  I have already bought new ones and they go on next week. 

 

Some interesting food notes.  Those containers I got recommended from Aunt worked far better than expected.  Even after three and a half weeks, my lettuce was still fine, and just starting to brown on the edges a little.

 

I also bought some bananas for the trip that I forgot to bring.  I was happy to note that even after three and a half weeks, they didn't turn to gelatinous goo.  Still rotten, but I didn't have to clean up them liquefying. 

I am also running out of room for souvenirs.  The side of my fridge where I put the magnets is full, and my shelf for shot glasses is also over full.

 

I also picked up a neat looking crystal thing from the caves in KY.  It joins my crab shell from Acadia, and the petrified wood from the Petrified Forest.

 

Some minor updates from before the trip.  This is where I left off with the carport.  I think I need to put it in place before I put the roof on.

 

The weekend before I left, I went and helped uncle clean a lot of stuff out of his camper and get it ready to sell.  The car was full.  I am headed out this weekend to finish everything up.

 

I did get everything but the tractor put under shelter before I left. 

 

I grabbed a freebie bike for Heather.  It needs a little work though, the rear shifter is frozen.

 

While I was in KY, I did do a couple of things.  I helped with their garage sale and fixed their storm door. 

 

In part because this vacation was so poorly planned, I have already started looking at my trip for next year.  I am leaning towards finishing up the northern central part of the country, so doing North Dakota, finishing up South Dakota, hitting Wisconsin, Minnesota, and so on.  I have also started planning my spring vacation, which is mostly what got postponed out of this year's trip, so Assateague island, Virginia, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Mammoth Cave and so on.  As long as I don't wait until the week before to make reservations I should be good.

 

So with all that out of the way, here is the preliminary list of winter projects.  It is surprisingly short this year, though it always gets longer as I remember more things.

• Before winter:
• Finish carport
• Equipment prep (install snowblower, winterize lawn mowers) 
• Winter Projects:
• Prep for back deck
• Fix Craftsman mower
• Finish data gathering and decide on the truck vs trailer approach long term.
• Finalize designs 
• CR-V upgrades
• Fix bike
• Kitchen Island for Jess/Heather
• Clean/organize third bedroom. 

Back from vacation.

I got back from vacation last weekend.  This vacation wasn't terribly well planned, and it didn't help that there were some last minute alterations to the itinerary.  I had originally planned to start off on Assateague Island and then drop down to Virginia for a day but that got axed due to a lack of a campsite availability and possible hurricane activity, so I spent a day in Harpers Ferry instead.  When I removed that though, I ended up shortening the itinerary.  I intended up staying in KY a bit longer as a result, which worked out because most weekends were still booked up for campgrounds, since I didn't finish booking the campgrounds until I got to KY.  The government shutdown didn't help either, meaning most of the parks I went to the visitor centers and whatnot were not open, many of the exhibits were closed, and many of the campgrounds were partially closed as well.  The only destination that was completely closed was Mammoth Cave (which is why KY was on the itinerary).  This was the final itinerary with links to its albums:

 

10-03 - Drive to Harpers Ferry

10-04 - C&O Aquaduct.  A rather neat thing near where I stayed.

10-04 - Weverton Cliffs and Appalachian trail. A short pretty hike in the town of Harper's Ferry.

10-04 - Harper's Ferry Historic District.  Most of the exhibits were closed, but the John Brown Museum and the shuttles were running.

10-04 - A random artisanal cheese shop.  Not much cheese, but an interesting shop. 

10-05 - Skyline Caverns.  They were on the way to Shenandoah.

10-05 - Shenandoah National Park - I did the northern part of the Skyline Drive the first day.

10-06 - Luray Caverns

10-06 - Southern Skyline Drive.  I also did the Dark Falls hike.

10-07 - Manasses Historical Battlefield.  This one kind of suffered from everything being shut down. I was intending to hit Washington's Birthplace National Monument, but it was closed as well. 

10-08 - This was a planning error day, I ended up driving to New River Gorge this day after I was informed I didn't reserve the Shenandoah campsite long enough.  I learned this too late to do the Blue Ridge Parkway, but it was rainy and poor visibility anyways. 

10-09 - New River Gorge - Bridge and Canyon Rim area

10-09 - New River Gorge - Sandstone Area

10-10 - New River Gorge - Thurmond Historical Area and Grandview area.

10-11 - Drive to KY.  I stopped at Mill Creek Remains,  Hawks Nest State Park on the way.

10-14 - I was supposed to go to Mammoth Caves, but did a couple of other non-park caves instead.  The first was Diamond Caves

10-14 - The other was Crystal Onyx Cave.  These were short, but the tour guide was awesome.

I stayed in KY until the 19th, and drove up to Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio. 

10-20 - Hocking Hills

10-21 - I drove to Cuyahoga (no pictures here).

10-22 - Cuyahoga Valley National Park.  The train didn't appear to be running, so I cut this short.

Drive home.

 

All the pictures are at the links above, but here are a few highlights. 

The trip was 2,950 miles, a shorter trip than normal.  I averaged 28mpg for the trip, which was nice.  The traveling days were mostly over 30mpg, the days in the parks with all the starting and stopping brought down the average though.

 

While this may not be a popular opinion, I actually liked New River Gorge better than Shenandoah; the view of the Shenandoah Valley is excellent, but not uncommon in the Appalachians (I can get the same kind of view just driving around the White Mountains in NH), and I felt that New River Gorge had more to offer.  It was better developed than I expected too.  Cuyahoga was hampered by not being able to take the train ride, which is really too bad since it was peak foliage, but the ticketing booth was not open when I was there, all the buildings were shut down.  For those interested, the Viaduct Park in the northern end was the highlight of the park for me, the rest of Cuyahoga was kinda meh.

 

All in all the car camper was adequate.  That said, the electrical setup is unacceptable.  One of the splitters failed, and the other stuck out too far, I kicked it in the night.  And just in general the connectors were flaky and didn't reliably stay in; the freezer came unplugged 4 times on the drive home.  I ended up running the freezer off the Jackery and running the fridge off the Anker.  Once I fixed its settings (thanks for the tip Matt) it worked like a charm. I will probably need to build my own wiring harness and find a way to make them fall out less.  My only other main complaint was that I didn't have a good way to deal with a rainy day.  That one might take some thinking.

 

As usual I waaay overpacked for food, so I had to move a lot of stuff around that I didn't need.  Interestingly, I only used a couple of things out of the conversion, so I might be able to rearrange that and put the food stuff in there.  The cargo net was obnoxious, I might try to build something else.  It also needs a little bit more support.  I slept okay, though not great.  So I have a few things to iron out, but it was overall fine.

Back to normal updates.

A couple of updates from before the Acadia excursion. The first is that I noticed that the stupid felt thing fell off my truck again.  

 

The carport I ordered came in.  Three very heavy boxes.  

 

During the week I designed the counter for the truck conversion, this is the "kitchen" block that I had in the floorplan.  

 

I actually saw one of those tiny water heaters on my trip.  This is a 2.5 gallon, I would be looking at a 4 gallon one.  2.5 gallons is pretty small for showering.  I have read that these Bosch ones are not a terribly good choice as well, they tend to eat anode rods.  I am looking at an alternative brand.

 

Something I noticed when I went shopping after I came back is that apple season has started, but the apples are really tiny this year.  These are honeycrisp, which are typically one of the larger apples, and are still really tiny.  I probably won't have time this year to do a bunch of apple stuff (I typically make a bunch of apple sauce) since my big vacation is getting close, but I do frequently buy cider and stuff.

 

Last weekend Dad came up, bringing the excavator back.  We started to put the carport together.  I had wanted to have the bulk of the structure done before he got here, but never got around to it.  We got the roof supports and whatnot all done though before he went back.  I apparently never grabbed a picture though.

 

We also tried out all the elk stuff I bought.  Elk is still my favorite meat, though I haven't had moose.

 

We also tried some weird jerky.  The python was interesting.  It was a white meat I think, but like rabbit, it didn't taste like what you expect from a white meat.  It was a little hard to chew, but I am not sure if it is the way it is prepped or the meat itself. I personally like the snapping turtle better.  

 

The meat sticks were pretty good, though the jalapeno elk was my favorite for obvious reasons.

 

Last weekend I went out on Saturday, but didn't do too much.  Sunday I got around to working on the carport again. I got the side braces put on.  They were a major pain to do myself.  They didn't have the give that the roof supports had since they don't use plastic support thingies, so I had to hold the bolts, align the support bar, and put the nut on the same time.  With only have two hands.  

 

I started to put the sheet metal on the sides, but quickly decided the screws they provided are worse than garbage.  So in the afternoon, I made a Home Depot run to buy some better ones.  Other than it took me a half hour to check out (if they want people to use the self-checkouts, they need to be open... but no there was only one register open on the weekend).  There is no way this remains water tight for long.

 

The sun was already behind the trees when I got back, so I elected not to pull all the tools out again.  Instead I went and made a more formal drawing for the kitchen.  There is a good chance I use this same design regardless of whether I go with a trailer or converted truck, so it is a nice thing to have finalized.

 

I also went and checked on the Jackery.  It has been plugged into the car since I got back with no load on it, and it has gone down 1%, so it isn't charging at all.  I will need to fix this before my trip.  I have another charging cable for it, though I will also need to check the outlet in the car.

 

Fall is definitely here.  It is dark before 7 now, which really eats into outdoor time.  I went out Sunday morning to pick up my prescriptions, and there was even a few patches of frost.  

 

The next couple of weeks will be rather busy.  I need to finish getting the carport built, and I need to finish making reservations for my big vacation.  Plus the typical winter stuff will be coming up soon.