Cleaning and car camper upgrades.

This post is a bit overdue, but I have been kinda lazy since I got back.  We lost power a couple weekends ago, so I finally put in a extension cord so I can move the plug to the Jackery if needbe.  

 

I have been doing a lot of cleaning since I got home.  I left the house in a pretty rough state, with tools and stuff just everywhere.  

 

The main project two weekends ago was to clean it all up.  

 

I also gathered up all the parts of the carport.  Winter had deposited some of them in new homes.  

 

Speaking of homes, when I got home, I had to evict some birds.  Kind of makes me wonder - if I put bird houses on the outside or even the inside, would they use those and leave the rafters and my tools alone?  This nest was built on top of my sledge hammer while I was gone.

 

I also had to empty out the truck, it went in for the deer repairs last Wednesday.  I haven't heard anything yet, but I expect it will take a few weeks.   

 

I took my e-bike to ride home that evening.  It didn't go well.  It got about a third of the way home and quit.  Hub overheated again, despite the fact it was only 50s outside. There is a big steep hill to get there, but that hill isn't even half the hill of the one in Sullivan, so I just got a ride (thanks Anx).  

That does beg the question of what good is it?  I don't trust it enough to take it traveling.  I couldn't imagine what I would do if I were riding the rim road of the Grand Canyon and it just died.  It is good for riding the rail trails (flat) and around town (also mostly flat), but I can do that (albeit a bit slower) with my regular bike.  Where I wanted the help most was the hills, which it can't do.  The only thing it is good for is when I drop off a vehicle at Bob's and want to ride into work, riding the rail trail back I can average 20mph on it, as opposed to 8-10mph for my regular bike.  So I decided to sell it, see if I can get anything for it.

In the time since I got home, everything is in full bloom.  The biggest surprise is my yard; it needed mowing when I got home.  Last year I didn't have to mow until June.  And presently the only mower that I expect to start and work is the push mower.  Stay tuned for how bad my yard gets before the first mowing...

 

Last weekend was focused on the car camper, since I need it this coming weekend.  So Saturday I cleaned out the car and made a plan. I didn't realize how much crap I had shoved in the car; when I cleaned out the truck for the trip, I just put a lot of the stuff in the car apparently.

 

Sunday I went up and picked up some more elk.  It is only a dollar or two a pound more than lean beef at this point.  When I got home, I put the plan into action. Some parts took a while, like tightening up the slides for the drawer.  I couldn't find the ratcheting wrench I put these in with, so I had to improvise.

 

But the improvements are done, and it is back in the car.

 

I made the bed side a bit better as well, so it doesn't rub and damage the car as much.

 

I have done a lot of cooking since I got home.  Turns out I can get 16 meals using these containers.  I wanted to evaluate the bulk containers versus the sandwich meat containers.  I think I can stack those better since they are more square.

 

The weather this year has been obnoxious.  Sunday it was well up into the 80s, and two days prior I turned my heat on because the house had fallen into the 50s.  And tomorrow might push 90.  I really wish mother nature would make up her mind.  The only good thing is that the bugs are as confused as I am.

This week is mostly getting the stuff back in the car camper.  I am headed to the spring LAN this coming weekend for Memorial Day.

Trip Photos are up

 I got back from my spring vacation.  The focus of this trip was visiting people and stuff missed last year.  The trip was pretty nice, other than hitting a deer in PA.  It is surprising how much plastic there is in the front end of a pickup these days.  I remember the last one I hit in the gold buick (92 Century), and it barely hurt anything.   The truck did not get so lucky.  Still though, I was lucky enough that it didn't damage anything critical on the truck, and that I have been too lazy to drop full coverage from the truck, which I had intended to do after 3 years.

 

With that out of the way, here the pictures.  These are all uploaded here: https://photobucket.com/share/7fb5db49-fb1c-443b-a210-fdb4dffa49b2 

• Prep stuff and the drive down, no scenery.  https://photobucket.com/share/de6cb7eb-8a6c-4d5a-8570-95eaa88836ad 
• The first stop on the trip was Red River Gorge. https://photobucket.com/share/25cf0358-129b-4ed6-a407-385f0750c8b1
• The first stop I missed last year was Mammoth Cave.  I did the Domes and Dripstones tour.  Dad went with me: https://photobucket.com/share/6a2e2941-24e0-43cf-a614-1cc10b92ff89
• While there, we also hit Lost River and did a cave boat tour.  It was a bit shorter than I expected, but was still fun, and welcome after the load of stairs at Mammoth Cave: https://photobucket.com/share/a699044f-24f1-400a-9d0e-91f59acbfbdc
• After KY, I went up and visited Mike.  He lives in Delaware, so I went and visited Assateague National Shoreline.  This isn't a national park (I think it is a National Recreational Area), but was well worth visiting, and is one of the few places where horses still roam wild.  This album also covers going over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge and tunnel, of which there is more than one of each as I found out.  https://photobucket.com/share/3f201331-f28b-47f1-9bb1-540595c9e92d
• I ended up near Stuart's Draft that evening.  I had extra time so I redid part of the Skyline Drive.  I hit Shenandoah last year, but didn't get to any of the visitor centers, and still needed to pick up my stickers and souvenirs. https://photobucket.com/share/d24b50b3-9e72-4cf9-b13b-404e87dfb8f8
• Here are some other various pictures I took during the trip.  They will all be captioned soon so there is context.  https://photobucket.com/share/b5c81250-cefc-4ad3-b207-14eb2fa93b94

All told the trip was approximately 4k miles (I don't know exact courtesy of the Ford resetting trips).  The deer didn't impact the gas mileage much; I averaged 21-22 when driving slow, but even in Delaware and Maryland where I was merely keeping up with traffic (sometimes pushing >90) I got just under 20mpg.  Not bad for a full size pickup with its aerodynamics altered by the deer.  Still though, with gas price fixing going on (it is rather suspicious that every state was 4.19 a gallon when there is usually a lot of variance), the CR-V would have been nice.

 

For those who don't have time to browse, here are a few selected favorites:

Red River Gorge

Mammoth Cave

Lost River Cave
 

Assateague Island

 

Shenandoah Drive home

 

Despite the temperatures, it wasn't too cold when I got back either.  I expected the house to be in the low 40s.  It still sucks turning on the heat after it was 80 in KY.

 

One of the nicest things about the trip is that everything was in full bloom.  I had hoped that after being gone for almost two weeks that things would have bloomed when I got home.  Not so.  They are in the process of blooming now (I have been home just under a week as I write this).

 The final version of the tape.  It held up surprisingly well, no rattles or vibrations, and the headlight was surprisingly close to pointed correctly.  The truck goes in next Wednesday for the insurance claim inspection.

 

I took the truck because I was hauling a bunch of stuff down, and courtesy of the deer, it was a good thing I did (the CR-V has nothing but liability on it).  That said, in general the car is better than the truck.  It is much more comfortable to sleep in, it is narrower which is nice on a lot of the sub-par roads I drive on.  The greater gas mileage while not sacrificing 4WD is really nice.  And I designed a camper for it which works a whole lot better than the system I used in the truck.  My fall trip will definitely be in the car, mostly because of gas prices.  I added Mammoth Cave on this trip, and am heading north and west this fall to fill those in.  That is a lot of miles.  Perhaps I will head south next spring.

With the photos done, time to start working on projects.  The big ones for this year are the roof extension/garage and the deck.  I have been looking at trucks too, but I am afraid if I buy the box truck this year I won't be able to afford one of the projects, though I suppose it isn't the end of the world if I have to push the deck out another year.  Before those though, I think I need to finish the metal carport up the hill so I can get some of the stuff out of the carport by the house so I can work on mowers.  I have two lawn tractors and right now neither is capable of mowing, and mowing season is upon us.