Camper Chronicles, parts 2 and 3

Oh man, where is the summer going? It seems that I look up and it's Saturday again...and again...and again. My home school planning (yes, I thought I'd try planning this year, as opposed to my strategy from last year which was: SURVIVE. And read books) is ramping up, and I'm getting excited for fall. But I hope it doesn't come too fast, because we have a camper that we need to reassemble in time for fall camping trips!

So, when we left off, the camper had no floor and the walls were precariously perched on a redneck car lift (read: cinder blocks and railroad ties). If OSHA were to have come by, there would have been, um, violations. And if they saw what it took to get that floor back under the camper, there probably would  have been jail time. Kidding! At least the children weren't involved.

Here's what we were dealing with. We purchased, painted, and installed new wood onto the trailer to serve as the sub-floor. Relatively easy process, which was taken care of one weeknight evening. But to get the walls put back on, you had to slide the trailer back under the camper, and then feed a thin piece of sheet metal through the space between the floor and the trailer frame. Does that make sense? Here's a picture of the metal that needed to go between the floor and frame:

In the picture below, Zach is preparing to lower the walls.

It was ugly. We just started pulling out the railroad ties and letting the jack down on the back, and then lowered the front. The tricky part was making sure the walls and floor lined up relatively well.

Shortly after the picture above, it was done. That was (I think) the hardest bit of this whole project (well, unless you count "sewing curtains," which may prove to be my personal Mount Everest. I use quotation marks in "sewing" because, well, you haven't seen my "sewing"). There was some wiggling and an attempt to move the entire camper about 1/4 inch backward, but in the end we figured close enough is close enough.

Then Zach removed all the curtains and hardware and painted the ceiling. 

Some guy on Craigslist had free countertop he wanted to get rid of, and we were headed down past his house on the way to some friends' house for dinner, so we picked it up. I was not anticipating that it would have a bunch of paint and stuff on it, but I think I'll be able to clean it up fairly easily. 

Last weekend we installed some vinyl flooring. I know, vinyl flooring is cheap and yucky, but let's keep in mind that this is a 20-year-old trailer where devil rodents routinely invade and poop on the floor. We're not going for high dollar. Besides, I think it turned out pretty nice.

We have purchased paneling, and that's the next step in the process. Zach will panel the walls, frame out the cabinets, and build some cabinet doors. Actually, now that I think about it, I bet the electrical and plumbing will come next, as holes will need to be drilled for those.

Now that the floor is back on, we're all breathing much easier. Now it's the fun part of reassembling, decorating, and focusing on making a tiny space as functional as possible. Where should we go for our first trip out in the refurbished camper?

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Workout of the Day

Tony Horton One on One, Vol. 1 - Just Arms

A classic! Biceps, forearms, triceps. 

For some odd reason both Zach and I are having trouble with our left shoulders. His started as a knot from driving home 13 hours straight from New Mexico, and has just not gotten better. I noticed a tweak in mine after doing Game Day from Asylum right before New Mexico, and it has gotten worse, not better. I'm icing and trying to rest it, but it's hard to rest a shoulder when you're a boot camp instructor and also when you like to show your kids how to do cartwheels. 

The Camper Chronicles

Four years ago, there was a lot of road construction in our town. The detours forced us to take some Farm to Market roads that we wouldn't ordinarily travel, and one day, along one of those roads, there was a triangle camper set up in someone's yard. I mentioned it when I got home one day.

"Hey, did you see that triangle camper over on Helms Trail?"
"Yeah! I've never seen a camper like that...we should go check it out," Zach said.

We had owned a used, rapidly-deteriorating pop-up camper ever since our first year of marriage. The canvases were wearing thin and you never knew what might break next. I always told the kids to make themselves scarce during pop-up set-up, because it was always a tense time with high likelihood of cursing the pop-up and its creators.

So that afternoon we went and checked out that triangle camper, which we learned was called an "A-Liner." This, too, was an aging pop-up camper, but it was SO COOL! No canvas, super compact, very light. We talked to the owner. We went back home.

"What if we sold our pop-up? Would you be interested in getting that camper if he'd work us a deal?" Zach asked.

"Totally."

Craigslist had our camper sold within two days, and we went to pick up our new camper. I remember people asking us, "Oh, so you got rid of the pop-up...Did you upgrade?"

"Well...sort of?"

The fact of the matter was that we "upgraded" to a 1996 model A-Liner with half the size, no heat, and only one bed for the kids. But we LOVED it! This thing was so easy to tow, easy to put up, and it still had all the amenities we need for camping. I mean, the idea when camping is to get out, not stay inside, right?

We have enjoyed our triangle camper for four years, taking it to Palo Duro Canyon several times, camping our way across the country on our way to Wisconsin, and this summer, on our way to New Mexico. Zach has made modifications to the camper, adding bunk beds, shelving, hanging racks, and a bike rack. It works perfectly for us.

Here's a picture of her in all her glory at Guadalupe Mountain National Park in far West Texas:

But somewhere in the middle of New Mexico, we had a small disaster; a tire blow out caused the tread of the tire to whip around and destroy the wheel well, blowing a hole in the floor, a cabinet, and ripping the wiring out of the air conditioner and a socket.

When I hopped out of the truck to see what we knew was a flat tire, I saw wires wound around the tire and some contents of the camper hanging out of a hole.

"Oh. NO!"

A bit more than an hour on the side of the road and Zach had us on the road again.

(Aside: This trip had several disasters that stemmed from this blowout, including an unidentified devil rodent that used the hole in the camper to terrorize us throughout the week. The first time he weasled in and ate a pound of trail mix and tore through a tupperware container of peanut butter. After the food was safely stored in the truck, he continued to visit us daily to leave poop in the camper and tear open packets of coffee. It was truly disgusting. All that to say that I pointed out to our children that in case of a disaster, there is no other person I'd want around than my husband, who is as handy and clear-headed a person as I've ever met.)

After securing a spare tire in Santa Fe, our lame camper was able to make it safely back home to Austin. Which brings us to our latest home-away-from-home improvement, replacing the floor on our camper. And while we are at it, we decided to go ahead and give the whole thing a face lift, including new flooring, cabinets, siding, and curtains.

This project has quickly morphed from, "Hey, yeah...let's just pull up the floor and replace that bit that's bad," to "Hmm, maybe we need to look at replacing the whole floor," to "OH MY GOSH WHY IS THE TOP OF THE CAMPER SEPARATED FROM THE BOTTOM AND SITTING ON BLOCKS IN MY YARD?" It's been spectacular.

I'll chronicle our adventures here, 'cause I'm guessing this is going to go from bad, to worse, to better, to awesome...and I don't want to miss or forget a thing!

Here's a photo tour of last weekend's work:

Beginning of tear out. This is where our bed and converted table usually are.

Here's how the camper looks when it's all together in one piece:

Busted cabinet and door removed from camper:

So, apparently, all you have to do to disassemble a camper is detach the floor, jack up the walls, and pull the trailer forward. That's what has happened here. The camper walls and ceiling are quite light; they are made of Styrofoam with aluminum on either side.

Kids surfing on the trailer. You can see that in addition to the hole we found some rot, which is another reason to pursue a brand new floor.

Removing the floor from the trailer:

And removing the paneling...a nasty, splintering job. This isn't going to be a fun part. The paneling on the back side cannot be removed, though, and so we will have to just panel over it.

And that's where we are now! The kids are instructed not to go near our little redneck palace on blocks while it's not attached to its trailer. Last night we went and picked up the new floor, and I emailed a guy on Craigslist about some free counter top that he is trying to get rid of. We also need to decide what to put on the floor. The goal is to have the floor put back on this weekend so we can lower the walls back down ASAP. Excited to see how we pull this thing together! (And by "we," I mostly mean Zach...I'll help where I can, but I'm not afraid to admit he's the brains of this operation.)

Workout of the Day

Isn't this a fitness blog? Oh yes, it is. And we're still fitnessing! I'm doing a hybrid of about a million programs right now. Today I did T25 Speed 1.0, and yesterday we did P90X Plus Upper, and the day before that it was Beast Bulk Legs. Enjoying some variety!