The Journey of the Redneck Express

Christmas Lights on the Camper and around Sauvie Island

2011-12-23T22:13:00.000-08:00

Well, time for my annual Christmas Truck Camper pictures . This year, I added a little more to my lights display, and decided to also tour around the area near me and take a few pictures for everyone to enjoy .

First up, The Redneck Express in it’s Christmas Light Splendor:

Then one of my neighbors who also decorated his Airstream trailer

Next stop, first house south of the park

Reeder’s Country Store, over at Reeder Beach RV Resort

What I call “The Schoolhouse”. This Christmas lights were rather odd, they were purple when I took these, now they’re red….

Another home on the Island as we continue south…

And his neighbor:

Now, we’re down at the southern end of Gillihan Road before it turns and runs east and west along the bottom of Sauvie Island:

Hope you all have a Merry Christmas and that you enjoyed my little Christmas light tour of Sauvie Island .

Christmas Gifts from my neighbors

2011-12-20T21:54:00.000-08:00

Well, the Christmas Season of gifts has officially began, my neighbors, Craig & Linda at Island Cove RV Park, surprised Dawn and I with several wonderful Christmas gifts!

The most astounding one was that Linda had hand crocheted us a queen size afghan for the cabover bed, we love it!

Linda also made us an amazing set of Christmas Cards from various pictures she and Craig had taken of me and the Redneck Express over the course of 2011 AND a 2012 Calendar with pictures taken from their various adventures around Oregon and Washington, and a collage image of yours truly and the Redneck Express .

But, that’s not all! There was also butter cookies and chocolate!

Thanks Craig & Linda, we love it all!

SIP 47- Dawn and I visit Sake One & the Montinore Winery

2011-12-19T21:25:00.000-08:00

Well, Dawn’s come up to visit again, so its time we went out and did something a little different than hanging around Portland and going to the regular restaurants.

So, we decided to head south and west past Forest Grove, Oregon to visit a couple of the stops on the SIP 47 Winery tour in Western Oregon.

Now, normally, one starts up at the northern end of Oregon State Highway 47 near Banks where it intersects Highway 26, and then make your way south through the beautiful country side till your reach McMinville, Oregon where State Highway 47 ends at 99W.

Since we didn’t have enough time, or drinking capacity to hit all the wineries, we decided to shorten ours to a couple of stops we were most interested in, the Sake One Brewery, and the Montinore Estate Vineyards.

SakeOne

Now, yer probably going, “Brewery? What’s a brewery doing on a Wine Tour?”

Well, if a facility produces sake, Japanese Rice Wine, it is usually called a Brewery vs a Winery, don’t ask me why, they call it a Brewery, so I’m going to go along with it .

For those that have never drank sake before, lemme warn you, Sake is a lot more potent than your average Merlot or Pinot Noir. The average alcohol content is around 20% with sake whereas wine is usually around 13% at the upper end.

But, we find it a lot more enjoyable than a great many of the more bitter selections that you find in normal wines, which is why we enjoy it.

If you’ve never tasted sake, you should really try it, at least once.

Most of the businesses along the SIP 47 Winery tour offer a sampling of various different vintages and types, usually called a “flight”. This is traditionally the best way to expose your palette to a fairly varying range of flavors for each of the locations along the tour.

Since I was driver, Dawn did the drinking for both of us, trying the standard Sake flight at Sake One. Sake One offers a couple of different flight options, including one that involves small food samplings coupled with the various sakes to allow you to learn about what food pairings go best with what sake, this is called the Sake Shock Flight, similar to pairing white and red wines with various meats and cheeses.

Dawn decided to enjoy the Toji Flight, which covers a fairly wide range of different Sakes, including those in the shortest flight, the Kura flight.

Out of what was sampled, Dawn and I agreed that our two favorites were the Momo-Kawa Medium Dry Junmai Gingo craft Sake and the Yoshi-no-Gawa Junmai Gingo sake. Of their regular local American craft sakes, one we heartily recommend is the Moonstone Coconut Lemon-grass Sake, it’s really good, trust me, you’ll be hooked!

While Dawn continued her way through her flight of sakes, I meandered a bit, snapping a few pictures of the Tasting Room and the Brewery Building next door. The Brewery building has tours daily at 1, 2, and 3pm.

Montinore Estate Vineyards

Our next stop along our short tour for the day was the Montinore Estate Vineyards. One of the more majestic vineyards along the route, though the name has a bit of humor. The original proprietor who built the estate and the vineyards named it as a shortening of the phrase “Montana in Oregon.”

Many people when they first encounter the name think that it is some fanciful French name, when in reality, the name came from the fact that the original proprietor made his money running mines in Montana before retiring to Oregon.

Today, the Montinore Estate is run by Rudy Marchesi, who came to wine and Oregon via Bronx & New Jersey. He was guided in his work by what he learned from his Italian Grandparents and came it Oregon in hopes of producing wine that showcased the truest expression of the land in which it grew.

Montinore’s wine is particularly influenced by the ash that fell upon the ground when Mt. St. Helens erupted in 1980, which lends it a unique flavor that is not present in wine grown in earth that was not enhanced with the volcanic ash.

When you first arrive at Montinore, the first thing that greets you is a set of classic European influenced gates, reminiscent of the old family vineyards of France.

As you make your way up the smooth one-lane asphalt road up the hill atop which the winery is situated with a panoramic view of the surrounding valley, the second thing that will catch your eye is the absolutely beautiful estate house set amongst regal hard woods and firs whose green canopies would lend the manor a sheltered pocket of tranquility, seeming isolating it from the bustling world only miles away.

From the parking lot, it is a short walk up the paved trail to the Winery proper and its ornate tasting room.

On slow winter days, much like when we visited, the main tasting room door is locked, and one must push a little “call” button to ring the main tasting hall to be brought in.

Montinore, like most wineries also offers a tasting flight, which we recommend, but caution those that might have problems with Sulfates to politely pass on the Verjus, the non-alcoholic beverage that they close the flight with, as a key flavoring ingredient is Sulfur Dioxide.

Once again, Dawn did the drinking for us, though I did lightly taste a couple of the wines she particularly liked. Two of the wines we particularly liked, though desert wines, were the 2010 Riesling Sweet Reserve and the 2008 Frolic Gewürztraminer Sweet Reserve.

Montinore wrapped up our short Wine Tour, and on the way home to the camper Dawn napped quite soundly. We hope to continue on the SIP 47 Winery tour as time allows over the course of 2012, and hope to write more about what we find.

Thanks for reading .

Christmas Shopping at Portland’s Saturday Market

2011-12-18T21:49:00.000-08:00

Well, Christmas is almost right around the corner, and I’ve luck has been with me as Dawn has come to visit for a couple days, and her Mom made the train ride up with her, so we’re off to Portland’s Saturday Market to do a little wandering, “window shopping”, and spending some family time .

Our day started out with me meeting Dawn & her mother, Joyce, at the Union Station in Portland, then making a short drive over to park behind Kell’s of Portland and then walking over to the Ankey Arcade where the Portland Saturday market is normally held.

We decided to split up and wander around for a while to look at the various tents, most of which have “No Photography” signs up, so I have very little pictures, sadly.

During my wanders while Dawn and Joyce did their shopping, I came across a group of carolers dressed in Dicken’s period fare, singing Christmas Carols marvelously!

I did my best to record of a video of them singing, but sadly, the camera’s battery hadn’t been recharged recently and shut down after only 17 seconds of video.

Dicken's Christmas Carolers

Traditionally, the Portland Saturday Markets, have a stage erected where various local bands, and sometimes more well known national names perform. Sadly, our visit had a local pair who decided Christmas time was the best time to sing rather morbid, depressing, and rather loud songs that can best be described as “angsty” and not much else, to me, at least, their singing sent me scurrying off somewhere else to save my ear drums.

The Pigeons wandering around the square were a bit more entertaining the two lady singers on the stage….

At last, I caught up with Dawn and Joyce, burdened with their parcels, and ready for a nice lunch over at Kells’ Irish pub of Portland.

Since I overslept that afternoon, I enjoyed the Irish Breakfast from Kells’ (not for the faint of heart!) which was comprised of fried Irish Soda bread, skillet seared tomatoes, Rashers (pork), Pork Sausages, eggs, and bacon. Either way, it was filling and actually rather good.

From there we wandered some more, drove around to the local malls so Dawn and Joyce could do more Christmas Shopping (I slipped off to See’s Candy to purchases several pounds of their various creams for various deserving ladies ), before returning Joyce to the train station to head back south for home.

Dawn and I continued on to Powell’s City of Books where we did several hundred dollars worth of Christmas Shopping, before retiring to a light dinner and bed.

Project–Adding a Dry Erase board to the Fridge

2011-12-09T20:30:00.000-08:00

Well, another little project in the camper, been wanting to add a little dry erase marker board in my camper so I could write down notes for things when the thought hit me, or to keep track of what projects needed doing, or chores .

So, I went down to the local Bi-Mart and found myself this little dry erase board which is just the right size to fit on the front of my fridge in my camper .

It came ready with a finer tipped dry erase marker (which sadly didn’t work, so I ended up replacing it with a good one), all I needed for the install was a roll of good 3M double-sided foam tape.

Before

After

Simple project, and very useful, especially when you can have scatterbrained days like me where I feel like I’d forget where my head was if it wasn’t attached!

A reprise of the depths of Redneck Engineering

2011-12-06T17:57:00.001-08:00

Back in May of 2007, I wrote a blog entry about the depths of Redneck Engineering and how I thought I had a grasp on it, but was proven wrong again.

In the opening of that entry, I posted this amazing truck camper combo:

At the time, I had no idea what the make up of this Camper/trailer hybrid was. That changed today when an Annoymous poster recognized the style of the camper and brought it to my attention that it was a Franklin Truck camper.

Armed with that information and a little help from University of Guelph’s Digital Collections Library, I found this picture:

So, now we know that the camper portion of our mystery hybrid is a 1968 Franklin Truck camper, from the looks of it, it was a tripod style jack system to remove it from the truck. This particularly beautiful example is on the back of a 1968 International Harvester Pickup Truck.

So, thanks to my Anonymous Tipster, and thanks to the University of Guelph, that’s half the mystery down and half to go!

For those that want to peruse the University’s Digital Collection, go to: University of Guelph's Digital Collection.

If anyone has any information as to what comprises the rear trailer part of that mega truck camper, please let me know, I’d love to answer the mystery once and for all!

Fall Colors Trip Report & Last Backlogged Project Posted

2011-11-13T16:50:00.001-08:00

Howdy folks, just a small update . I’ve posted this years Fall Colors Rally and the last of the back logged projects, but since I like to keep things organized by the date of when it originally happened, they’re actually posted and set to the dates of rally back in October.

So, to keep ya up to speed and simplify things, I decided I’d post a link back report to the story to help ya find ‘em.

As I finally knock down the last of the incomplete or missing tales on the blog, I’ll post similar entries to this one to help readers catch up on what they’ve missed.

Backlogged Projects

Backlogged Projects: Water Pump Swap

2011 Fall Colors Rally

Project: Converter Swap–WFCO 9835 for PowerMax Boondocker PM3B-45

2011-10-26T22:55:00.001-07:00

Well, I went through all the song and dance and jive doing all that wiring upgrades and relocating the converter in my backlogged projects series only to discover that my original converter, the WFCO 9835 35-amp deckmount, was on its way out.

In the past, the popular unit of choice has been the Progressive Dynamics 9200 series with its remote charging pendant, however, I am not seeing a 35amp model in the line up over at www.BestConverter.com, the lowest amperage rated unit they have is a 45amp model, which is likely overkill for my rig.

So, I fired off an email to Randy over at BestConverter.com inquiring as to the fate of my old converter to verify that my suspicions were indeed true.

My email dialogue went like this:

RedneckExpress/JoeChiOhki wrote:

Howdy folks . Late 2008, I bought a WFCO 9835 deckmount converter from ya guys and been using it without issue up till just recently.
I'm trying to figure out whats going on with it, as I've moved it from where it was originally installed (roughly about 11' away from the batteries) to where it is now, (roughly 2' from the batteries) and now its acting strange.
The unit is making a constant "clicking" sound when listened to up close. Before, the unit would perpetually stay in 13.6 volt mode, doing the desulfation boost every 24 hours) which I figured was because it was 11' away on 4 gauge wire. So, I moved it to its new location, which is right on the other side of the wall from the batteries.
Once moved, the unit was performing as normal, but now actually going into boost, and staying there (Left it alone for 3 days, it never went out of 14.8 volt bulk). I figured this was due to the fact that my two Group 31 Trojans were at the end of their service life, so I replaced the batteries with two new of the same make and brand and now the unit clicks constantly and the lights pulse. The batteries are connected correctly, and all contacts were cleaned and polished to ensure good connectivity.
Also, the unit can no longer be run on the generator. Before, it worked just fine, but now, whenever it is switched on the generator starts cycling (revving up and down like a load is being added and removed rapidly), something that only happens when the converter is used, nothing else causes this.
Is any of this normal for the unit? I personally think something has gone out in the WFCO unit. I cannot find any articles specific to the 9835 online, most of the problem threads I find are related to the older 8000 series units.
Thanks for any enlightenment you can provide on this bugger. Either way its gonna likely have to be replaced, as I don't want it damaging the $400 in new batteries I just installed!

Randy@BestConverter wrote:

Hi Matt,
While I don't know what, something has failed internally and it will need replaced. Anything or nothing could have caused it to fail.
I would not recommend another WFCO unit however. The Powermax Boondocker is a much better performing unit and has a better warranty. They never come back. Thanks and here is a link if you decide to replace it.
http://www.bestconverter.com/PowerMax-Converters-_c_154.html
Randy

RedneckExpress/JoeChiOhki wrote:

How does the PowerMax Booster Compare to say the 9200 Series Progressive Dynamics unit?

Randy@BestConverter.com wrote:

Similar except its a constant current based charger, uses a slightly higher voltage (14.6 max) for faster charging and has 3 year warranty. I prefer it. If you are fimiliar with constant current versus constant voltage, there is no questions the job gets dont better and faster with a current limited unit. Both are good units though.
Randy

RedneckExpress/JoeChiOhki wrote:

Oh yes, and I forgot to ask, but what is the AC wattage usage of the 35amp/45amp PMB units? Their detail pages on the website don't list anything in particular.

Randy@BestConverter.com wrote:

I don't have it on the website yet but they are vitrually identical to all of the other is you find another table.
Randy

Wanting to make certain I didn’t make a repeat of buying the WFCO-grade of converter again, I started up a thread over on RV.net and got folks opinions and in the end, decided to take Randy’s advice and a chance (not too many of these PowerMax Boondockers out there yet amongst the RV community that I can see) and ordered a 45 amp PowerMax Boondocker .

My parcel arrived in fairly short order, this morning 30 minutes after I left for work, in fact .

When I got home from work, I dug into it .

First off, as you can see, the PowerMax, on the right, is almost double the size of the older WFCO unit, on the left, I originally had, but its shorter in overall height compared to the WFCO. The only thing I ‘m not 100% thrilled about is that the PowerMax is completely flush, where as the WFCO was offset a bit to allow air space between the unit and the surface it fastened to.

So far, the PowerMax is running substantially cooler than its predecessor under similar conditions. At the moment, I’m not even generating enough load to cause the cooling fan to cycle on.

Sadly, I had to drill a couple more holes in my dinette seat , but at least they’re hidden underneath a cushion.

Swap out was pretty straight forward and took very little time, I was done in under 45 minutes . Simply disconnect the battery wires (Negative first!) after unplugging the unit and unbolting it from the underside of the dinette seat and doing the reverse (after marking and drilling out the new bolt holes) for installation of the Boondocker.

Original WFCO

PowerMax installed

Once I had everything hooked up, I flipped on the power switch and nothing exploded or caught fire, which to me is always a good thing!

Once it had been on for a couple seconds, I flipped the switch on my voltage meter to check what mode the PowerMax had decided it needed to run in. According to everything I’ve read, the unit starts in 13.6 volt mode, then checks to see if the batteries need more and will go up to the 14.6 Boost mode, or down to the 13.2 float mode if the batteries do not need charging.

Much to my joy, she went down to 13.2 volts, something I don’t think the WFCO ever did, which is why my Trojan’s died an early death as they were being constantly boiled, even with water being added regularly, eventually the plates degraded to the point of no return.

As I sit here, typing my blog entry, the converter is still working just fine and still happily at 13.2 volts. My lights no longer flicker and so far, I’m happy with the PowerMax Boondocker.

I still need to see how she performs in a recharging situation and operating off the generator. I wasn’t able to use my generator with the WFCO on my last two participations on the Fall Colors Rally,

Thanks for following along, I will keep ya’ll posted as things progress!

2011 Fall Colors Rally—Last Stop, Smallwoods Harvest and then DISASTER!

2011-10-10T01:32:00.000-07:00

After saying our good-byes to every from the Rally, Dawn and I back tracked a little to visit Smallwood’s Harvest, one of the large Produce stands along Highway 2, just east of Leavenworth.

Once again, we ran into another fellow truck camper owner, just as they were pulling out to leave…. Didn’t get an opportunity to chat.

Storm’s coming after us, those clouds don’t look too inviting….

Wandering around Smallwood’s Harvest, shooting pictures with Moby in tow, who really wanted to go into the main shopping area and “sample” any low-hanging fruit.

Even giant roosters did nothing to dissuade him!

Pumnkin’ Chunkin’, my kinda sport!

This device right here demonstrates what you too can do with an old propane cylinder, a large valve and some good welding skills.

Old vintage Fordson tractor, produce by Ford Motor Company back in the early 1900s. There were a number of old tractors, both working and not working scattered around Smallwood’s.

Moby enjoying his hotdog, his reward for having to eat his kibble instead of his wet food on the trip. Normally gets spoiled with wet dog food, but he and pedigree didn’t go well together, so we had to switch him back to his normal dry kibble, he wasn’t too happy about that.

But, he was happy with his hotdog .

Sadly, all too soon, we were on the road again, heading west on Highway 2 for home.

Stopping along the way for the various spots of road construction going on along the side of Highway 2 as the road crews sprayed the rock cliff sides down with gunite to reinforce the rock faces and prevent slides.

Climbing up towards the big pass at the top of Highway 2.

Till we finally reached the top and started down the other side.

Dawn closed her eyes and formed a death grip on the cab door until we’d leveled back off a couple thousand feet down lower.

Other than a couple of close calls with wide dump trucks, we had no major issues up till we reached the US-2 SR-522 interchange.

I swear to God, someone at WADOT needs a beating!

“Bump” does not do justice on a sign for a road height difference between where they’d ground down the old asphalt a full FOOT from the main road surface. The lip up was poorly done and the “bump” sign was barely ten feet away from the impact point itself.

When you come around to this already going around 35-40 mph on a blind curve with no advanced warning, you just can’t slow down 10,000lbs of truck and camper fast enough. We hit that bump HARD, I literally felt the camper lift up out of the bed before slamming back down again.

It wouldn’t be until 60 miles later when we pulled off at the Southcenter Mall outside of Sea-tac that I would discovered that the driver’s side rear tie down had pulled clean through the camper and had been dragging on and off on the road behind us for 60 miles.

Had it not been for my judicious use of bolt down chain loops, I would have lost my whole tie down. As it was, the happijac ear stayed put on the bumper and only the top edge of the now worthless eye bolt had kissed the asphalt sporadically.

To make matters worse, I would discover a couple weeks after the trip that the driver’s side air bag had also been damaged in some fashion as it was now losing several PSI a day.

Hence, my last part in the title DISASTER.

Our trip’s spirits were rather dampened after that, but fortunately, the KIT and truck pulled through with only minor damage, the tie down will be replaced, and the air bag as well when I do a leaf spring swap later this winter.

All together, minus vehicular damage, it was a good Rally. Dawn wants to go again, and so I look forward to it.

Hope to see you all again in 2013 .

2011 Fall Colors Rally–Cider, Germans that aren’t, and Leavenworth

2011-10-09T00:54:00.000-07:00

Continuing on in our fashion of going at our own pace, Dawn and I slept in a bit, had a good breakfast before breaking camp, saying out good-byes to Silverline before heading on to the last stop, Leavenworth.

The evening before, both Paul and Rick had come bearing gifts of Apple-cooler beverages from Canada and really good cider from the Methow Valley Ciderhouse.

After inquiring after its location, Dawn and I headed a short distance down the road from Silverline to the Methow Valley Cider house.

Dawn was quite happy with her cider findings , sadly, they only had our favorite, Honey Bear, left on tap, so we ended up picking up a bottle of Howling Wolf and Pinnacle Goat for the road.

Up in the hills, where’s our Mountain Goats? There were fences all along the side of the highway to prevent them from jumping out into traffic, but we didn’t see a one. This time of year is when they’re winter coats are growing in and the goats are somewhat interesting looking.

Paralleling US-97 now… This side’s still prettier, less like an interstate, more like a meandering highway, which is more my style .

High school graduating classes? Sadly our picture didn’t come out too good due to sun glare on the windshield.

Last year, I followed the Rally route to the letter and ended up caravaning with the rally for the last pull to Leavenworth. Because of my attempt to keep up with the rally last year, I ended up broken down in Toppenish, WA.

So, this year, given that we already were a fair ways behind everyone else, we decided to take a detour and travel the US-97A along the opposite side of the river and try a different view. We passed through Chelan along the way and big Lake Chelan tucked up in the hills, hidden from view from the main US-97 route.

We’d also heard tell of Mountain Goats being prevalent along that route as well, but sadly, we didn’t see a one.

Frankly, out of the two, US-97A is a far more scenic route, though not as flat or as fast. If I was to take the same trip again, I’d go US-97A every time.

When we pulled into Alpine View RV Park, we barely made it. Within a few short minutes after we’d gotten the camper plugged in and leveled off the bus to take us into town for the group dinner at King Ludwigs arrived.

Sadly, we missed out on Torklift Rob’s product demos this year due to our late arrival, but at least we didn’t miss the bus.

Talk about cutting it close!

This years dinner at Ludwig had alot more attendees than last year… Enough so that they had to move us down into the big lower area in the backroom to fit us all comfortably.

There was beer…

And random pictures taken of several of the “boys” coping a feel on the St. Pauli Girl cut-out, which I sadly have no picture of.

Frank, our favorite accordionist was back, and of course, the customary Chicken Dancing was performed .

After dinner, we returned to camp and huddled around two campfires built of the remaining wood brought from Silverline. Sadly, George, Alaskashooter wasn’t able to join us in Leavenworth.

As we huddled around the fires, the rains finally caught up with us again, having been left behind back on Friday when we first started over the mountains from Arlington.

Not wanting to leave my comfy spot by the fire, I brought out my trusty umbrella and hunched up under it as the rain came down and I puffed on one of my last cigars.

Eventually, we all retired for the night, Dawn having gone to bed far earlier with Moby, too full of food and spirits to stay awake for too long.

The next morning, I floated around camp in my shorts and a t-shirt, doing my best to get pictures of our gathering at little Alpine View RV park. We never did see the park owners, simply left our payment in the box at the door as we headed out.

Even as early as I had gotten up that morning, a number of folks had already pulled out and hit the road.

Eventually, we said our good byes to everyone, leaving behind only a couple of rigs before we too, pulled up and headed out onto Highway 2.

2011 Fall Colors Rally–Winthrop, we are here, now where’s the Potluck?!

2011-10-08T23:14:00.000-07:00

By the time we reached Winthrop, all of our fellow Truck Camper owners had long since motored on to Silverline.

Since it was still early and last year I never got a chance to really explore Winthrop much, we decided to park over by the Red Barn (which was having a Crab feed that evening!) and take Moby in with us as we meandered around town.

After wandering around a while (Dawn only found one shop that really interested her, the rest were filled with your standard tourist fare at the usual high prices, gotta love those random book stores , if it wasn’t for them, Dawn wouldn’t get much shopping in on these outings sometimes…) we stopped at Sheri’s for some scratch made ice cream.

Moby enjoyed some with us .

After our shopping adventures were completed, we made our way on out to Silverline Resort, just outside of Winthrop.

As far as I can recall, we were the last camper in that evening, but we ended up with, in my opinion, one of the nicer sites. Full hook-ups, level all gravel parking and a short walk to the bathrooms .

Before we left on the rally this year, there had been some concern about firewood for our usual “giant fire” as at the time, it didn’t look like “Alaskashooter” aka George, was going to be able to attend. Last year he’d hauled a giant trailer of firewood behind him for the rally.

In preparation for this, I’d hauled a box of firewood with me on the trip. We ended up not needing it.

Not only did George make it, he came prepared with plow to clear the highway to keep that rally going!!

It wasn’t too long after we got there that dinner preparations for the big Potluck were under way. Last year I baked two pies and made gravy. I ended up going home with two pies and dumping a pot gravy down the toilet in the men’s bathroom.

So, this year, we came hungry and I brought a single cherry pie. I still ended up going home with the majority of a Cherry pie, plus Jumbo Jet’s delicious home-made Sweet potato pie! Thanks Misses Jumbo Jet, the pie was great!

Seating was as crowded as ever at the King’s Buffet , but the food was “Oh so good!” and “Oh so plentiful!” I ate till I just about popped, Dawn did her best to do likewise.

We shared our table with the owners of the park, my first time meeting them, Jeff & Kelli from Seattle, and many wonderful others whose names I can’t remember….

After dinner, the games began and prizes were passed around…… Think musical chairs, except no getting out of yer chair. Dawn got some really good coffee, some torklift hats and some beverage sleeves. I ended up with an awesome rechargeable LED trouble light (Love that thing!), a box of Aplets & Cotlets from Liberty Farms (just outside of Leavenworth), Scone mix and more hats!

Harry was crowned Caravan Queen this year , heh…

After the games and the food, we all wrapped up the food, put it away and went on down to Silverline’s beautiful new firepit! Thanks Silverline for putting in the new Firepit, that thing was amazing and located in a spot convenient so that we wouldn’t keep everyone else up at the park while we “festiviated”.

Rick once again was our resident pyromaniac, but even his best efforts couldn’t cast off enough heat to keep us warm, it was just darn chilly and our circle was around the fire was large, this rally has a pretty amazing attendance!

I enjoyed a couple of good cigars that Dawn had brought up from Salem for me, we chatted, “adult” beverages were enjoyed and finally we all drifted off to our campers for the night.

Dawn and I made use of the bath house, and the evil shower box ate far more quarters than it should have, but the shower was still hot and good.

Sleep soon found us.

2011 Fall Colors Rally–East to Winthrop!

2011-10-08T22:02:00.000-07:00

Given how slow my rig was last year (and it ended up being even a bit slower going over the double passes of WA SR-20), I decided from the get-go that we weren’t going to even try to keep up with the Caravan. A small block V8 hasn’t a prayer in attempting to keep up going over mountains against 20 odd Diesel Powered trucks!

So, we didn’t even try. We got up when we were fully rested, which ironically was at the time everyone was doing the “Driver’s Meeting”, and had a hearty breakfast, before packing back up the generator and continuing on east.

Since Dawn had never been along this route before, I made stops at some similar places to last year and we enjoyed a nice hike here and there, stopping to enjoy the brisk air, lack of rain, and crystal clear views.

Dawn giving me the stink-eye when I tried to get her to pose for a photo

As we made our way back to the truck and camper, we discovered this little critter enjoying a snack on the stone-wall ledge between the bathroom walls.

Moby decided, he’d check this out…

No small cute, furry plague bearers were harmed… , Moby decided he was defeated by the height of the wall, and ‘huffed” a bit before wandering off, showing how “disinterested” he was.

And of course, had to take a picture in the same spot of the camper as I did last year for comparison! Can’t you just see the joy on Dawn’s face as I roped her into finally posing for a picture . Can you spot the other little difference between the trucks besides the obvious dually wheels, bike rack on the rear and what not? HINT: Look real close at the bottom corner near the rear wheels.

Soon, we were on the road again, putting our way through the foot hills, heading for the first big climb up to Diablo Lake Overlook.

Up and up we go, the peaks becoming more jagged and snow capped the further we journeyed.

Our last look out and hike, though this one was just Moby and I, Dawn wanted nothing to do with heights and narrow trails carved out of the side of the living rock.

Last year, when I came through the Washington Pass on SR-20, everything was completely lost in what I affectionately dubbed “Suicide Fog”.

The view was drastically different this time around….

Parking area at the Outlook is surrounded by jagged, snow capped peaks.

From here we descended down out of the mountains at last, the Redneck Express glad to be back where it can breath easier and go faster than 25-30mph .

We were almost there, Winthrop was only a few miles away!

2011 Northwest Fall Colors Rally–Heading North to Sauk

2011-10-07T21:59:00.000-07:00

Well, its another year and that means, another Fall Colors Rally!

Once again, Moby the Wonder dog is back with me for more road tripping adventures, and this time my happy lady, Dawn, has finally come along to her first Truck Camper Rally!

Also, this is the first adventure that the Redneck Express has taken as a “Dually”, so everything’s new and untested!

Last year, I tried to drive the interstate as little as possible on my way north, however, with Dawn along and a later start on Thursday evening than last year, I opted for taking the more direct route along I-5.

This years Rally Route:
View Larger Map

With a minimum of issues, we headed out from my place on Sauvie Island, intent on making the drive all the way to Sauk Thursday night.

We made it about as far as the Wal-Mart in Marysville before I ended up being too tired to keep driving any further.

Fortunately, while I was inside the Wal-Mart getting some duplicate keys made for the camper (being locked out on the rally would have sucked!) I asked about nearby campgrounds and got an invite to just stay in the lot along the outer edge with the other RVs parked there.

Truth be told, this is the first time I’ve ever officially “Wally-Docked” anywhere and it turned out to work just fine.

We ended up being one of four truck campers parked there that evening, but sadly, the only one on the way to the Fall Colors Rally .

After a light second dinner of sandwiches, we’d picked up mexican from Muchas Gracias in St. Helens, Oregon on our way north, Dawn and I both crashed.

That night was the first and only time Moby was allowed to share the cabover bed with us. After he kept trying to plant himself between us and ended up causing poor Dawn a poor nights sleep (when I’m that tired, I’ll sleep through the end of the world…), it was decreed that the “Wonder Dog” would spend his nights on the dinette, which he had no complaints about.

By the time we got up around 8am the next morning, we were the last of the RVs from the night before still there. There were a few more in the parking lot, but they had showed up during the daylight hours.

A light breakfast and we were on our way again, only stopping in Arlington long enough to get gas at the Safeway (and some canned wet food for Moby, which we would later give away, Moby + Pedigree = Bad) we continued on to Sauk, arriving around 2:30-3:00pm.

A few other early arrivals were already there, clustered together in the one “big” site near the entrance road coming from the highway. We briefly entertained pulling in with them, but after looking at how flooded the site was, opted to go a little ways down from them and grab one of the river-overlook sites for ourselves.

Far dryer and more level, much more to my liking. Paul, folks, yer welcome to the puddles

After getting settled in, I wandered over to chat with folks while Dawn opted to make a bee-line for the cabover bed and catch up on lost sleep.

While she was out, my plushies attacked! Yes, it’s a bit odd for a big Redneck to have little plush critters, but I’ve had the Ninja Cat (a gift inspired by a slightly drunken viewing of Hitchcock’s “The Birds”) and my lucky Road tripping cabbit with me for a lot of safe and successful outings, call it superstition if you want.

Within the next couple hours, several more arrivals came in. Shelia (Fibber McGee & Pepé Le Pew) and Sally joined us in our little corner by the river.

A little after 5pm, Lancealot and his son and his amazing home built Tear Drop Trailer became our other neighbors .

I ended up fixing a feast, if you will, for dinner that night , proving that you can indeed making a full-sized dinner in a Truck Camper while dry-camping .

Dinner consisted of a scratch made meat-loaf, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy. Dawn and I invited Shelia to join us for dinner, no one should have to make due with cold cuts for dinner in cold weather, hot meals for all!

After a stuffing dinner, Dawn and I joined everyone else around the campfire for a few hours before hitting the sack, thus wrapping up our first day of the Fall Colors Rally!

Backlogged Projects: Water Pump Swap

2011-10-05T21:04:00.000-07:00

Well, last of the backlogged projects, though truthfully, it’s actually early November as I write this, and this project happened quite some time ago.

Backlogged Project To-Do List:

1.) Charging System needs to be rewired (Again), converter relocated from under the kitchen sink to under the dinette, right next to the batteries (Something I should have done when I rewired the charging system back in 2009, but didn’t). Plus, a new Battery Disconnect needs to be installed, the original 75amp Pollack switch is falling apart.

~~Also, I need to incorporate my battery voltage meter center that I fashioned into the electrical system so I can actually watch my battery charge.~~

~~2.) The two Trojan SCS225 Deep cycles on the camper that I bought for a steal back in 2006 also need replacing, they no longer hold a good charge anymore, odds are one of the batteries is shorted.~~

3.) New Camper plugs need to be installed, replacing the under-rated RV 7 pin hook up with a 100amp Lift-gate plug for the charging wires and a separate 4-pin round plug for the running lights. Charge wiring coming from the alternator needs to be fully scrapped and replaced with a good 4 gauge run instead of the under-rated 8 gauge system I put in back in 2006.

~~4.) Front of the Camper’s tub needs to have a bolstering frame built onto it, it has always flexed and moved too much whenever the camper has been lifted for loading and unloading.~~

5.) The 3 year old Shurflo Extreme Smart Sensor 4.0 water pump needs to be replaced (fortunately, Shurflo replaced this as a “Good Will” warranty exchange, since I bought the pump in ‘09, but it was manufactured in 2007) as it has started leaking water around the body and is pushing pressure back towards the tank.

~~6.) Replace the broken down intermediate steering linkage on the truck to tighten up the steering for improved handling.~~

First off, the tale of how I got this pump.

Back in late 2009, I purchased as Shurflo EXTREME Smart Sensor 4.0 water pump as a replacement for the 37 year old Shurflo that had been faithfully serving my rig.

My main reason behind replacing the original pump (which I still carry as an emergency backup pump) was it was an old 2 gpm model and it was starting to drip a little around the pump head seal on the pump body, add in that showers were always a bit annoying to take due to the pulsing of the pump, I decided it was time to retire the dependable original for a more modern replacement with a variable speed motor to even out the water flow.

So, I bought my Smart Sensor 4.0 and used it fairly little, and within three years the pump had something fail internally and it started pressurizing the low pressure pickup line from the water tank (There’s an original backflow preventer on the tank line to protect the tank water) and leaking around the pump body.

Add on that as time progressed, I had to gradually turn up the adjustment screw till it maxed out to get the pump to continue to run smoothly when the shower was used, I decided it was time to contact Shurflo about repairing it.

When I contacted Shurflo, I reached Pedro Silva, a very helpful fellow who instructed me to remove the sticker from my Shurflo and send it in and they’d do a warranty replacement (Warranty was 3 years and I was on the outer edge of it based on when I had originally bought the pump) sending out a new Shurflo Revolution 4008 pump.

So I sent in my sticker and Pedro received it and I discovered that the pump I had bought had been sitting on the shelf at RV Parts Outlet for at least a year, and since I was a genius and lost my receipt, I had no proof-of-purchase with the date when I originally bought it.

Figuring that Shurflo had done as best as they could, I was figuring I’d be stuck having to buy a new pump out of pocket, but Pedro told me he’d pass it up the management chain and see if he couldn’t still get a warranty unit sent out.

Whoever Pedro’s manager was, I can and still would kiss them. Even with it technically out of warranty, they sent me a new Revolution as a goodwill replacement!

Man, do I ever love Shurflo! Its very very rare to see company’s still putting customer service and satisfaction first and in this case going well above and beyond the call of duty!

Pedro and your boss, if I ever meet ya’ll, I’ve got a big wet sloppy kiss saved up for both of you!

So, in a few short days, my new Shurflo Revolution arrived

Since I kept the box from my Smart Sensor 4.0, I had it handy to do a side-by-side comparison of the two units. Size-wise, the Revolution is a far smaller pump, needing a smaller motor and valve body to produce smooth water flow and pressure comparable to the Smart Sensor.

Add in that the Revolution uses an entirely new style of foot mount, being made entirely of rubber instead of little rubber grommets set into a steel plate like the Smart Sensor 4.0, this change in design drastically cuts down vibration noise passed from the pump through the body of the camper.

Removal of my old pump was fairly straight forward, thought a bit more challenging as I couldn’t remove the front of the step and the fresh water tank like I did when I originally installed it.

You can see its giant-self sitting by the sink in the picture to the left. I ended up spilling water on myself more than once during the process of uninstalling the old pump.

And here you can see the new far smaller Revolution 4008 installed next to my fresh water tank.

You can see just how small this pump is in comparison to the pump that it replaced, yet it’s a vastly superior performing pump, in my opinion, than the Smart Sensor series.

And now a demonstration on the sound quality, narrated by yours truly, “Big” Matt .

So, if you ever find yourself in need of a water pump replacement, I whole-heartedly recommend getting the Shurflo Revolution 4008, it won’t leave you wanting!

Backlogged Projects: Second Cargo Net for the Cabover

2011-09-28T21:52:00.000-07:00

Backlogged Project To-Do List:

~~Also, I need to incorporate my battery voltage meter center that I fashioned into the electrical system so I can actually watch my battery charge.~~

~~4.) Front of the Camper’s tub needs to have a bolstering frame built onto it, it has always flexed and moved too much whenever the camper has been lifted for loading and unloading.~~

~~6.) Replace the broken down intermediate steering linkage on the truck to tighten up the steering for improved handling.~~

This particular project isn’t one of the main must-be-dones on the list, but a very useful little side project that I’ve been wanting to do for a number of years now, but hadn’t found another good source for smaller. but similar cargo nets.

Back in 2008, when I first started full-timing, I began acquiring a large number of books to read. At the time, I didn’t have TV in the camper (or a laptop), so reading was my main source of entertainment.

The problem was, as I acquired books, I filled up the cabover shelf, which has no means of really securing anything placed on it for travel.

For a few trips that summer, I went as is, and the books would eventually all fall off the shelf, which got a little old.

So, my first fix was to buy the biggest Boat-N-Go bulkhead cargo net I could find. This worked for the most part for a number of years, but the books on the ends usually tried to slip out and I have a roughly foot long gap at one end where the Boat-N-Go net came up short.

The problem was, the Boat-n-Go nets only came in two sizes, both too big to use for overlap without it being both A.) A waste of money, the Boat-N-Go nets costs over $30 before shipping B.) silly looking.

I tried a little looking around and asking on forums, but really didn’t find anything.

A random search one day at work, however, turned up CargoGear.com, who specializes in nothing but cargo securing devices for autos, RVs, and boats.

On there, I found this:

For $18 (+3$ for shipping) I found a similarly sized, height-wise, but narrower cargo net to use for an overlap.

A little relocation of a couple of the anchor points from the old cargo net, and I now have all of my books secured on the cabover shelf.

As you can see I also have videos up there, but those I don’t worry about as I have a little piece of cardboard I cut to fit that slides in front of them and keeps them from falling off the shelf while underway.

Backlogged Projects: Replacing OEM Intermediate Steering Shaft with Borgeson aftermarket

2011-09-27T21:53:00.000-07:00

Backlogged Project To-Do List:

~~Also, I need to incorporate my battery voltage meter center that I fashioned into the electrical system so I can actually watch my battery charge.~~

~~4.) Front of the Camper’s tub needs to have a bolstering frame built onto it, it has always flexed and moved too much whenever the camper has been lifted for loading and unloading.~~

6.) Replace the broken down intermediate steering linkage on the truck to tighten up the steering for improved handling.

Amazing how fast you can get projects done when there’s a trip on the line and money in the bank .

All the electrical work is all done, now, truck and camper are setup for heavy duty charging, new batteries are on board so dry camping is back to full capacity again and I now have a battery meter for monitoring the state of my battery bank.

That brings us to fixing a problem that has plagued both my Dodge trucks in the time that I’ve owned them, but never fixed, till now.

The quarter wheel turn steering slop.

Somewhere in the 1980s or early 90s, Dodge decided to get rid of their standard U-jointed intermediate steering shaft coming from the steering box on the truck and coupling via what is called a “Rag Joint” to the steering wheel shaft coming from the cab.

In its place, they put a form of safety knuckle that would break away in the event of an accident to keep from impaling the driver with the steering wheel. I don’t know how often steering wheel impalings occurred, wasn’t something you heard reported in the news to best of my knowledge, but apparently it was happening enough that this piece of garbage was created.

The joint basically was a little rectangular box into which the steering shaft was slid, a pin driven through the end to allow two little rectangular runners to slide onto the ends of the pin. No method of permanent attachment exists on these runners, they’re simply held in place by the box.

Over time, those little pot metal guides disintegrate, usually starting shortly after the flimsy rubber gasket at the top of this giant water bucket of a box knuckle fails.

For $25, you can buy a rebuild kit, that replaces the two little guides and the rubber gasket. Everything I’d read on this rebuild kit indicated that in as little as 4000 miles, the slop problem would resurface again.

Not interested in doing this dance twice, I decided, after polling a couple Dodge Truck Forums, to go with a far more expensive, but far more durable replacement from Borgeson Steering Products.

The original intermediate steering shaft in place on the truck and the garbage safety knuckle.

I removed my driver’s side front tire for ease of access to the steering parts.

You can see the slop in the linkage as I grab the steering shaft and am able to turn it back and forth with an audible clunking sound with even moving the linkage itself at the steering box.

Removal of the old steering shaft involves driving out a retaining pin the safety knuckle, which can be done with a super long Phillips screw driver (to allow you to swing outside the fender well for more energy and accuracy) after soaking the pin with WD-40 and letting it sit for about 30 minutes, then using a 10mm star pattern socket removing the two bolts attaching the intermediate shaft to the rag joint and backing out the safety pints temporarily to allow you to swing it up and pull it out.

If the intermediate shaft doesn’t wanna play nice, you can do as I did, and use a small piece of 1x2 to tap the shaft loose of the knuckle (don’t worry, it’ll just fall apart if its anything like mine) and then you can wiggle the knuckle end lose to remove it from the steering box.

Here’s a side by side comparison of the original intermediate steering shaft and the “Made in the USA” Borgeson replacement.

The Borgeson replacement is far more substantial than the original and is adjustable in length to fit a fairly wide range of Dodge trucks. I believe the model I have is meant to fit Dodges from 1977 to 1993, the last year of the old body style.

You can also see the needle joint-based knuckle that attaches to the steering box vs the garbage safety knuckle that came off.

Once you have your steering pointed perfectly straight forward and your steering wheel in the proper alignment for straight forward driving, slide the knuckle onto the steering box splines and feed the other end up to the rag joint and reattach it.

Being certain to fit the knuckle down so that the spline shaft coming off the steering box is deep enough in to be flush with the end of the fitting in the knuckle, but not too deep to cause binding in the U-joint, you can use a sharpie to mark where the retaining pin will hit, then slide the knuckle off and file down that spot. You will not be reusing the old retaining notch that the factory steering used.

If you’re like me, I used a drill bit that was a little narrower than the threads in the retaining pin hole to pilot start a hole for the retaining pin, then slid the knuckle off and used a bit that would be just wide enough for the pin to enter to make a slot for the pin to lock into.

Tighten up all the screws and nuts and don’t forget to secure the retaining ring in place on the middle of the shaft by the boot.

I’ve done a little testing of the steering with the new steering shaft and the tightness is rather astounding after having such loose steering from the day I bought my first Dodge. I look forward to seeing how it all holds up to the load of the camper on the rear and the ruts in the road, something the dually conversion really exacerbated with the sloppy front steering.

Backlogged Projects: Heavy Duty Charging Circuit–Camper End

2011-09-26T21:53:00.000-07:00

Backlogged Project To-Do List:

Also, I need to incorporate my battery voltage meter center that I fashioned into the electrical system so I can actually watch my battery charge.

2.) The two Trojan SCS225 Deep cycles on the camper that I bought for a steal back in 2006 also need replacing, they no longer hold a good charge anymore, odds are one of the batteries is shorted.

~~4.) Front of the Camper’s tub needs to have a bolstering frame built onto it, it has always flexed and moved too much whenever the camper has been lifted for loading and unloading.~~

6.) Replace the broken down intermediate steering linkage on the truck to tighten up the steering for improved handling.

I’m moving full steam ahead now, the truck’s been rewired, and now it’s the camper’s turn.

On the camper end of things, there wasn’t quite as much complete rewiring needing to be done, rather it simply needed some poor choices rectified.

Case in point, when I bought the camper, the onboard converter wasn’t even designed to charge a battery, you actually switched between the convert and the battery using a switch on the wall.

When I decided to wire the camper for its first onboard battery set, ever, and got a free Todd electronics Converter from Mjgcamper, I decided to reuse the original location of the converter, which happened to be underneath the kitchen sink, quite a ways from where the batteries were actually located, underneath the dinette.

The original wiring was done, of course with more of that wonderful under-sized 8 gauge wire that I loved so much (mostly because at the time, it was $0.46 a foot, where as the heavier stuff was closer to a dollar a foot and I took the penny smart and pound dumb approach to my wiring) and believe it or not, this actually worked just fine for a year or two, before I tinkered with it here and there and it eventually stopped conducting a clean current to the camper’s systems.

In 2008, I replaced the Todd Converter, concerned about the batteries being over charged if left connected all the time (the told Todd had two options, 13.6 or 14.4, and no automatic circuits, you selected one or the other by flipping a switch). In its place went a WFCO 35amp deck charger, right into the same under the sink location.

This also worked fine for a year or so on that old 8 gauge wire.

The turning point where I said, “enough is enough”, was on a camping trip in 2009 where the electrical system was in such bad shape that the batteries weren’t charging properly and we had to use the generator more often than not just to get the camper through the day and part of the night.

At that point, I rewired the camper using the right gauge of wire, 4 gauge, and cleaned up the connection points use they used proper joins and wiring blocks, but, in my infinite genius, still left the converter where it was.

“But it had proper heavy duty wiring running to it, why should that make a difference?” you might ask.

Well, the distance does make a difference, even with that heavy wire, as the converter cannot properly sense the state of the batteries as the distance seems to lessen the loading effect of a discharged battery or even a charged one when sensed by the 3-stage converter I have.

So, doing what I should have done back in 2006 when I first put a battery on the camper, I pulled the converter out from under the sink, and relocated its switched outlet to a dinette cabinet, just on the other side of the wall from the batteries, where I also added a heavy duty battery disconnect switch, replacing my old 70amp pollak push-pull style that had been original under the fridge.

Now, I still need to get back to Home Depot and get a piece of soffit louver to use on my compartment door that the converter is now housed in to improve its ventilation, but till then I just leave the door open a crack, that little part of the project will be wrapped up come this weekend (The 1st of October).

Sadly, I ended up having to make a patch board out of a piece of scrap plywood to mount the switch through, the original opening I cut for the switch to pass through the outer facing on the partition wall got chewed up too much to directly attach.

The little face plate just above it is to hide a hole I cut in the paneling to route a piece of trailer tow light wire I had left over (only 2 of the original 4 wires, 14 gauge) from the battery connection to my new battery gauge.

I bought the ready-made 8v-30v rated voltage meter from a dealer off ebay in 2010 when another poster at a forum I was reading showed it as an electrical upgrade they had done. The meter only cost around $15 at the time, and making an enclosure for it was simple.

I merely used a large surface mount outlet box to which I attached and wired two switches, a moment switch and a basic single pole on-off switch. Using a file, I widened a light switch face plate to accommodate the meter and then fastened it all together.

The camper batteries have also been replaced in all of this, to the tune of $404, but I really didn’t feel like taking pictures of the batteries, they look exactly the same as they did back in my first project, Mo’ Batteries.

Backlogged Projects: Heavy Duty Charging System–Truck end

2011-09-25T21:53:00.000-07:00

Backlogged Project To-Do List:

Also, I need to incorporate my battery voltage meter center that I fashioned into the electrical system so I can actually watch my battery charge.

2.) The two Trojan SCS225 Deep cycles on the camper that I bought for a steal back in 2006 also need replacing, they no longer hold a good charge anymore, odds are one of the batteries is shorted.

~~4.) Front of the Camper’s tub needs to have a bolstering frame built onto it, it has always flexed and moved too much whenever the camper has been lifted for loading and unloading.~~

6.) Replace the broken down intermediate steering linkage on the truck to tighten up the steering for improved handling.

Well, time to start clearing out the projects , in my last entry, I’d reinforced the front of the camper tub to remove some flexing I didn’t like in the structure, in today’s entry, I will be recapping the upgrades to the charging system, starting on the truck end of the equation.

When I originally bought the truck, I decided I would wired in a charging circuit for a future truck camper. At the time, I was figuring that the wiring only had to be heavy enough to support the amp load I would use, not taking into account the loss of voltage over long runs of wire.

So, the original charging system was fed from the under-hood Group 27 deep cycle to the camper via rather under-sized 8 gauge wire through a 50 amp self-resetting circuit breaker and on to the 7 pin RV plug in the bed.

At one time, there was also a diode isolator in this equation, but that was replaced with a RV-type constant duty solenoid switch after the one-way power flow caused by using a diode based isolator burned out the voltage regulator in the trucks PCM (why Dodge thought it was a good idea to put it there, I’ll never figure out).

The solenoid that took the place of the diode isolator is situated on the passenger side rocker panel, next to the alternator and the onboard deep cycle battery, allowing for a nice short run of 2 gauge wire from the alternator.

In the new rewire configuration, 4 gauge wire feeds come from the solenoid through a 100amp self resetting breaker before continuing on to a 100-amp rated lift gate plug that has taken the place of the old 7-pin RV plug in the truck bed.

Backlogged Projects: Introduction & Reinforcing front wall of camper tub

2011-09-22T21:55:00.001-07:00

Well, sorry for the dead month, but there really wasn’t much going on, the KIT and I haven’t really gone anywhere since April of this year. Sure, the truck’s undergone a great dually conversion, but other than towing my neighbor, Joy’s, Komfort-25 travel trailer to the storage yard, she really hasn’t undergone a full camper test.

But, that’s all about to change . I’ve got work again!

Not only that, but in two short weeks, the Redneck Express, Dawn, Moby, and I plan to hit the road for the 2011 Fall Colors Rally!

Oh, but there’s a slight problem, or two.

Namely, the camper’s in need of some maintenance work that I’ve had to put off for roughly seven months due to a shortage of funds. Oh, God, is there a lot of maintenance….

Also, I need to incorporate my battery voltage meter center that I fashioned into the electrical system so I can actually watch my battery charge.

2.) The two Trojan SCS225 Deep cycles on the camper that I bought for a steal back in 2006 also need replacing, they no longer hold a good charge anymore, odds are one of the batteries is shorted.

4.) Front of the Camper’s tub needs to have a bolstering frame built onto it, it has always flexed and moved too much whenever the camper has been lifted for loading and unloading.

6.) Replace the broken down intermediate steering linkage on the truck to tighten up the steering for improved handling.

There’s some other smaller things, like a second smaller mesh cargo net that I ordered from CargoGear.com to hold the rest of the books on the cabover shelf in place while underway, getting the pivot pieces for my wobbl-stopprs, and physically getting the camper back on the truck without breaking my screen room next to it, but those are the less worrisome projects .

So, my plan is to run as series of “Backlogged Project” posts to bring everyone up to speed on what I’ve done to the camper and truck to get her Rally ready, starting with the Camper Tub front wall reinforcement project.

This particular project wasn’t exceedingly complicated, it basically involved sanding off the paint on the front of the camper tub at the points where I planned to glue (w/3M 5200 Marine Adhesive) and screw the reinforcing frame to the existing plywood wall and the expose 1x4 cross member below the siding line.

I used some left over 3/4” pink down insulation board to help bolster the R-value of the water tank since I was framing that area in anyway.

Then, I put down a good coating of 3M 5200 along the framing and glued and screwed a pieces of 1/4” plywood to the new framing members and the expose frame member that ran along below the siding.

Using narrower pieces of the same plywood, I glued and screwed into the side of the existing camper tub and the new bolstering frame to help join it all together from both the sides and front.

Once the glue dried, I installed some new corner flashing to protect the plywood, gave it two coats of Urethane-based primer and paint, and viola! one reinforced front wall .

The funny part is my camper wall along the front is now actually flush the whole length, something it never was before. Also, since I had more meat to screw into, I moved my rub guards inwards a little to a position similar to the rubber ones you find on a new camper.

One backlogged project down, several to go!

Project: Dually Conversion on the Pickup—Completed

2011-07-29T20:00:00.001-07:00

Well, I can officially say that the dually conversion is completed!

In a marathon effort, I drilled, mounted, and wired in the marker lights on the fenders and in the center of the rear of the truck, coated the underside of the fenders and the enclosed sides of the truck bed with Rustoleum Automotive Undercoating Spray, and sanded and painted the ends of the axle tubes where they are visible in the center of the wheels.

So, where to begin…..

Let’s go with the order in which I did them .

Clearance Lights

Perhaps the most tiring part of the job, given that I didn’t wrap it all up till 4am this morning, the marker lights I used are Parker Sealed LED marker light sold for $6.99 each at our local Stuart’s Auto Supply.

Since the D300 the fenders came off of had no marker lights, I had to make the wiring loom from scratch, taping into the feed wires from the tail lights on each respective side of the truck.

I had originally planned to use a wider, more square marker light in my original plans, but changed course when I found the smaller, but similarly illuminated (Each marker light has two bright LEDs in them, in both the ones I used and the ones I had originally planned to use) that had a far more attractive shape and backing plate (Chrome wins over flat black plastic any day of the week ).

I positioned the marker lights on the fenders by first marking the height down from the body crease based on the measurement of the distance between the crease and the front corner marker lights that were already on the truck.

Next, I calculated the change in height along the bottom lip of the fender to figure the distance up from the bottom to get a perfectly level line across the fender and made a mark.

Finally, I traced a using a piece of stiffer cardboard that I could bend to the contour of the fender to trace my positioning line.

The next part involved a little fiddling to see where the light fit best in the curve of the fender and as far out towards the outer edge of the fender as possible while keeping that fit. Once I was satisfied, I marked the drill holes from the base of one of the lights and replicated the placement for the other three marker lights.

Once the drill holes were marked and drilled, I made a larger center hole for the wires to pass through to the underside of the fender where I assembled the wiring loom and secured it inside plastic chaff guard to the underside edge of the fender with cable clamps.

After each fender was wired up, I tested the lights to make sure they functioned correctly before taping and papering off the fender to seal everything up in Rustoleum Automotive Undercoater.

The very last clearance light installed was the three red light bar, which I ended up securing to the lip on the top of the bumper, as there was enough clearance for the tailgate to function properly and saved the hassle of having to cut a notch out of the bumper.

Undercoating the Fenders and Painting the Axle Tube ends

Undercoating was a fairly easy, the most challenging part was laying under the fender and applying the spray without getting rained on by the overspray.

To protect the fiberglass fenders and the side of the truck bed enclosed by the fiberglass fenders, I used Rustoleum Automotive Undercoater.

This product comes in two versions, Regular, which costs around $4 and has a dry time of roughly an hour and “Professional Grade”, which is a little thicker, has a faster drying time, and costs $8 a can.

I used regular, mostly due to cash restraints.

Once the fenders were finished with their wiring and undercoating, I sanded the ends of the axle tube (The section of the hub that you tires go over when you mount them) to remove the mixture of rust and old white paint that was on there, then coated them with gloss black VMF Self-Priming Epoxy Paint.

For the time being, I’ve left the lug nuts alone. I don’t know if cleaning and repainting them will simply cause me problems later on trying to reinstall the lug nuts, or not, so for the time being I’m going to leave them alone.

Conclusion

The dually conversion of my truck has turned as extremely well in the end. There’s still a few minor details to wrap up, caulking the fender gap, installing appropriately redneck dually mud flaps, but all the major details are completed.

Sadly, it’ll be a while before I can really test the truck and camper out to see how it performs with the extra tires in back, so there will likely be a follow up post at some later date detailing how the truck handled.

Thanks to everyone that’s cheered me on and kept up with me during this major undertaking .

Project: Dually Conversion on the Pickup—Cab Clearance Lights Installed

2011-07-18T21:25:00.001-07:00

Well, another day, another little update. Managed to figure out a method of getting my measurements right so I could properly position my clearance lights on the cab of the truck.

I had a pleasant surprise when I unpacked the clearance lights to do the job today. Figuring that they were like RV Lights with a recess in the back to pack the butyl tape, I originally had planned I would need to caulk the bases to get them seal to the cab.

Upon unpacking them, I discovered the lights actually came with a nice thick rubber gasket on the bottom that clamps down firmly to the roof of the vehicle to seal it in place across the entire base of each light, so no extra sealant was necessary.

Getting the lights in place and marked with my pencil was actually easiest part of the project. The wire snaking project that came next was a test of my patience and ingenuity.

After several failed attempts at free-feeding the thin wire for the lights and having it go every way but where I wanted it to, I ended up having to use an old section of 8-gauge THNN as a wire snake to feed the section of 12 gauge wire for the positive leads from the lights (They were designed from the factory to ground to the sheet metal) through all five holes and down into the cab.

I tapped it into one of the front running lights to power them (just physically could not reach the head light switch, took half the dash apart in the attempt and tore up my hands good, but finally gave up and tapped into easier to access wire in the engine compartment.

After all was said and done, I decided to gas up the truck (buy dumping the generator fuel I’d been keeping in the tank), take a chance and drive her in tonight to get online.

My main motivation on driving the truck in was having to jump start myself off my secondary battery, left the passenger door open a little too long with the starter battery already being low from sitting for long periods of time with the radio slowly consuming its reserves.

After that little escapade, it was obvious to me that the battery needed charging and driving the truck was about the only way I was going to get it done (I don’t have a free standing battery charger, yet).

Once I procure the 5 additional clearance lights I need (4 for the fenders, 2 amber, 2 red, and one 3 light strip for the center of the rear), I will have completed all of the major work in the dually conversion.

If some how I can managed to round up some gas money in August (provided work doesn’t come through with a contract for me), I’ll load up the camper and take her out to the Columbia River Gorge to ride a trail that was made from an old section of the Historic Highway 30 that was recovered a while back.

Project: Dually Conversion on the Pickup—Fenders Primed, Painted and done

2011-07-15T21:58:00.001-07:00

Well, the fenders are finally white!

My luck, being what is, its been raining on and off and down in the 60s since my last entry, preventing any painting work on the fenders, until today, that is.

Today, the weather was clear, the wind was calm and the temperature was 75, ideal painting conditions!

So, after slathering myself in SPF 50 sunblock and 40% deet bug repellent, I papered up the sides of the truck, pulled 50 gallon garbage sacks over the tires and got those fenders, primed, painted and clear coated.

The direct sun and warm temperatures sped the drying process of the paint, coupled with fast-drying Rustoleum Automotive Primer, I had the fenders finished in under three hours.

Here’s the finished product from the passenger side. I managed to get the tape off from around the fender on this side today, but decided to let the paint harden more before I attempted to take the tape off the drivers side.

The white will never be a perfect match to the existing paint job, shy of going to a professional paint shop where they can age-match the paint, one has to just settle for close-enough when working with a rattle can.

Looks good to me, and that’s really what’s important .

I still need to get the tube of white automotive sealant out to lay a bead along the edge between the fender and the truck bed, as while they’re a perfect contour match now, they’re not glued together, so a bead of sealant will be needed to keep road spray from coming up between the truck bed and dually fender.

As I was saying, driver’s side still needs me to come along with my sharp razor knife to clean cut the edge along the truck bed and remove the last of the painters tape so that it’ll look as nice as the passenger side.

Last, but not least, a nice from-the-front shot of my “new” dually .

Next up, adding all those extra pesky clearance lights! Well, that and finding those oh-so redneck appropriate rear mud-flaps.

Technically, if I’m reading the DOT laws correctly, I don’t need the extra marker lights, my truck is only 94” wide and the extra marker lights are supposedly not needed unless your 102” or wider, but given that I seem to have the worst luck when it comes to LEOs, I’ll just spend the time adding the extra clearance lights .

Project: Dually Conversion on the Pickup—Fenders sanded and ready for primer and paint

2011-07-11T23:01:00.001-07:00

Well, small update today . I am thankful to God for putting as good a neighbors as I have right now at the RV park in site 4.

So, today, I went about sanding the fenders. I started out working on the passenger side fender using what I had available for sanding tools, a foam hand sanding block and a package of pre-cut pieces of 60 Grit sand paper.

Lemme tell you what, hand sanding down glass bondo sucks.

I ate through most of my sand paper hand sanding the passenger side fender and it was looking like I wasn’t going to get much further today.

As I was sitting in the screen room patio giving my wrists a rest, my neighbors came home from their daily outing. We exchanged friendly greetings and waylaid them with the woes of my undertaking.

A few minutes later, as I was adding a fresh coat of 40% deet bug repellent to the interesting cake of fiberglass dust, dirt, sweat, sun block and the last coating of deet, my neighbor came back out and dug around in his motorhomes storage compartments until he produced a Dewalt oscillating sander and an extra package of 3M “Sandblaster” 60 grit sand paper.

With many thanks for the loan, I finished sanding both fenders down in under an hour and a half, doing both the coarse and fine sanding the glass surface needed to ready it for primer and paint.

The fenders are now a nice even surface with only the mismatched colors of the bondo-glass and the old fiberglass fenders showing where the fenders had been worked, I still haven’t worked out what the devil the original paint color was before somebody repainted that poor old donor truck purple.

Providing the weather holds out tomorrow, it’s been threatening to rain all day today, I will have the fenders primed, and ready for their color coat of paint (which will have to wait another day till the next unemployment check shows up so I can buy the can of white rustoleum I need and some timber to do another beefing-up project to the camper’s tub (I already have a can of Rustoleum Automotive primer and the clear coat, just no regular white).

Once the fenders are painted, I can lay down a nice bead of sealant along the edge of the fender and the truck bed, the fenders are a perfect contour match, but not water tight.

I will need to wait till I can head back down south to visit family with the truck to spray on the rubber undercoater (Also made by Rustoleum) to the underside of the fenders and the truck bed, that and I want to get the marker lights wired in and the wires epoxied in place before I coat everything in undercoater.

Some have asked about her first trip. Sadly, I doubt she’ll be on the road with the camper aboard until September at the earliest, possibly October for the 2011 Fall Colors Rally.

Project: Dually Conversion on the Pickup—Swing Out Brackets on the Camper & Fenders bondo-ed

2011-07-10T18:38:00.001-07:00

Well, its been a little over a month since I’ve been able to make any headway on my dually conversion project.

When I left off, the fenders had just been bolted on and the truck was driven home after a couple test drives to confirm that the brake shoes in the rear were at the exactly correct position.

Since then, the truck really hasn’t moved other than to be moved out of the way to mow the grass.

Now, that has changed .

Over the last couple days, I finished a couple tasks on this project.

First, I got some old Hi-Jacker swing out brackets off of craigslist for $100. Took them over to Terry’s, had him beef up them up a bit, painted them white and then bolted them on the camper.

Discovered that the stock swing out brackets only gave me 3/4” between the jack and the dually fender to load and unload (Truck is 94" wide, Camper with the stock swing-out brackets was 95 1/2" between the jacks). I’d much rather not have to perform a NASA grade maneuver every time I go to load, so a few weeks later, over the fourth of July weekend to be exact, I returned down south and had Terry cut me two 3” wide x 14”tall x 3/16” thick hunks of plate steel, which I drilled, painted and then bolted onto the swing out brackets and onto which I bolted the jacks.

I now have an 1 1/2” of additional clearance on each side to squeeze my truck through. I’ll still need to watch, but the tolerances are nowhere near as tight .

Now, all I need to do is call Jay over at Torklift and get the parts I need to make those Wobbl-stopprs hinged at the jack mount point, and I should be able to slide under the camper as smooth as greased lightning .

The next thing I did was used the majority of a can of Bondo-Glass to fill in any gaps and imperfections in the fenders so that they are now perfectly matched to the truck’s body. The bondo was still tacky when I left to write this blog entry, so I’ll wait till tomorrow before attempting to sand the fiberglass down smooth.

I also took this full truck view picture as I realized there wasn’t really a good set back view of the truck with the fenders installed.

Please forgive the smudge in the center of the lense, had no clue it was there until I went to upload the pictures!

Bud Mitchell, a Truck Camper Legend Passes…..

2011-07-05T18:06:00.000-07:00

In Memory of Bud (Charles) Mitchell, one of the true Pioneers of the Truck Camper Industry…

For those that have been around the Truck Camper scene long enough, will remember the Mitchell & Sons Truck Camper company.

The name of the company, Mitchell and Sons, comes from the company starting as a joint endeavor, headed by Harry Mitchell Sr., when started by building a small camper for himself. Other people soon wanted Harry to build one for them.

The operation grew and in 1961 the company moved from Henderson CO to a larger facility on 64th Ave in Commerce City in 1961.

The sons came to manage the business. Mick (Harry B.) was the CEO and Bud (Charles R.) ran the marketing/ sales. Mitchell and Sons, Inc. built excellent campers and the firm was the largest in the area. They sold factory direct to the customer. Their line up started with Truck campers and eventually came to include chassis-mount motor homes, 5th wheels and a small trailer with slide out beds, being perhaps the first with slides.

The company survived the oil embargo of 1973. By 1976 they had sales outlets in Albuquerque, Pueblo, Grand Junction, Colorado Springs, and Commerce City. They were the largest RV manufacturer in the US to sell factory direct to the customer. Things were looking good for the business, but disaster struck on March 15th, 1976 when fire broke out at the factory. The damage was severe. They were able to continue on a more limited basis for a while.

Shortly after the fire, the 1978 oil problems brought huge fuel costs and the market went down hill. They left the RV business about 1980.

The company is now run by Bud Mitchell's nephews, Steve and Dave Mitchell, and producing mobile-home patios.

Bud (Charles) passed away on July 1st, in addition to his wife, daughter and brother, Mitchell is survived by sons Carl Mitchell of Arvada and Craig Mitchell of Brighton; daughters Carol Prater of Westminster, Cheri SaBell and Cindy Bittner, both of Lakewood, Cayttie Heister of Minot, N.D., and Chloe Hodges of Lakewood; 30 grandchildren; and 16 great-grandchildren.

Bud Mitchell Obituary from the Denver Post

History Synopsis of the Mitchell & Sons Camper company and picture of 1968 10ft Mitchell Truck Camper from Clattertruck on RV.net.

World Beat Festival 2011, Salem, Oregon

2011-06-26T20:45:00.000-07:00

Down in Salem for the upcoming 4th of July with family, was invited by our friends, Robert, his wife Emiko, and Jeremy to visit them during the 2011 World Beat Festival where Robert’s wife, Emiko, was working at the Japanese Culture Booth.

Dawn of course was there, dressed up with in the spirit of the culture festival as your standard issue cat girl .

The original plan had been to get a number of us who are Cosplayers, to attend in full costume to help support the Japanese Culture Society booth, but the person heading up this mission fell through on getting enough folks, so that plan was scraped.

We hung around the JCS booth for a while, watching folks buy various Japanese Festival items, get their faces painted, etc… before finally wandering off into the festival to check out the other ethnic “Villages”.

Looking through the villages….

Eventually, we made our way over to the far end of the festival villages and found ourselves at the open air amphitheater here live music was playing.

Dawn decided to join in .

After a good session of dancing, we meandered off to the food booths and got our various lunches. I migrated my way back to the America’s side and hit up the booth serving Philly Cheese Steak sandwiches .

We checked back with Robert and Emiko one more time before we bid them goodbye and went off to fetch the car and make our way to Thompson’s Brewery for the annual "Barley Cup” beer fest.

But, not before Dawn got to pet the angora rabbit .

My “New” Vintage 1969 KIT Kamper Brochure

2011-06-21T22:52:00.001-07:00

Howdy folks, by now, I’d wager most of you regular readers are familiar with the fact that I have a very old truck camper.

Most of you likely also appreciate the fact that finding brochures or any documentation of any kind of these things is nigh-impossible most of the time.

Well, luck shined on me as I managed to lay my hands on a mint 1969 Model Line brochure for KIT Kampers.

Sadly, I haven’t found one for 1974, yet, but I will keep looking. If you find one on an auction or craigslist or something, somewhere, don’t hesitate to let me know. I really really badly want a brochure that my floor plan was included in, so at last I’ll be able to know for certain what its called and what all of the original tank capacities were.

Of all the models above, I would have actually loved to have found a KIT Kamper with the floor plan of that 11’er, the side entry would have been a treat and judging by the layout, the bathroom would have been bigger than the one I have now in my KIT.

Believe it or not, the old KIT plant in Caldwell, Idaho was still pumping out RVs (though no truck campers, sadly) up until 2008, when the company (then known as Extreme RVs) went belly up.

Sadly, they went out of business before I could visit there in October 2008, when I was in Fruitland, Idaho visiting my brother. I would have loved to have been able to drive my KIT up in front of her birth place for a reunion.

Dinner with Tony & Karen of Rolling in an RV–Wheelchair Traveling

2011-06-15T22:22:00.000-07:00

This past tuesday, had a wonderful dinner with Tony & Karen of Rolling in a RV - Wheelchair Traveling & Custom Motorhome Build. They were traveling through Oregon on their way to Washington during their full-timing adventures and contacted me about meeting up.

After some deliberation on where to go for dinner, we settled on The Decoy, a local watering hole that I visit often when I’m hankering for some good old fashioned comfort food at a good price.

View Larger Map

I met up with the intrepid couple at little after 7pm, and got to see their amazing Class C motorhome that they travel round the country in.

This motorhome has quite the story to tell of trials of patience and the complete and utter incompetence of one RV Builder and “Repair Man”, Ken Dickerson of Graham, Washington.

To experience their full nightmare, pop over to their blog, Custom Motorhome Build, you’ll be in for an eye opening, gut wrenching experience of just how wrong having something custom built can go.

And, whatever you do, DO NOT go to Ken Dickerson to have anything done with your RV.

Back to dinner, I digress far too easily sometimes .

We enjoyed a rather enjoyable meal at the Decoy, discussing the various mishaps that happened with RV, where they’d traveled, local RV Life, and traveling Oregon.

I thank Karen & Tony for visiting, and for the delicious dinner , I hope you visit again soon!

Sauvie Island Flooding—2011

2011-06-12T21:17:00.001-07:00

Well, the weather this year has been exceedingly cold and wet, and just downright screwy, a lot like the rest of the US. Fortunately for us, the weather hasn’t been bouncing from one extreme to another unlike a lot of the mid-west.

But, we’ve had our own dilemmas, namely in the form of heavy rain and heavy snow. Throw the two together and you get river flooding.

Now, this years flooding is a drop in the bucket at ~18 feet compared to what happened back in 1996 when the river crested at 27.7’ and a 6” tall wave of water was pouring over the levy next to Island Cove Park, inundating the campground.

But, outside of the protected areas, a lot of my regular fishing haunts have been closed, as the roads leading to them are currently underwater.

Road to Gilbert Boat Launch is closed due to high water.

That lake is actually a field, one that normally would be used for grazing, but is currently under a couple feet of water. The road leading out to this area is actually more like a peninsula with the overflowing McNary and Sturgeon lakes on one side and the flood stage Columbia River on the other.

View Larger Map

Now, I don’t really visit this beach much, usually during the winter months when its cold and the nudists are gone to photograph the big container ships and barges as they come down the river, but it is an ideal demonstrator of how high the Columbia River is.

The local wildlife, at least the flying variety, are not bothered by the extra water on the island.

To my surprise, the next beach closest to me, (Walton Beach?), was not as flooded as I expected it would be.

Mind you, that’s not much beach, compared to regular water levels, but that’s still greater than zero.

Well, that’s all for now, I leave you with this sunset on the “lake” view till next time .

Project: Dually Conversion on the Pickup—Redneck’s got new Shoes & Fender Fun

2011-05-14T04:24:00.001-07:00

Well, Friday was the big busy day, Thursday could have been busy too, but I had to prove to a family member in order to get their financing for the needed body pieces, that 1st generation Dodge Dually fenders are really really hard to find used.

I’d found an add on Craigslist for a 1975 D300 that was being parted out at R&B Auto Wrecking in Molalla, Oregon. It was painted a horrible shade of purple, but it still had its dually fenders. I gave R&B a call and sure enough, the truck still had its fenders on, and they wanted $125 for the pair.

I spoke with said family about the rarity of the part and how I’d been searching parts for this project for well over a year, but no, had to call ALL of the salvage yards in the area.

So, to prove a point that I already knew to be true, I called every salvage yard within a 100 mile radius, as requested.

Not only did NO ONE have the dually fenders from a 1972-1993 1st Generation Dodge Truck, most didn’t even have any 1st generation Dodges, period. Lots and Lots of 2nd Generation and beyond…..

Well, this exercise in the obvious proved what I already knew, but made it so late in the afternoon that getting out to the wrecking yard that day and pulling the fenders before they closed wasn’t possible, bringing the chance that I might lose out on the fenders.

So, that brings us today, got up early, called them back, still had the fenders, zipped out there with my father and pulled the fenders. I debated very briefly pulling one of the rims, but a close examination revealed that all six wheels on the truck were using 16” split rims, uh… no. I’ll keep living, thanks .

Removing the fenders wasn’t too bad, mostly because the screws had rusted in place, so for a number of them, you’d get about two twists with the socket wrench before the top of the screw just broke clean off, made for fairly quick work.

You can see how the wheel opening on the 1st generation Dodge duallies are far larger than the those you see on a single-rear-wheel truck.

Obviously, these fenders won’t directly bolt up to my truck, so, what do I plan to do with them?

Easy, modify them to fit .

So, fenders obtained, check for $125 written, and we’re on our way back to town.

Quick turn around as I unload the tool boxes back into my pickup and the fenders behind the house, a fast shower to remove powdered pickup truck from all my pores, then its off to America’s Tire/Discount Tire to get my new Dunlop A/Ts mounted up.

The boys at the tire shop are on the bounce and have my tires mounted up in close to no time, my brain fart of forgetting to remove the old valve stems before repainting the rims slows them down a bit as the old valve stems (With 2 coats of paint and 2 coats of clear) don’t want to unbolt very easily.

By 6pm, I’m on my way back home with four shiny new tires on their shiny rims in the back of the suburban.

A little time with a breaker bar, my 1-1/8” socket, and two lug nuts, to temporarily mount the tires for clearance checking and I have this:

Looking Good!

Everything checks out, and now its fender modding time!

Several hours with a jigsaw, a drawing compass with a sharpie duct-taped to it and a lot of fine tuning, and I have this:

Remount the tires on the truck for a visual inspection….

Can’t wait to be done!

Tomorrow will involve doing the fine sanding, then epoxying the mounting tabs to the underside of the fender so I can secure to the truck bed. I’ll later tape it off and do a little bondo work to make the two seamless, then the ugly purple will become a nice crisp white.

I’ll still need to find some clearance lights for the fenders, ironically, there was no signs of them ever having had any when they were on the old ‘75 D300, but Stuart’s has identical ones to the originals, but with LED lights in them vs the standard bulbs.

But, that’s a project for another day .

Hopefully tomorrow, my brother will bring home the 300lb rated torque wrench so I can put the final torque on the pinion nut and actually take this girl out for a test drive .

The Redneck Express get’s interviewed by Truck Camper Magazine!

2011-05-11T23:16:00.000-07:00

Hey ya’ll! The articles been out on their site for nearly a week now, but the axle project has kept me rather busy and from posting the rest of my Hoodstock Jamboree entries and that I got interviewed by the lovely Angela White for Truck Camper Magazine!

You can read my interview here, thanks Gordon and Angela for the interview !

Project: Dually Conversion on the Pickup—Axle and Suspension work fully completed

2011-05-11T22:54:00.000-07:00

Nothing huge to add today, the rear end is fully completed other than needing to properly torque the pinion nut, which will have to wait till the tires go on.

Got my clamps wrapped around the axle to help hold the e-brake cable and brake lines in place. Used some standard stainless steel 4” hose clamps and wrapped them in plastic wire chafe guard, then secured them around the axle and the lines till the lines were snug, but not crushed.

Factory shocks are back in place, re-installation involved needing to jack the rear of the truck up via the bumper to stretch the suspension out enough that I could simply slide the shocks back on at their maximum extension, compressing those things by hand was just not in the dice.

At some point in the future, I’ll get around to replacing those old shocks with some massive KYB Monomax units or similar. I’ve considered Ranchos, but haven’t decided on them yet, mainly as all things are dictated by the pocket book and mine isn’t very fat.

I’ve listed my old Dana 60 axle up on Craigslist, along with the U-Bolts and the old Motorhome rims that came off the Dana 70 I installed. Hopefully, I can sell that stuff to make up enough cash to recoup the $720 (minus $60 later on from the mail-in rebates) for the four rear tires.

Given the fact that the poor Redneck Express only sees a couple hundred miles a month, at best, the tires will hopefully last me at least 10 years (I’m one of those folks that runs tires until they wear out the tread or the sidewalls start failing, the Suburban I’ve been driving around as a “Go-fer” vehicle has Michelins that were put on it back in the late 90s that are still going strong).

Next big undertaking will be getting some dually fenders on the body to cover those extra two tires and adding the extra clearance lights.

Well, that and buying the Reico-Titan Swing out brackets for the jacks so I can actually load the camper back on again .

Project: Dually Conversion on the Pickup—cont’d

2011-05-09T13:20:00.001-07:00

Well, another day, some more work completed. Had to play a merry game of “Dodge the Rain” yesterday, but the four dually rims being used right now out of the six (I’ll be repainting the others later) have been cleaned and repainted.

I coated them in two coats of Rustoleum Silver Metallic Paint, then two coats of Clear.

This is the end result:

Came out looking pretty good

Now, its off to call Discount Tire/America’s Tire and see what the situation with my rubber is, sooner I get these tired up, the sooner I can test drive the truck .

Project: Dually Conversion on the Pickup

2011-05-06T21:59:00.001-07:00

Taking a brief detour from my rather slow entry of my trip report on the Hoodstock Jamboree to post up the project that’s been really consuming my time for the last couple weeks.

For those that have been following along, I moved into my camper about three years ago, and the camper has gradually gotten heavier.

My urge for travel ever present, I decided it would be best to replace the rear end with something beefier to give me a better load rating and braking margin than I originally started out with.

I spent about a year doing research into the differences between my 3/4 ton HD Power Wagon and the 1-ton dually version of similar year. What I discovered was that in those years the 1-ton drive train, frame, brake master cylinder, etc…. was identical between the 3/4 ton HD and 1-ton. The only major difference was axles and brakes under the units.

So, the next step was to round myself up an axle. This took up a decent amount of time and I was beginning to think that it wouldn’t be feasible to find one I could afford until one proverbially dropped in my lap.

A friend of my brothers was moving out of his home and needed to get rid of some old project materials quick. He had the rear end of an old motorhome sitting around that he was going to convert into a trailer, but never did.

In desperation to get rid of it, I bought the axle (A Spicer 70HD) for $75 and my brother brought it home, complete with the original 16.5” rims with period Dayton Thorobred tires on them.

It took several more months, mostly because of financial constraints, to take the axle to the welders shop to have the old motorhome air bag mounts and shock mounts removed and the spring perches repositioned to fit the truck. Backing plate to backing plate, the axle was the same width as the Spicer 60 currently on the truck, so there’d be no clearance issues.

Then, the axle was disassembled and all the seals were replaced and the brakes completely rebuilt.

Finally, over the past two weeks I got enough dry weather to put the last of the pieces together and install and perform the final reassembly of the axle.

Out with the old…

In with the new!

With the help of a friend, we unbolted and pulled out the old Dana 60, set it aside and then spent about three hours getting the new axle into position and positioned properly back in place under the leaf springs.

We had to stop and wait till the next day to take the U-Bolts over to Salem Offroad to buy new ones, two inches longer at price of $14 apiece.

But….

It was worth it

Checking out the spacing to make sure the tires I’ll be ordering later this week will fit without rubbing.

Checking to see how far the wheel comes out beyond the body of the truck….

Making this project work took some ingenuity on my part, one big one was solving the shock mount issue. In the late 80s to the early 90s, the clamp bracket that secured the axle also doubled as the shock absorber mount. However, finding one that would fit would have been next to impossible, as these first generation are rather rare.

My solution?

Use the original clamp brackets that came with the axle and abut the newer D60 brackets underneath, they fit together just like a glove .

The trade-off of using this method is the shock mounts are roughly an inch further down, but the shocks have a decent amount of extra length in them that it shouldn’t be an issue.

As you can see, I still have some finish work to do, but with luck next week, I should be able to take my first test drive with a dually truck!

I still have more to do, clearance lights to add, fender flares to install, but the big hurdle is cleared, the rear end is installed without any serious hiccups.

Keep an eye out, there'll be more later as I wrap up this project.

Northwest Campers, Hoodstock Jamboree, Part 6—Circling Mt. Hood and a last goodbye in Sandy

2011-04-30T01:47:00.000-07:00

Morning crept up quietly on us the next day and I surprised myself by actually being the first person up. A quick, hot breakfast was consumed and I began the work of loading back up any gear I’d gotten out the night before.

By the time I had the camper pretty much ready to go, the others had awoken and it was decide that while they took care of their morning needs and readied for departure, I would make a quick drive in to Parkdale and refuel, my tank being low enough that I didn’t want to risk trying to go over over Highway 35 without a mostly full tank.

$77 dollars in fuel later, I reunited with the group at the park and we set off to try and recreate a photo from an old Winnebago brochure that was shot on Mt. Hood many many years ago.

The drive up started with the wonderful and dry weather we’d been enjoying in Odell as we climbed up Highway 35, stopping part way for a traffic light on a section that was down to one lane for repairs.

It quickly turned into light blowing snow and sleet as we climbed higher and higher as we skirted around the base of Mt. Hood.

Near Government Camp, we pulled off at a Sno-Park to shoot the wanted Winnebago photo, but clouds obscured Mt. Hood from this side and the wind blew mercilessly.

Moby was not enthused with his very brief walk outside. We didn’t stay long on the mountain before it was decided to descend down to a lower elevation beneath the snow level to stop for lunch.

We stopped at a small convenience store, somewhere near Marmot or Rhododendron and had lunch, I joined Les and Sophie for some rather delicious salad and cheese before we all hit the road and went our separate ways in Sandy, Oregon.

Moby and I journeyed north again for a short while from the Highway 26 to Wood Village where we got back in Interstate 84 and drove towards home. The weather was with us and were able to unload the camper back into its site and get settled back in before the rainy weather returned once more.

Northwest Campers, Hoodstock Jamboree, Part 5—Breakfast, Antique Stores & Toll bridge County Park

2011-04-30T01:27:00.000-07:00

The evening was happily dry and the ground continued to firm up, albeit slowly. Moby and I slept well and in the morning, we were greeted with a nearly cloudless view of Mt. Adams (Which I kept thinking was Mt. Hood up till I finally got my directions sorted out).

Those of us that had been told of it, gathered together for a shared breakfast of Sausage, Gravy and Biscuits. Those that drank coffee did and plotting and planning discussions for the Fall rally in September were discussed.

Eventually, the time came for us to leave. I never did encounter the fella I was supposed to pay for the campsite stay, so “Thank You!” to the Hood River Fairgrounds for the visit, I’ll hopefully be back again next year, and with luck, this time I will actually meet the money fella and pay him for my stay .

Most of the group went there separate ways, but three of us decided to hang together and visit some antique stores closer in to Hood River. There was a fair bit of discussion on where to go before we ended up settling on visiting the Tollbridge County Park up near Parkdale, Oregon.

View Larger Map

When we arrived, we pretty much had our pick of sites in the park at this time of year. Most of the main full hookup sites were empty, aside from the camp host which was pretty much a resident trailer, denoted by the skirting around the base of the small 5th wheel to help keep the bitter Mt. Hood cold from freezing them out any faster.

The fun began when we went to register. There were exactly two envelopes left, and three of us. So, we improvised. The two motorhome folks used one envelope since they were paying with cash, and I used the other as I was writing a check.

Problem solved.

The park has full bathroom facilities (Without coin boxes, I might add) but the bathroom facilities were in pretty bad shape, the men’s side was near to completely trashed and the women’s side wasn’t far better.

After much fiddling, I managed to get a lukewarm shower out of it and decided that that was my last shower using the park’s facilities.

We managed to throw together a nice campfire that night, though the wind kept stealing most of the heat as it blew through that night, but at least there was a nice group campfire spot between the end sites and it was quiet at night.

Northwest Campers, Hoodstock Jamboree, Part 4—Potluck Time, Hawaiian style?!

2011-04-30T00:56:00.000-07:00

By the time Moby and I returned to camp, the stragglers of our group had finally arrived at the fairgrounds.

They all wisely parked somewhere other than on the grass, well except for the lucky folks that were tent camping with us for the night.

Getting pretty crowded down in my little corner of the mud .

Bill Faris and his Faris Hilton had finally arrived. I still want his front hubcaps .

The “Craft Room” of the rally .

A classic Caveman Camper had also joined us, though we don’t know who they were, they were never there when we were out and about.

Soups on! Look at all that food! Makes me drool just thinking back to it.

In case anyone is wondering, this is the Goats and Hogs Barn that’s normally used during the summer county fair for animal shows. We’re setup in the central aisle, huddling close together to try and stay warm.

In years past, Hoodstock was themed…. well, the name kind of gives it away, 60’s Woodstock/Hippie theme (Love and Peace, Bro!). This year, it was decided to mix it up a bit and a Luau Theme was adopted for this year, complete with authentic Hawaiian music.

Naturally, the year a warm weather theme is adopted, it rains, snows and generally is cold and wet .

Most of the dishes brought were Hawaiian themed, though, given my strong redneck streak, brought food based more on the current time of year and weather, namely pressure-cooker beef and vegetable stew. Hot, hardy food, not really Hawaiian at all….. I ate a lot of it myself, along with the meat balls and pulled pork.

Our club master, Les in his Winnebago apron . As the eating died down, the group picture taking (and desert) took off .

The Northwest Campers, minus me, I’m hiding behind my camera for this shot.

You can see me in this one, though, just look for the big fella that standing taller than everyone else .

After dinner, we all chatted for a while, then some of us gathered for evening gossip over at the “Craft Room” I mentioned earlier. I’m really horrible with folks names, so forgive me if I don’t say whose rigs is who a lot, I just can’t remember all that well.

Eventually, we all said our goodnights and returned to our separate campers. I took Moby with me for his evening walk while I went to the shower building once more, then fixed him a good dinner of beef stew, which he liked better than the wet food that I had bought him.

Then it was off to bed to sleep hard and wake up for biscuits and gravy with my fellow campers in the morning.

Northwest Campers, Hoodstock Jamboree, Part 3

2011-04-30T00:43:00.000-07:00

Well, after a rather lengthy delay, its time to resume posting this trip report .

Saturday was the first day of the Blossom Festival, and after visiting with my fellow campers for a little while, Moby and I set off to take the long way over to the Blossom Festival. The ground at the time was still quite soggy, so rather than slog through, we went around to the road that we’d driven in on.

Sadly, no sidewalks were available, so I had to keep Moby on a very short leash as cars went zipping past every few minutes.

We eventually made our way to the entrance road to the parking area that our group normally would have been in.

Though, I don’t exactly know how, the fields were even worse here than they were where we parked.

One of the shuttle buses had made it to the end of where the cars were parked and promptly sank in.

While I continued to make my way into the festival, a tractor with a couple of tow ropes was making its way out to rescue the floundering bus.

Further along and right next to the access road I might add, was a wonderfully restored classic Ford Pickup truck.

And the folks that owned the Fireball Express! Whom I later confirmed were food vendors at the festival.

Word to the wise, stay away from the Keystone Valley corndog booth, if a dog who likes just about anything human-food wise spits it out, it ain’t good.

Browsing through the various vendors, wishing I had more spending money…

Amongst the many booths, I came across the Yolande Nolten and her Moyo Crafts and More booth. They have a wide selection of different embroidered RV related products, including doggy scarfs for our furry traveling companions, like Moby .

The full story of Moyo Crafts and they’re humble beginnings can be read about here.

I bought two for Moby .

Eventually I ran into the rest of my fellow campers chowing down at the little food booth area in the same build as Moyo Crafts and joined up with them. We made small talk, whilst some of the wives snuck off to buy out the baking group directly to our right.

Moby was quite ready for a rest, he’d been a very good puppy and had received a lot of attention from folks at the Festival, but he was ready to relax. I think he deserved his nap.

But, it wasn’t too long before we broke up and continued on our separate ways. Moby and I returned outside once more to check out a few of the outside vendors that we hadn’t seen yet and visit the Quilt Show going on.

After that, I cleaned out the last of the nasty corndog breading that I had foolishly stuck in a pocket of my jacket and we made our way back to camp, dinner was coming.

Northwest Campers, Hoodstock Jamboree—Part 2, Settling in at the Hood River Fairgrounds

2011-04-29T03:24:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay in getting around to part two of the tale, this is perhaps the slowest I’ve posted one of these multiple part entries in quite sometime. But, I do have a good excuse, Friday April 29th was my birthday and I’ve been busy ever since!

First the Royal Wedding, then, Osama Bin Laden was introduced to the “BAM!!HEADSHOT”, plus all the running around I’ve been doing lately putting all the pieces together to finally do my dually conversion on my truck, my poor blog has been rather neglected.

So, on with the story .

After a little delay in stopping at the dump station at Memaloose, I wasn’t able to use the sewer hookups due to the old design of the part where the sewer hook is actually horizontal vs vertical, Moby and I made the short drive back to Hood River and turned up onto Highway 35 to join the rest of our fellow Northwest Campers up at the fairgrounds.

The weather hadn’t really improved, so I was a bit anxious to see the camping area at the fairgrounds. In the past, the Northwest Campers had rallied together out in the big field out at the fairgrounds. The last thing I had heard before setting out was that the group had been relocated to another area as the field was far too wet for RVs to park in it.

In my mind, I pictured perhaps an area with gravel and a road of some kind, another parking lot somewhere else on the fairgrounds property.

When I pulled into the area where the campers were at, I at first saw gravel, however, the gravel quickly ended. I could see several other campers already out there, so I’m thinking it can’t be too bad. But, experience has taught me that if you have four-wheel-drive, you ALWAYS engage it before you leave the asphalt. I at first engaged 4 high, but as I got close, my opinion of the ground changed quite a bit, so, before my front wheels touched off the gravel, I stopped and engaged four-low and crept on into the grass.

I was glad I did, the Redneck Express is HEAVY. She weighs in at around 10,000lbs fully laden, and that ground was like driving in a field filled with chocolate mousse. Right off the bat, the tires sank in about four inches into the mud, but, thanks to the wider high flotation mud and snow tires on the truck plus the low range on the transfer case, we drove on like it was bare pavement, squishy, squelching pavement.

I stopped briefly by Les’ Winnebago, Wilbur, to find out where I should park, then plowed on through the mud till I found a site that was still somewhat virgin ground and turned the truck around to back her in.

At first, I thought I’d just drive in straight, given the uphill slope of the ground and the fact that I tend to run a little high in the rear end (mostly to keep the hitch extension step from hitting ground when I go in and out of gas stations on highly crowned roads), but, changed my mind when the thought dawned on me that I’d be stepping right out into the muddy thoroughfare whenever I wanted to enter or exit the camper and went in reverse instead.

Leveling out the camper turned out to be a bit more of a challenge. Side to side, we weren’t bad off, but the slope of the hill required that the rig needed a couple 2x6’s under the front wheels to level us out. So, I put down a couple 2x6s, and drove up on the them.

SQUELCH.

I’m still at the same height, as both blocks neatly sank down into the soft ground.

Okay, going to need another block or two…

So, put her in reverse and give the throttle a little juice, truck backs up like normal a little ways and then bogs down a bit. Give her a little more throttle the rear end drives out of the tire shaped dent sitting still long enough to look at the blocks had created.

Throw another board onto the sunken two that had gone in first and drive drive forward once again.

SQUELCH.

The boards sink in some more, but the top board manages to stay above the grass. By themselves, the sunken boards wouldn’t have been enough to level us out, but the repeated forward and back movement had created long, sunken furrows in the ground, they were all that was needed to level the camper out.

As a precaution to help spread the weight of the camper across multiple ground contact points, I pulled out my plywood squares for the jack feet and ran the jacks down till they were just loaded enough to stabilize the camper and help control any further sinking. Unlike the truck tires, the jacks didn’t press the 12x12 plywood squares into the ground like the leveling boards.

Once the camper was plugged in, I unloaded Moby and we did a quick hike over to the bathroom facilities provided at the fairgrounds. The rain was still coming down lightly, and the ground even in the virgin areas where no vehicle had traveled was something that could only be described by the sound it made, squelch.

By the time we’d made it to the bathroom facilities, my shoes and socks were soaked clean through. Add into the mix a headache that had started when I woke that morning and festered all morning and into the afternoon, fending off the aspirin I’d taken earlier in the morning, I was glad to enjoy a brief respite from the constant damp in the air and the soggy ground for the firm concrete sidewalk and warm bathroom.

A quick inspection of the showers, after figuring out that they were behind a closed door with one of those infamous push button locks (Code for which was written on the door itself with sharpie), revealed a nice warm shower room with large shower stalls and adjustable temperature knobs.

For those that have had the experience of the many campgrounds with the pressure-washer spray heads and the pre-set lukewarm temperatures knows just how nice having a shower with adjustable temperatures and regular shower heads are.

After our walk, or slog, Moby and I returned to the camper, where Moby got his feet cleaned and his coat dried and then he curled up in his bed to nap while I wandered over to Jeff’s classic Winnebago Indian to visit for a while.

While over at Jeff’s motorhome, my eyes caught notice of a rather peculiar truck camper parked over at the very limited gravel sites. It was mounted on top of railroad ties bolted to the bare frame of an old Chevy Chassis/Cab rig.

A quick inspection revealed that strapped under the sides of the rig were three 40lb propane tanks (Held securely with bungee cords!) an old 10,000 watt generator, several welded on craftsman tool boxes and a barbeque.

Several windows on the camper that had been broken had been patched from inside using plywood.

We debated what the three folks living in the rig might do for a living for an hour or two, while sipping a Pepsi and taking another aspirin to try and kill off my throbbing headache. While we watched, the father (as I was informed by Jeff it was Father, Mother and Daughter living in the camper) went out to get something from the tarped overloaded flat bed trailer parked next to them.

When he pulled the tarp back, he revealed that the rear section of the trailer was filled with another dozen of those 40lb propane cylinders!

Adding together all the propane and the overloaded trailer, it was obvious that they were likely vendors for the Blossom Festival. However, given the rather prodigious quantity of propane in rather dangerous locations, and the red paint job on the camper, we nicked the rig the “Fireball Express”.

After a little while, we resumed chatting and participating in one of the evenings activities, seeing who would get stuck in the mud next. The fairgrounds did have a tow truck of sorts helping out with folks who got caught by the insidious fields. A small jeep with a tow strap would come around each time and pull the victim to safety, much like a lifeguard.

That’s pretty much how that first afternoon at the fairgrounds went, the rain fell without fail until nearly 11pm when it finally stopped. Around 7-8pm, we all gathered over at the Sheep and Hogs pen building across from us and had what our little group calls “Happy Hour”, which consists of small finger foods and small talk .

The food was definitely enjoyable, as was the company and my headache was finally beginning to succumb to the third (or was it fourth?) aspirin of the day. One thing that I did find enjoyably amusing, giving our weather, was that this years Hoodstock had a Hawaiian theme !

Afterwards, we all retired to our respective RVs, wishing each other a good night. Around 10pm, I changed into my cycling shorts, pulled on my coat and squelched my way through the field with Moby to the bath house. Why did I bring the dog, do you ask? Because, I had no intentions of walking through that field any more time than necessary, so I combined taking Moby on his before bed walk with my need to take a shower.

Having read the misadventures of one of our fellow campers involving the coin-operated showers at the Fairgrounds, I came prepared with a fresh roll of quarters.

I carefully followed the instructions on the wall for the showers, put my first two quarters in, noting that the sign said nothing about shower length for the fifty cents, then once those were in, put in two more.

The shower was pure ambrosia.

Hot water, in temperatures hot enough to make tea, and two shower heads! One was even on a hose!

I finished my ablutions quick enough, and figured I’d just wait out the quarters.

I gave up after thirty minutes.

The Lesson? At the fairgrounds, a fifty cent shower means, your shower, however long, is fifty cents.

Another slog back to camp, clean Moby again, and then we crashed.

Northwest Campers, Hoodstock Jamboree– Part 1, Overnighting at Memaloose State Park

2011-04-29T01:23:00.001-07:00

It’s been a while since I last took the poor old Redneck Express out on the road. As you’ll recall, my last tale on here that actually involved traveling with the ole’ Express was back in October of last year during the NATCOA Fall Color’s Rally up in Washington.

Since then, the KIT Kamper has been quietly sleeping in its docking station out here on the island while I finished my latest work contract and resumed my down time on unemployment before taking on another contract.

During the time since the Redneck Express and I last traveled the black top, gas prices have crept up rather staggeringly and with my income having shrunk quite substantially when switching over to unemployment, doing a whole lot of travel is not all that possible, especially with a peak fuel economy of only 8 miles-per-gallon.

Nonetheless, I’d been saving my pennies up to take at least one trip this spring and this time, we were going to attend a rally I had to skip last year because of the timing and my having just moved to my little spot on the island.

Every year in April, a little known Jamboree gets together up in the tiny Oregon town of Odell and participates in what they call “Hoodstock.”

I've been with a local camping group here in the Pacific Northwest, mostly made up of Classic Winnebagos and a few newer Class As, for roughly a year and a half now by the name of "Northwest Campers".

Every year in April during the Hood River Blossom Festival, they hold a Jamboree up at the Hood River Fairgrounds in Odell, gathering together to chat, show off modifications they’d done to each other’s RVs and to do the “Tour of Homes”, or more simply we all go and visit one another’s RVs.

In addition to the good old fashioned fat-chewing and tall-tale swapping, everyone brings a dish for the big group Potluck dinner on Saturday Night.

Each year is usually themed, most years had been themed to the 60s, given the vintage of a number of the Winnebagos that started the group, complete with tie-dye and mullet wigs.

This year, the group decided to try something new, doing a “Hawaiian” theme. So, I was looking forward to seeing how my first Hoodstock was going to turn out.

I started getting things ready on Monday the week of the Jamboree, washing the truck and camper, vacuuming out several years worth of sand, dirt and grit from the cab of the truck, and doing a couple minor mods to ready the camper for travel once more.

As per requirement it seems, a number of running lights needed to have their ground screws retightened and one of the turn signals had stopped working again.

Originally, I had planned to pull out early on Thursday and meet everyone at the fairgrounds, Les and several others had already headed out that direction to start acquiring sites for the group. However, between the unceasing rain and the headache of trying to trace the right turn signals lack of power problems, I didn’t get on the road until 6-7pm.

After chatting with Les on the phone, he informed me that it would be best to not try and show up and navigate the camping area at the fairgrounds at night. Since I was already on the road by that point, I at first decided to stop at one of the two RV Parks in Cascade Locks, Oregon.

The drive on I-84 was completely uneventful other than the near-constant dump of rain from the sky and the horrible ruts in the slow lane on East-Bound I-84 tossing me all over the place.

After about 45 minutes, I pulled into Cascade Locks and followed the signs to my first planned stop, Sternwheeler Park. I discovered that unfortunately, their Campground was closed for the evening at that the entrance had a 12’ clearance limit to get under the railroad tracks.

After a tense few minutes getting turned around and back up the steep narrow driveway to the closed campground, I headed down the road a little further to park #2, the Cascade Locks KOA.

I almost stayed there, until I saw the “No Pets” sign underneath the Night Check-In box. Well, Moby the Wonder Dog was with me once again, so no KOA for us. Just as we were turning round to leave, a second even better reason came rumbling right through the edge of the park, the Union Pacific Mainline that had a crossing right near the park, so not only did the park have the mainline tracks going right along through it, it also had a near 30 minutes process of blowing train horns.

I was honestly amazed that the park had as many RVs in it as it did!

So, onward further east we drove, our next destination The Dalles, hoping that we could find an RV park or something. At around milepost 73, I missed my turn off for a rest area which I was at the time thinking about sleeping at, as both my poor pooch Moby and myself were getting fairly tired by that point and wanted to get off the road, the day had already been fairly long from getting the camper into travel ready condition.

As we kept going east, getting a little desperate, I spotted one of Oregon’s brown State Park signs for “Memaloose State Park”.

The name tickled the back of my mind, I’d heard of Memaloose before, but I couldn’t remember why. I knew of Viento, which was one of the less pleasant parks along the Columbia River, but suffered from the same shortcomings as the KOA I’d looked at back at the Cascade Locks.

The surprise came in that when we got to exit 76, the signage there actually directed us back onto the interstate again, heading back west again.

That was when it came back to me, Memaloose State Park is the only State Park in Oregon that you actually enter through an interstate rest area!

As I pulled in to the rest area, I began to wonder if a park with this convenience to to the freeway would have any sites open at all at that time of the night?

Quite as number, was what we found out.

There was roughly ten rigs in the park, several were bigger class As that looked like their owners were visiting the area for an extended period of time, a few travel trailers and one other truck camper.

A quick listen out the window confirmed that while one could hear the freeway, the placement of the park twenty or so feet below the freeway on the slope and above the railroad tracks actually cuts the noise down quite a bit from either.

While audible, both were very low background noises, and completely blocked out once inside the camper.

So, we picked a site and Moby and I took a little walk to stretch our legs and pay our $20 for our night with full hookups.

Afterwards, we settled in, Moby munching happily on his dinner, then curling up on the dinette seat while I went off to use the showers.

Discovered that the lights in the men’s showers weren’t working and ended up using the handicap stall, never got really any hot water out of the shower, warm would be the best description one could give to the shower I had. Add in that it was down in the 40s at night, and that the bathrooms didn’t really have any heating in them, it was one seriously cold shower.

The next morning came and the rain had reduced itself back to a drizzle, I decided to bring the camera along as I took Moby out for his morning walk.

The population of RVs was even lower, now, than it had been we’d pulled in the night before. There was probably five RVs left. All of the trailers I had parked to last night were long gone, only a couple with a couple small dogs staying in a Wells Cargo trailer were left on the side of the loop I’d parked on.

One of the pleasant surprises was how close we were to the river. When I’d pulled in the night before, the river was completely blanketed in a deep darkness. In the morning, the blanket was pulled away revealing the river nestled amongst low clouds and fog.

We managed to make our way all the way around the park before Moby was quite tired of the constant drizzle and was ready to curl up in the cab of the truck and be on our way.

The adventure continues in Part 2!….

Product Review–Torklift Wobbl-Stopprs

2011-02-25T00:49:00.000-08:00

Looks like its time for another product review, courtesy of Torklift International! The last product review I did involved the rather nice tank deodorant, Odor-Eze. This time around, I lucked out in getting a new product that Torklift has out on the market now, Wobbl-Stopprs.

The concept behind it is fairly straight forward. On your average longer camper with a full rear-end enclosure, the rear jacks are attached roughly along their full length to the camper itself. On the front, however, your jacks are only attached roughly at the top most end, allow the camper’s weight to leverage against the jacks far more easily and subsequently inducing sway when you’re in your camper while its offloaded from the truck.

Wobbl-Stopprs work my giving you a removable stabilizer arm that connects from the bottom of the jack’s outer tube, much like when its attached along its length on the rear of the camper, to the bottom corner of the camper’s “tub” (the portion that normally sits in the bed of your truck).

By bracing the camper’s front legs at an approximately 45 degree angle to the camper’s the tub, the front legs are now prevented from flexing against their corner mounts as the energy from the sway is transferred into the tub of the camper. Unless you camp with your camper raised four feet in the air, 90% of the sway or “wobble” that people feel when their camper is off their truck will be eliminated by a single pair of the Wobbl-Stopprs.

A great many home solutions have been attempted for this problem over the years, I use one myself, three pairs of stackable stabilizer jacks that are snugged in place between the tub of the camper and the ground. While they help remove some of the sway, the sway is still present as the jack stands are not rigid creatures, and cannot hope to be wide enough to remove their own natural tendency to wiggle side to side.

Being that I’ve always approached the vast majority of RV accessories with a varying degree of skepticism, I looked forward to giving this new accessory the full-timer torture. If anything could help improve the stability of my camper when offloaded, I thought this might be it.

INSTALLATION

My package arrived, neat and tidy, quick as lightning from FedEx, one of the few deliveries I’ve actually got delivered straight to my site at Island Cove Park. Most times, things never get delivered any further than the local Post Office, even if it was sent via UPS or FedEx, which means the actual date of delivery isn’t always what’s promised on the package tracking.

Unpacked my box and sorted out and counted the parts to make certain everything was in order, so far it looks pretty straight forward and simple to install.

The installation instructions for the round tubed jacks left a bit to be desired, the pictures for the round jack assembly weren’t as informative as those for the square jacks, the worded instructions were more useful, but still not as complete as they could have been.

In any event, the assembly of the Wobbl-Stopprs isn’t rocket science, so with a little ingenuity, I figured it out easily enough.

First off, I installed the attachment plates to the camper, first temporarily with the stick on backing tape that is supplied already attached to each of the back plates, (simply peel and stick!) then I secured it in place using several tapered head screws. The original screws that came with were a little long for the frame of my nearly 40 year old camper, and were the round headed variety, which to me seemed odd given the nice taper edged holes that were in the brackets, so I used a similar diameter, cone headed screw that was a little shorter to keep the screw heads from poking through the frame of the camper. These snugged up nice and flush and tight with the brackets.

After installing the front mounting plates, I proceeded next to installing the arms and the clamp rings to the camper jacks.

The rings slide around the leg easy enough, I used a pair of decent sized channel lock pliers to squeeze the ring down the first time to slide it over the bolt, then once more after installing the washer to provide enough thread to tighten the nut on by hand for final adjustment before snugging everything down in its final position.

If one is worried about the finish on the rings, you can prevent damage to the finish by first wrapping the jaws of the channel lock pliers with masking tape.

Once the arms were loosely secured to the legs of the camper, I loosed the securing nuts on the arms and slid them up and onto the pins on the attachment plates that I earlier secured to the tub of the camper.

I then pinned them into place using the clips that came with the kit and adjusted the clamp rings until the clamp rings were square to the brace arms, then using a 9/16” box-end wrench and a 9/16” deep socket wrench to snug the clamp ring down till it was lightly snug against the arms so that they don’t drop down later on when the Velcro straps are removed.

Once the arms were both aligned, and the clamp rings snugged down, I installed the felt pads on the arms:

Then the Velcro Straps:

Quick coat of paint to the front of the tub of the camper to touch up the scuff guards/spacers and to blend the attachment plates to the front of the camper:

And the Wobbl-Stopprs are installed!

After the paint had dried and the arms were securely in place, I gave the camper its standard shake test. Normally the camper tends to wiggle side-to-side rather easily either from the wind striking the camper broadsides or from movement of occupants.

REVIEW

After installing the Wobbl-Stopprs the camper has now become as solid as if it’s tub was sitting directly on the ground. I can give the edge of the cabover a decent shove and the camper will hardly move at all, given that prior to the install, the camper could easily wiggle 2-3 inches side-to-side with only a moderate push.

That same evening it got its first weather test. In the past when a good gust of wind broad-sided the camper, it would be brought straight to your attention, either by stirring you fully awake from a sound sleep or startling you by the camper wiggling. This time around, the only reason I even noticed that it was gusting was the sound of the screen room next to the camper moving as it normally does and the flap on the range hood making noise in the breeze.

Over the past couple weeks of use since I originally installed the Wobbl-Stopprs, my quality of sleep has improved in the camper (I’m a fulltimer and live in my camper year round) as I’m no longer stirred out of a sound sleep by rolling over in bed and the camper wiggling side to side.

A better way to blog

2011-01-22T04:08:00.001-08:00

Well, I’ve been wanting an offline blog editor for quite sometime, and hadn’t really seen anything out from Google, owners of Blogger.com, that fit the bill.

Then, I found Microsoft’s Live Writer.

This free utility is part of the Live Essentials library of tools that Microsoft has out on the net for free. It works seamlessly with just about every major blogging website out there, including blogger.

This entry, for example, was written with Live Writer.

I’ve discovered thanks to its layout system that I can write journal entries 4x as faster than I was before using Blogger’s online editor. Case in point, I just posted a four part trip entry about the Mt. Hood Railroad in the time it normally takes me to write up entry using the on-page editor.

The blog entry looks like its finished product as you compose it.

Plus it has one thing I’ve always been after, an offline editor. It caches everything from your blog and any pictures you’ve linked locally so that you can continue to compose even when the Wi-Fi is not working.

One button publishing to effortlessly post your newest work to your blog.

So, my fellow bloggers, I humbly recommend trying out this free tool. It may take a little getting used to, but the learning curve is low and once you experience it, you won’t want to to blog via browser again.

Kitchen Project: Adding a Stainless Steel Stove Backsplash

2011-01-09T02:13:00.000-08:00

Well, once again, I'm doing a project post :). This project was done probably back in May or June of last year, but I can't remember the exact date, and I didn't take pictures of it until about ten minutes ago as I was baking a pizza in the oven.

When I originally bought my camper and for most of the time I owned it, the only back splash the stove really had was the three-inch tall piece of Formica that went with the counter top.

The rest of the wall was just the standard oak-wood grain paneling that made up all of the walls and cabinets in the camper.

This is okay, until you start full-timing in the camper and like to cook bacon or sausage, or anything that uses or produces some kind of grease. Even with a spatter screen, the natural vapor that comes from the cooking process gradually builds up on surfaces.

Trying to clean bacon grease build up out of porous wood paneling is a pain in the butt.

So, I was looking back one day through some of my photos I've collected of the Rociante, when I noticed a piece of regular sheet metal behind the stove in Steinbeck's camper.

That got me to thinking, and luck would have it, my original neighbors here at the park, the husband works at a sheet metal shop.

A little measurement and a bit of discussion later, and I now have a nice piece of heavy duty mirror polish stainless steel lining the wall behind my stove.

Clean up is a snap with a little bit of windex every now and then.

Happy New Year! I remodeled my bathroom!?

2010-12-31T23:59:00.000-08:00

Well, once again, Old Man Last Year has stepped down from his throne in the hall of time and let Baby New Year take over the reigns, most likely after recounting to Baby New Year just how messed up the past 365 days were and how he's glad to be off to Florida (once it warms up) to retire and join the other "Long Years" playing shuffle board and drinking daiquiris and watching the oiled up girls in the "very skimpy" swimwear play in the sand.

While the Old Man Last Year and Baby New Year take care of our chronological needs, I find myself holed up in my camper, dealing with what can only be described as the "Worst. Christmas Present. Ever."

Namely, the sinus infection from Hell.

One of the fun kind, if there is such a thing, you should know it well, we've all suffered from something similar at some time in our lives.

The kind where you have to keep a box of tissues handy for every time you bend over to keep from leaving fun and wonderful new "drip" marks on your shirt.

The kind where a bottle of Oxycontin and sweet oblivion sound like a far better option over trying to stay awake through the day.

You know the kind.

It's the kind where you yell at the bottle of antibiotic pills the doctor prescribed you because you're not free from its grip an hour after the first dose and then find a quiet corner and cry because the pain from the inflammation hurts so bad.

Most of us, if we're lucky, haven't suffered from one of these devil infections since we were kids, and only exists in the dark recesses of our memories like the old bogey monsters that used to haunt us from our closets and from under our beds.

How did I come by this Satan Sinus Infection?

Well, on the Tuesday the 21st of December, Dawn and I went to her work's Christmas party over at Kellogg Lanes in Milwaukie, Oregon. Dawn got sick that night, by Christmas Eve, I was coming down with it myself.

Having a fever bad enough that standing up is a challenge definitely imprints itself on your mind.

Throughout Christmas it wasn't terribly bad, it wasn't until Sunday evening that the infection took off and I ended up in bed for two days feeling like someone had used my face for a wrestling mat.

I managed to push myself through two more days of work (Losing half my hours for the week was NOT beneficial in anyway), and now here I am, enjoying new years slightly cracked out on cough syrup and Extra Strength Excedrin staring laser bolts at my antibiotic bottle for not bringing instantaneously relief (Though it appears to have started working, as the symptoms have finally started to lessen a little) and writing in my blog.

Perhaps I'm whining a bit too much, I'm not certain. Christmas was good, I enjoyed making people smile, but my nose feels like sandpaper and I'm going through a box of tissues in 48 hours and right now, I really am wishing I was well and out carousing and smoking big cigars and generally enjoying the holiday.

Speaking of doing nice things, before I left on Friday (Christmas Eve) to spend the holiday with my family (Who are probably cursing my name now for being the plague bearer :p), I spent the morning making up personalized Christmas Cards for everyone in the RV Park, and hanging them in sandwich baggies on everyone's doors with chocolates before heading south.

So, what's the main focus of this post?

I did a little remodeling work on my bathroom today.

First off, I junked my original medicine cabinet as its door had deformed from water exposure in the shower and would no longer shut.

I couldn't find another of the same model of Zenith Medicine cabinet, so I upgraded to this model:

Zenith 16.13"W Recessed Medicine Cabinet

This cabinet is a tiny bit narrower than the original, but its taller, and deeper than the old medicine cabinet and has one distinct advantage, the shelves are adjustable.

I've actually managed to collate all of the different medicine cabinet related items that I used to have tucked into nooks and crannies throughout the camper into the new cabinet with room for a few more left over.

To keep my cabinet from getting soaked like the old one, since they both have the same door construction, I took out my old and in need of replacing shower curtain and installed the new one, then cut the old one down to size to make a mini curtain to go across in front of the medicine cabinet.

Using a cheap curtain rod from Wal-Mart, I threaded the little curtain rod through the eyelets on the shower curtain I'd cut to fit and hung it in place.

It was a fairly tight fit getting the curtain rod to clear both the medicine cabinet door AND the light fixture. In addition, the curtain rod that supports the shower curtain that closes over the bathroom door was also in the same area. It took a couple tries to get it positioned so that everything would work smoothly.

But, now my medicine cabinet should stay nice and dry and the mirror will no longer suffer from hard water build up :).

So, besides feeling like pooh today, at least I did something productive :).

So, have a Happy New Year everyone, tip one back for me, I'm going to go curl up under my blankets.

Seattle Christmas Trip–Part 2, The Snoqualmie Railroad Museum

2010-12-11T02:34:00.000-08:00

The next morning, Dawn and I woke well rested and made our way to the 5th floor Restaurant to partake of their rather delicious breakfast buffet.

For those that when you think of a hotel breakfast think of a very small room near the main office that has stale bagels, rubbery egg-things, and room-temperature milk, this is about as great an about-face from standard hotel breakfast fare as you can get.

Multiple types of loaded fresh scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage…. name it, they had it, heck they even had an on-demand pancake making machine.

I stuffed myself silly.

After breakfast, Dawn and I decided that we’d head off and do our own agendas of things we wanted to do while we were up north. For me, I wanted to return to the town of Snoqualmie, WA and visit their Railroad Museum.

I had seen the Museum as night was settling in roughly 3/4 of a year ago when Dawn and I were visiting the Snoqualmie Falls and seeing the familiar pancake batter picture live and in person. I would discovered later on today that it was a good thing that we had, as the Snoqualmie Dam was being altered and the old familiar structures of the hydroelectric project were being “modernized”.

The day before when we had arrived, the weather had been a bit overcast, but not too bad. By today, it was freezing cold and wetter than a dog that had just climbed out of a lake.

A quick scan of the news stations revealed that we were in the middle of some major rain, with the potential for heavy flooding.

While our location in Seattle wasn’t in any way threatened by potential flooding, I-5 in Chehalis has this notoriously bad habit of flooding out every time a protracted period of rain sets in.

Once Chehalis floods, the only way back south is to go all the way east to Yakima, WA and then head south down Highway 12 or further east down I-82. Long, long way out of the way.

So, stoically, and not wanting to miss the only chance I was going to get for quite some time to visit the area, I bundled up and set out for Snoqualmie.

Even with the rain and the cold, the drive east bound on I-90 was smooth and rather uneventful. I tried to take a couple pictures of my crossing on the massive floating bridge that makes up the I-90 crossing of Lake Washington.

I’ve always found floating bridges fascinating, the fact that they’re not too far from being a more sophisticated variation of a bunch of barges all bolted together, but are as stable as if they were permanently built structures that reached all the way down to the lake bottom far below amazes me.

From Wikipedia

The Lacey V. Murrow Memorial Bridge is a floating bridge that carries the eastbound lanes of Interstate 90 across Lake Washington from Seattle to Mercer Island, Washington. It is the second longest floating bridge on Earth at 6,620 ft (2,020 m), whereas the longest is the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge just a few miles to the north on the same lake, built 23 years later. The third longest is the Hood Canal Bridge, also in Washington State, about 30 miles to the Northwest of the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge.

Along with the east portals of the Mount Baker Ridge Tunnel, the bridge is an official City of Seattle landmark.^[1] While the bridge originally had an opening span at the center of the bridge to allow a horizontal opening of 202 feet for major waterborne traffic, the only boat passages currently are elevated fixed spans at the termini with 29 feet of vertical clearance^[2].

History

The bridge was the brainchild of George Lightfoot, who came to be called the "father of the bridge". Lightfoot began campaigning for the bridge in 1930, enlisting the support of Miller Freeman. The original two-way, four-lane toll bridge was designed by the engineer Homer Hadley (1885–1967) and constructed of reinforced concrete in 1940. The construction cost for the project was on the order of $9,000,000 including approaches. It was partially financed by a bond issue of $4,184,000.^[3] Tolls were removed in 1949.^[4] It sank in a storm on November 25, 1990, while it was undergoing refurbishing and repair. The current bridge was built in 1993. The eponymous Lacey V. Murrow was the second Director of the Washington State Highway Department and a highly decorated US Air Force officer who served in World War II. He was the oldest brother of CBS commentator Edward R. Murrow.^[5]

Formerly known as the "Lake Washington Floating Bridge", the original bridge was built under a 1 1/2-year contract awarded to the Puget Sound Bridge and Dredging Company (the project was led by engineer Peter John Jensen) in the amount of $3,254,000.^[6] It included a movable span that could be retracted into a pocket in the center of the fixed span to permit large boats to pass. This design resulted in a roadway "bulge" that required vehicles to swerve twice across polished steel joints as they passed the bulge. A "reversible lane" system, indicated by lighted overhead lane control signals with arrow and 'X' signs, compounded the hazard by putting one lane of traffic on the "wrong" side of the bulge at different times of day in an effort to alleviate rush-hour traffic into or out of Seattle. There were many serious collisions on the bridge. The problems grew worse as the traffic load increased over the years and far outstripped the designed capacity. Renovation or replacement was essential and a parallel bridge, the Homer M. Hadley Memorial Bridge, was completed in 1989.

1990 disaster

View northeast of bridge, west approach and Mount Baker Tunnel

In 1990, while under construction, the original bridge sank due to a combination of human errors and decisions. The process started because the bridge needed resurfacing and was to be widened by means of cantilevered additions in order to meet the necessary lane-width specifications of the Interstate Highway System. The Washington State Department of Transportation (WSDOT) decided to use hydrodemolition (high-pressure water) to remove unwanted material (the sidewalks on the bridge deck). Water from this hydrodemolition was considered contaminated under environmental law and could not be allowed to flow into Lake Washington.^[7] Engineers then analyzed the pontoons of the bridge, and realized that they were over-engineered and the water could be stored temporarily in the pontoons. The watertight doors for the pontoons were therefore removed.

A large storm on November 22, 23, and 24, 1990 (the Thanksgiving holiday weekend), filled some of the pontoons with rain and lake water. On November 24, workers noticed that the bridge was about to sink, and started pumping out some of the pontoons. However, on November 25, 2,790 ft (850 m) of the bridge sank, dumping the contaminated water into the lake along with tons of bridge material. The bridge sank when one pontoon filled and dragged the rest down because they were cabled together and there was no way to separate the sections under load. Fortunately, no one was hurt or killed, since the bridge was closed for renovation and the sinking took some time. All of the sinking was captured on film and shown on live TV.

Precedents and lessons for the future

WSDOT lost another floating bridge, the Hood Canal Bridge, about a decade earlier under similar circumstances, and it is now known that another major floating bridge in Washington, the Evergreen Point Floating Bridge, is under-engineered for local environmental conditions.^[8] due to a combination of human errors and decisions.

Eventually, I made my way into the “tourist trap” ends of Snoqualmie that leads from I-90 up to the original town itself.

The outdoor temperature during my drive up had plummeted quite a bit, it wouldn’t be too long before the rain became snow up at the elevation of town.

Still determined to see it all, I located a parking spot nearest the Snoqualmie terminal and began meandering around with my camera, though keeping it carefully cradled to prevent the rain from getting blow on the lens.

Given the time of the year, the “Santa Train” was running full tilt up on the Snoqualmie Railroad. Sadly, all the seats on the train were sold out, but given the shortness of the train route, it wasn’t a great loss.

Once upon a time, the tracks of the Snoqualmie Railroad ran all the way from Seattle proper up to town, now only a tiny fraction of the track remains. All of the antique trains that had been carried up that now gone track forever trapped up in the hills.

As I wandered through the site, it didn’t take long before the photo shooting began.

This old diesel is still active and used from time to time to pull the Snoqualmie Excursion train.

For quite some time, the Snoqualmie Railroad used this old Mallet Locomotive to pull their excursion trains, its since been retired, its place taken by two diesel switch engines, one at either end of the excursion train.

In addition to a fairly sizable collection of locomotives that are still in operating condition, the Snoqualmie Railroad also has an amazing collection of classic rolling stock.

This old US Army mess car was serving as a snack and beverage stand for those with tickets for the Santa Train. Given how cold I was getting, a hot cocoa sure would have been good…..

A lot of the rolling stock is in fairly good condition, however, the area around the station itself isn’t the only display yard of old Railroading equipment.

The Graveyard of Trains

Tracks to nowhere….

The Santa Train Arrives

As I was wandering around snapping my photos of the various trains on display at the Snoqualmie Station, I heard the familiar tell-tale sounds of a not too far off train on-coming. I quickly made my way around the station and into position just in time to capture a view of the Santa Train as it pulled into the station.

After watching the swarms of happy children boarding the Santa Train with their slightly harried parents, I wandered on through the rain to shoot my pictures of the Grave Yard of Trains, and along the way, I found this old log cradle.

The cradle was used to hold those old monster old growth logs so that they could be passed through the mill saws and cut to dimension.

An example log still sits in situ waiting for a turn at a mill that no longer exists.

After making my way through the Graveyard of Trains, I was back at the station, when a gentleman in classic Railroad Police garb chatted me up about the Snoqualmie railroad. We conversed about my Sumpter Narrow gauge railroad up in eastern Oregon, at around which point he told me where to find the Snoqualmie Railroad’s new Museum building and restoration shop.

A quick trip down the road towards North Bend, brought me here.

Sadly, there wasn’t anyone at the service shop and the museum looks like its still a work in progress, but hopefully when I visit again, the Museum will be completed. Can’t wait to see what they’ll have inside, maybe some of those poor old Locomotives sitting on the sidings will finally get a home inside somewhere dry.

As I was making my way back towards the car, I caught the sound of a horn once again and came up next to the crossing next to the service shop just in time to catch the Santa Train on its return trip to the Snoqualmie Station!

Having taken a picture of everything I thought potentially photographic, I made my way the rest of the way into the town of North Bend. The Santa Train was off at the Snoqualmie Station, but it wouldn’t be long before I heard that horn thrice.

The North Bend station is sadly not the original, but a rather nice reproduction of the original station that once stood in town. The track comes to an end not too far past the station, though at one time, it did run another five or so miles further along to the next town down the road.

After hanging around a little while to snap a few more photos, I packed up and made my way back towards Snoqualmie, I had one more stop on my agenda for the day, Snoqualmie Falls.