Project #8 - Yet More Storage

Pretty straight forward little project. We're getting ready for perhaps our most interesting adventure yet, this time we're taking the mum-in-law-to-be with us for our return adventure to Sol Duc.

First off, don't get me wrong, I love my lady's mother, she reminds me in many ways of my late grandmother and I loved that woman with all my being, but this will be the first time there's really ever been more than 2 people staying in the camper for any length of time, so I decided to add a bit more storage area for storing clothes and odds and ends and what not.

NOTE: As in all my project threads, all the images are clickable. Simply click an image to see a larger version.


First off the bat, I had some goodies from the May NATCOA Silver Creek Falls rally to install.



If ya look at my wall you'll see both a neat key hanger and the addition of a nice wooden spice rack. The key holder I was given along with many others at the rally, one of the club members made it, I forget who sadly, the spice rack was what I chose from the prize table when we did the drawings. Dave, one of the great guys I went hiking with that day walked away with a brand new set of torklifts, lucky guy . I actually needed another rack like that in any case, plus the fastguns were the all the long ones meant for a full torklift setup, kinda useless to a guy with happijac tie downs.

Anyway, I'm really getting off topic .... The second spice rack became my handy wallet, cellphone, whatevers-in-yer-pockets rack, as you can see, I keep my 12volt cellphone charger there.



That wall is getting mighty full compared to when I first bought the camper. That magazine rack was originally mounted on the wall where the clock is now. Where it originally was made it impossible to open the fold down cabinet bunk, so I relocated it to that empty patch of real estate near my sink. Traditionally, we use it for storing DVDs and whatever books we might be reading on the outting we're on.

You'll likely see a return of that picture again when I finish photographing everything for my Grey Water Pump project thread. The Silver switch on the wall above the red and blue ones is the control toggle that changes the grey pumps operation from Fresh Pump Sense mode to Always on. The Centered position is off.



The last bit of storage I added was to take the old wire shelf that used to go in the Pullman Mini-Camper and fasten it up in the cabover. The shelf wasn't being used in the Pullman anymore, ever since I got the KIT, it wasn't needed really anymore, so I fastened it in place following Netboy's thread, with one key difference.



I took a bracket originally used to hold a curtain rod in place and bent the end over to form a loop, then fastened it to the ceiling to hold the far end of the shelf up. This shelf will be used solely for storing clothing items to expand our wardrobe capacity from the space in the cabinet over the dinette.

Well, that's another project thread done, time to take a rest and plot the rest of my biggest project, Project Re-Paint the KIT. Its already 85% completed, and wow, what a difference a little paint can make!

Project #7 - Installing a Household A/C Unit

NOTE: As in all my project, all pictures are clickable. Simply click an image and you'll be shown a full-size version.

First off, the unit I purchased is a Goldstar (An L.G. product) 5000 BTU A/C unit. It cost $89.99, and I added in the 1 year replacement warranty on the chance that it might die from road use. The unit comes with a factory 1 year parts and labor warranty, and a 5 year warranty on the compressor.

I picked this particular one because it was the first unit I found that measured in at 11 1/8" tall by 17" wide, and it was just small enough to fit inside the frame of the an existing window and still allow for an angle iron frame to go in around it. Also, for those that used the Kenmore unit, this thing is basically its exact clone, the only major differences are 150btu in the rating and the front plastic is more rounded in looks on the Kenmore vs the Goldstar.

One thing I remember reading time and time again was difficulty sealing around the little feet on the bottom of the unit. The solution to these little buggers was in the form of a pair of pliers. The single tack weld holding them on will crack very easy and the feet will pop clean from the bottom, making it look like they were never there, making it much easier to make a tight seal.

My concept was to reuse the existing screw holes on the unit where the plastic window assembly attached to secure the A/C unit into the frame. The frame itself would then be secured to the camper using 10 1/4" bolts through the wall to spread the load of the 40lb A/C unit and also to keep a solid seal between the new A/C frame and its butyl tape coating that was sandwiched between it and the wall.

The first part of the process was to remove the old window. This proved to be very very easy, far easier than the other window I had to remove a while back in search of a leak. This window was a leak waiting to happen, removing it to install this A/C actually saved me a possible repeat of the dreaded leaking window frame caper that had played out at the beginning of this year.



Sadly, I made the stupid mistake of trying to get things together quickly so to be done in a single day, and forgot to take a picture of the steel A/C Frame in place by itself, so we'll just have to skip to the next couple pictures of after the A/C itself was installed.



In our design we deliberately gave the A/C a 1 degree slope to keep water from back peddling into the unit. The slope is just enough to make the pan drain properly, but not too steep as to cause the compressor any difficulty. A key reminder to anyone considering adding a home A/C unit to their unit, never run the unit when you out of level enough that you wouldn't operate your fridge, compressors don't like to be heavily out of level.



This is how the A/C looks inside the camper. The picture on the left shows it as it was right after being installed. The temperature on the wall is registering what it was inside the camper with the unit on, it was 85+ when we fired it up. The picture on the right is after having the old window trim reinstalled and the supporting ledge added under the unit to both help the butyl seal underneath the A/C stay packed in tight and also to help support the front half of the units frame.



For those that follow my threads, my last project thread, Project #6, Electrical Upgrades, I installed the outlet for the A/C unit, along with its own dedicated Circuit breaker.

In the picture on the left, you can see the unit's cord now securely plugged into said outlet. If you look in the right hand picture in the previous row of them you can see where I put the rest of the excess cord.

Now, in the right picture, you can see I still made use of the curtains for that window as a nice tidy way of hiding the cord and dressing up the enclosed window.



The A/C unit is perfectly situated where it is. The cold air doesn't blow on the person sitting right in front of it and you can still sit comfortably in that seat. The A/C unit itself is actually a good inch and a half shallower than the seat cushion. The cold air blows wonderfully along the ceiling and all the way up into the cabover and slowly makes its way back along the floor towards the back door. The front half of the camper always cools down faster than the back, but the dinette area cools faster than the hallway, so the temperature on the clock takes a bit to catch up with the inside temperature.

Its a wonderful setup, the A/C is super quiet compared to 13,000 btu roof mounted unit on my parents trailer, even with its ducting. Even laying in the dinette bed, the hum from the A/C is still very low. With the A/C having a gasket around it on all sides inside its steel frame, the vibration from the compressor running is only minimally transferred into the rear wall.

Multnomah Falls, the Columbia River Gorge, and the Stonehenge Memorial of Maryhill, WA (06-12-2007 to 06-14-2007)

This year has been quite busy in the camping business, so one could say. Only a month prior, I was at the big NATCOA rally at Silver Creek Falls and it as raining. Now, its warm and sunny and I'm on my way to the historic Multnomah Falls area along Oregon's Columbia River gorge.

First off, for those that don't know where Ainsworth State Park is, its a little park for nestled up on a hill just above Highway 36 and the Union Pacific Railroad tracks. It is on the eastern most end of the Highway and because of such, is fairly popular amongst travelers with RVs as someplace to stop for the night.

The campground is densely wooded, and has an abudance of pull thru and non pull thru sites. All sites, except for the small handful of primitive walk in Tent sites nestled way back on the southern most hills near the trail head of the Multnomah trails, are equipped with full hookups. There is also a dumpstation at the campground, and all the sites have a notice posted on their electrical boxes to NOT dump your full holding tank in your site as it will cause a sewage backup.

Since my lady does not have quite the same flexibility as I do with requesting time off, we were only able to go for her two days off for the week, and as such, left town right after she got off work tuesday night (Her days off were wednesday and thursday.)

When we pulled in to Ainsworth State Park (Exit #35 on I-84), most of the pull thru sites were full all along the backside of the campground. However, the back-in sites were almost all empty, with the exception of one smaller class C. I was, of course, the sole pickup camper in the area surrounded by giant Class As and Fifth wheels that I was amazed even made it in.

Ainsworth is an old state park, most of the facilities there haven't changed much since it originally opened. It is, however, only $16 a night for full hookups during Prime season as well. Normally, most state park sites with full hookups can run up around $22-26 a night, depending on where they're at.



Our little campsite, its fairly nice, well shaded and with plenty of space to relax. The only draw backs I found out after we had settled in were, the UP tracks behind us are the main arterial route for all Freight going east and west, so somewhat frequent trains. That, and what I thought was bushes behind our site was actually a drop off with blackberry vines, old decidous trees and a view of Highway 36. At night, the highways empty, and even during the day, its not that busy, I didn't even know it was there and this site was better than the others (More shade, plus it didn't have a vent stack for the sewer system in it.)

Had I the choice, I might have tried for one of the pull thru sites on the back loop, since they were farther away, it might have been a tad quieter, but overall it wasn't that bad, we slept soundly without interruption and were not rushed or bothered by anyone. Nothing got stolen from camp while we were out hiking, so overall, no real major complaints about the site (Its site B-11 btw).

Plus, I got to wake up and see this out my front cabover window:


Since our primary objective of staying at Ainsworth was so that we could explore the additional Water Falls BEHIND the well traveled ones next to the highway, we went and hiked!



That last picture on the right is of my lady poking the trunk of a tree we found that was riddled from top to bottom with woodpecker holes, there wasn't a square inch of the trunk without them!



In case you're wondering, the trail we started on that eventually goes all the way to Multnomah Falls, starts out as Ainsworth Loop. Its of my opinion, some of the more moderately difficult trail in the area, the picture that is top left in the last batch of photos shows the conditions of some of the trail, which was loose large chunk rock with a steep drop on one side.

The other photos in that above batch are views afforded from the trail as it makes its way along the mountainside well above the highway, railroad, and interstate.




At first glance, one might think that the above shown waterfall is one of those found at Silver Creek Falls. It is, actually, Upper Horsetail Falls (Aka Ponytail Falls) situated high above in the Oneonta Gorge. The roar off this fall is no less quiet than any of its taller rivals back at Silver Creek. On our way back through heading back towards camp, we decided to make a stop here and take a moment to sit under the water fall and freeze the living daylights out of ourselves. We didn't go under the main fall, that was beyond any possible notion of being a good idea. So, we stood under the smaller slower fall off that was behind the bigger spout of water and took turns seeing who could stay in longer before drying off a bit and continuing the hike.




After viewing the beauty of Upper Horsetail (Ponytail) Falls, we continued on our journey, exploring all the knooks and cranies of this dense wooded canopy that I never knew existed. Upon my travelings which brought me to the vantage point from which the second and third photos were shot in the above batch, I came across the marker in the first photo. It was a sad moment to think about a life so young dying in such a horrible way, the spot from which I was shooting those pictures made me think of how easily it would have been to have fallen in the same way, as the spur of rock and dirt only 2 feet wide jutted out into the open empty air above the Columbia River Gorge with the tiny black strip of the asphalt of Highway 36 directly beneath me.

Sufice to say, the misses to be didn't come any closer than 20 yards away and my prancing upon the precipise sent her into many a fit of worried noises. She was greatly relieved when I returned from the brink with a set of photos and all my parts still connected.



My camera had been working spotily since it kissed the ground during the Sol Duc Adventure last year. It seems to rarely take a super crisp picture anymore, and my frustration with it was starting to eat at me. Fortunately, on our way to our second water fall for the trip, we found this wall, where the water sprinkles off the edge making a delightful shower for cooling ones self off in, but without the worry of getting completely soaked.

I don't know why we did the close up, other than the fact that since I am usually the camera man most of my trips, it is very very rare that I come back with a picture of me doing anything.




This is Oneonta Falls, its the smaller falls in the Oneonta Gorge, there is one more above them, known as Triple Falls, however, we ran out of daylight and time to really hike much past this point. However, it does give you a good look at how water can cut through rock. The stream runs right through the center of the gorge in what looks like an almost square path. The view coming down the little hill towards that bridge is rather breath taking as you see the Oneonta creek cutting on through the squared off high walls of the gorge.
You can read more about the Oneonta Gorge and its falls here:
Oregon Hikes - Oneonta Gorge



Since we were running out daylight by this point, it was decided that we'd hike down out of the hills via the route down to the lower Horsetail Falls and return via the Highway, the idea of going back across that section of rocks and narrow winding trail was not too appealing by this point.

The photo on the left is somewhat decieving to how tall Lower Horsetail Falls is. The second photo, the one on the right, gives the water fall in a better perspective, namely, from across the highway in the parking lot.

After snapping those last couple photos, we hiked back to camp and I fixed us some wonderful barbacue burgers while the lady went off to the main campground showers to wash up. She thought they were great, which only goes to show that the men's side showers must have sucked in comparison, because one time through and the camper's somewhat cramped bathroom was more appealing.

The following day found us stuffed to the gills from a Sausage, Biscuits, Scrambled Eggs, Bacon and French Toast breakfast, and ready to pack up and head out. One thing I love about having the camper over how I used to camp with the pullman, its so much faster and easier to setup and break down camp. Everything we had in camp was either stored in the camper's gear cabinet, or rode in one of the two blue sterlite totes I had strapped to the cargo rack mounted in the hitch extension.

Our destination for this day was Maryhill, WA and the Stonehenge War Memorial.

We set out, and with the windows down (It was hot out, but the breeze felt good, and the lack of the A/C pump running made the truck happier.)

I kept wondering where I was going to see the turn off for the bridge that would cross to Maryhill, I had looked up the route in my Oregon Road Atlas, but only vaguely remembers that it was somewhere just east of the Dalles Dam.

In our search, our breakfast made its course, and a reststop was needed. Just east of the Dalles Dam, we pulled off at a sign for some state park, I forget the name, but its named after the Indian Tribe that used to fish the waterfalls that were once on the Columbia River before the Dalles Dam was built.

When we got to the bottom of the off ramp, I saw another small park to our left that butted up to the river. It had bathrooms and since that's what we were needing, it seemed the best choice.



When we pulled in, I noticed that there was quite a number of RVs setup in the parking lot. It took me a second to realize that everyone of them was someone there to windsurf.

The mini camper in the right hand corner of the picture is an Okanagan. The one to its left is another Canadian made unit, but its some odd ass brand that I doubt anyones heard of and I can't remember the name of anyway. I just remember that the company logo is a Maple Leaf.

One thing I also noticed was this park apparently was the local home to disgruntled hippies who have nothing better to do than sit in the middle of the right-of-way in a parking lot and give ugly stares to anyone new. Hence the guy sitting next to the Chevy Pickup with the solar panel on the hood, and the lady that was with him in the green folding chair.



Now, this fella here, has figured out a pretty snazy way of setting up his Satillite dish without it needing a tripod!

Now, what I figured out while stopped at this park was where the damned bridge and turn off for Maryhill was. To get there from the Oregon side, drive east (If coming from portland) towards the city of Biggs, then take the Hwy 97 Bridge across the Columbia Gorge and go up the hill. Turn right at the top of the hill where the highway merges with another. You'll see a sign for the turn off within short order. As you ascend the hill, the Henge will be on your right.





Maryhill is an interesting little farm town community, some some breath taking views of the Columbia Gorge, showing the stark change in the climate and conditions from the areas further west.

To quote the Maryhill Museum website:

Quote:


Built by Sam Hill as a tribute to the soldiers of Klickitat County who lost their lives, Maryhill's Stonehenge is the first monument in our nation to honor the dead of World War I. The structure is a full-scale replica of England's famous neolithic Stonehenge. A Quaker pacifist, Hill was mistakenly informed that the original Stonehenge had been used as a sacrificial site, and thus constructed the replica to remind us that ''humanity is still being sacrificed to the god of war.'' The location now also includes monuments to the soldiers of Klickitat County who died in World War II, Korea, and Viet Nam.
The monument lies at the original Maryhill townsite, four miles east of the museum, just off Washington Scenic Route 14. Hill's own crypt is a short walk southwest of Stonehenge on a bluff overlooking the Columbia River.

After touring around Maryhill for a bit, we took the Washington Side of the Columbia Gorge back. Believe me, if you get the chance to ever drive this side of the River, do so! I was unceasingly amazed at how many small lakes had been created when the roadways had been built, plus the sheer number of tunnels.

Our trip came to a close with a nice romantic dinner at the McMennimans Edgefield Resort in Troutdale ending what turned out to a very enjoyable journey.

Enjoy my last couple shots of Mt. Hood.