Snow Pictures from Oregon's Incliment Weather (December 15th, 2008)

Well, I think this is the coldest the camper's ever experienced in my ownership, its definitely far colder than the time when I went camping with INSAYN up at Diamond Lake a few years go.

Here's some pictures from this past Sunday Morning, going through the day and to this morning.

Morning of Sunday, snow's just started....



And then by the evening.....




And by the next morning.....




Made the mistake of leaving that spare bayonet coupler on top of the jack... It's quite frozen there now...

These were taken while I was out and about Christmas Shopping. The Triangle Brand M+S Tires I bought are earning every penny of their worth so far, haven't spun a tire yet in 4 Hi and I've up hill and down hill and on patches of ice where I was watching cars slide sideways while waiting for the light.





This is the road I drive down on my way out to the main highway to work.



Looking back at the hills that lay all around me...

Somewhere to put those darned socks!

Storage space is always a premium in a Truck Camper, even more so when ya live in it 365 days a year! I had hoped to find another of those wonderful BoatGo Cargo nets to add a storage spot for my socks to the back of one of the sliding doors on my cabover bed.

Sadly, the BoatGo nets don't come any smaller than 36", which is far wider than my cabover doors.

So, I asked about suggestions to the forums, and in the end, found what I was looking for on Target.com.

EZNet Medium Black Storage Net

These nets were originally meant to be mounted on the walls in your home, or on the back of cabinet doors in your kitchen or bathroom.

In the end, I wound up mounting the Storage net to my cabover's ceiling instead of the sliding door. The Medium sized net wound up being a great deal wider the door (Guilty again of failing to follow the Measure Twice, Cut Once rule). But, it still worked out. I moved my socks to a new location and gained more space in my rather limited dinette cabinet for storing other important clothes.

Adding an Awning

Time for another one of my little add-on jobs! This one came courtesy of Craiglist where there was a Russian family parting out an old Alpenlite Truck Camper. I figured, "eh, why not" and went out to check out the camper to see if there was anything I could make use of.

I wound up walking away with a "Carefree from Colorado" rear door awning to the tune of $80.

I carefully removed the unit and kept all the screws and fasteners so I could later reattach it to the rear of the camper.

After several failed attempts, I eventually located studs in the walls (you'll be surprised at how easy it is to mistake an area for having studs behind it when it really doesn't have any!), I managed to attach the awning to the rear of the camper and neatly fill the holes caused by my screw ups.

Love the awning! Keeps the rain off ya when yer going in and out the door, also gives me some place to hang my bug zapper :p

How to properly decorate your Truck Camper for the Christmas Season

Hey Folks, here's a little gem from a fellow vintage Truck Camper owner, dakonthemountain, as he demonstrates how to properly decorate your truck camper for Christmas.





Well done, Dak!

Another Trip down Vintage Lane? Or odd scary Halloween Sight?

Hey Folks, want to wish you all a happy Halloween :) Was browsing some of the Halloween threads today, and between some of the cuter photoshop jobs some folks had done with their rigs, someone posted a picture of this:



Now, its up to you to decide if that's scary or not, but I remember these old mechanical pumps and the little ding they made as you rolled over the next dollar. Kinda almost felt a bit more personal than today's monolithic electronic pumps.

Project #14 - Water Heater Replacement

Well, here's the follow up on the water heater replacement. The original thread can be read here:

Talk about a service life, 34 years!


I bought my new water heater, along with the gas line conversion kit (Basically the right length of flexible gas line and a 90 degree brass elbow to attach it to the original water heater connection ), and the flush water heater door. I also picked up a tube of ProFlex, and a roll of buytl tape both of which I used the majority of up installing the water heater. I also picked up a can of injection foam to fill in around the water heater to give it a good air/water tight seal.

Here you can see the old water heater sitting next to its replacement:


The old water heater was housed in a sheet metal box, the sides of which were stapled along the edges and the back. As far as I can tell, its made out of wood. The water heater itself is in the center wrapped in some kind of white insulation that looks a bit like fiberglass. I didn't open it up to look, as I have a sneaking suspicion that it may be Asbestos-based insulation. I had long ago filled in all the openings in the sheet metal housing with expanding foam to prevent any dust or fume leakage.

Here's the opening it came out of:


A little closer inspection revealed (The water on the bottom of the compartment is runoff from when I unhooked the plumbing):



That the little 1x2 that sits underneath the edge of the water heater had begun to dry rot. Fortunately, its not structural, its just stapled in between the bigger 1x4s that are on either side that run along the top of the wing. All it does is support the edge of the water heater.

Since I didn't have anything to replace it with, or the time to do it, I packed it in a bed of butyl tape and sealed the laps in the siding to prevent any further water damage. The wood on either side and below it are fine and the water damage doesn't extend past the one 1x2 that was directly under the water heater. Odds are this was caused by water wicking back from the bottom edge of the water heater compartment, the water heater didn't have any caulking around it when I bought the camper, and I sealed it up at that point. Since the wood was dry when I checked it, I'd wager the water penetration had been stopped at that time and had progressed no further.



Since the water heater really didn't have any particular screw-down-here spots on it, I drove some two inch screws into the vertical members running on either side of the water heater to secure it in place. These I had salvaged from the removal of the original water heater and were still in good condition.

Unlike the Radius edged door you can get for this water heater, the Flush mount has no screws that actually drive into the sides of the camper. It has several screws on the inside that screw into the water heater itself and suck the face plate down. To make certain it was sealed tight, I put a double bead of proflex around the flange that slides into the water heater itself and put a thick coat of butyl tape along the edges of the door assembly. The caulk on the flange will seal the door to the water heater to prevent water from wicking between the two. Once the face plate was sucked down, I caulked around the door frame and sealed her up tight to the camper.



A couple of quick shots of spray paint, and the water heater install is done.

Thanks for reading!

Truck Campers to the EXTREME! - Mammoth Campers in Prinville, OR

There's an old saying, "Bigger is always Better", and I'd have to say Mammoth Campers out of Prinville, Oregon, has built that phrase into to a T in their new Truck camper.



The brainchild of Daryn Jones, he designed and manufactured his Mammoth Camper especially for use on a flat bed truck and in extreme cold weather conditions.

Constructed of high-strength aluminum and quality materials, Daryn has perhaps created the ultimate of Truck Campers.

The best part is, if you want one, Daryn is producing these campers for others besides himself, simply visit Mammoth's website back at the top of this post to learn more about these crazy-huge rigs!

Where have all the old fashioned pickup gun racks gone... Long time Passing...

The title is actually a good question, none of the local sporting goods stores had the blasted things!

In the end, wound up order this one from Amazon.com.

San Angelo #10070 3 Gun Locking Rack

Now, yer probably asking, Why does he need a gun rack?

The answer'll blow yer mind!
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To hold fishing poles.

Told ya it'd blow yer mind!

Humidity, the enemy of all Full-Timers

Well, winter is coming upon me now, and the long periods of dry weather and air conditioning are giving way to days upon days of rain.

High moisture content in your air is a bad thing when you live inside a 7 ¹/₂ x 18 foot box! Its more so a problem when the air in the cabover bed area doesn't move worth a damn.

I wound up needing to find a solution to my condensation problems.

I wound up settling after much discussion with fellow campers on the NewAir ADS-400 Mini Humidifier from Air N' Water Inc for around $50 (they had a sale on at the time) and it came with free shipping.

I purchased this particular unit because of its size (roughly the size of an electric coffee maker) and the fact that it could run off its own 110volt power brick, or a 12 volt cigarette plug.

I initially set the unit up at the foot of my bed where I had the most trouble with condensation build up and used its 110 volt brick.

I installed a cigarette lighter outlet up in the cab over after discovering that the dehumidifier's brick got dangerously hot when in constant use. The unit actually worked better running off the camper's 12-volt feed than it did running off the brick.

The unit ran fine for about 6-7 months before the fan started to screech like the brakes on a run-away semi truck. You could "bop" the top of the unit periodically and it would stop squealing for a while, but it would eventually start back up.

This worked okay until the time I came home to visit family for Christmas (also about the time I was moving off the farm and over to my new living location closer to work) and a gave the unit a bop and the blades on the fan broke.

I wound up having to dismantle the unit and replace the fan with a spare, higher flow computer fan I had stuffed away in a parts box.

After that the unit worked fine for quite some time.

Eventually, another problem cropped up in that the little tabs for the contact switches broke rather easily when attempting to remove the tank when it was full. The little safety switch that kept the unit from running when the tank was removed broke off leaving only the thin metal arm that actuated the switch.

A simple fix involving a quarter and a couple pieces of duct tape wound up fixing this problem.

Given all its problems, the unit did its job, but definitely wasn't the quality level demanded of its price tag.

A formula for figuring out those pesky tank capacities

Well, the other day I was out buying myself one of those rolling portable waste tanks (saves on loading and unloading the camper just to go to the dump station), and I was trying to figure out how big of capacity my holding tank was.

Well, while I was at the RV Parts Outlet store in Tualatin, I made mention I had no clue what my tank's capacity was. The shop owner then replied, "Do you have a general idea of what the Length, width, and height of the tank is?"

I replied I had a ballpark figure. To which he gave me this formula.


(Length (In inches) x Width (In inches) x Height (in inches)) / 231 = approximate gallon capacity.

Giving my ball park figure I came out to roughly 25 gallons. Bought the biggest tank they had on hand (11 gallon) and only had to fill it twice to dump the tank, so that formula works pretty darned good.

Just thought I'd pass it along to anyone who buys a camper, but can't find the tank capacity, but can get the measurements on their tank.

Another Round of Vintage Campers

Uncertain as to the vintage of any of these campers, though my guess is sometime during the mid-to-late 60s.

I thought it was about time I added another round of pictures of American RVing History, back from the golden days of long ago...

"Little Champ" - By Champion



Even in the Old Days, folks used front cargo racks...



For all you Dreamer Fans out there...

Converter Upgrade

Well, I've upgraded once already, from a non-battery charging capable converter to a Todd Electronics 30 Amp Converter/Charger. Its been working without problem, but it doesn't really have any kind of smart charging system to monitor the charge state the batteries are in, rather it simply puts out a constant 13.6 volts, unless you flip the bulk switch, then it charges them at 14.4 volts instead, not exactly healthy for ones batteries to be at that voltage for long periods of time.

I finally decided that the Todd Converter had to go when I discovered the output voltage would go up when used on the generator if I ran another appliance at the same time.

Following sage advice I'd received over the years in regards to 3-stage converter/chargers, I decided to shop for my replacement unit at bestcoverter.com. Generally, Randy has the best prices on RV electrical system components and you can't beat the personal service or free shipping.

My range of unit choice was a tad limited by my budget, however, given that I only had roughly a $100 free to put towards this upgrade. My two contenders were the WFCO 9800 Series 35amp Deckmount Converter-Charger - $114.95, and the Progressive Dynamics IntelliPower 45 Amp Deckmount Charger - 159.97.



In the end, two things wound up settling me on the WFCO unit. 1.) Price, 2.) Wattage Used.

My Champion Generator puts out a max of 1200 watts continuously, 1500 watts on a surge with a max amp rate of 10. The Todd Converter I was retiring consumed 400 watts. The WFCO unit consumed 600 watts, the PD unit consumed 725 watts.

Before they were call RVers they called themselves Trailerites

Here's another step back in time, from trailerite.com, please, visit their website to view all of the wonderful content about the birth of a life-style!

(All content below belongs to trailerite.com, reposted as a tempter to encourage you to visit their site! I didn't create it and I don't own it, but by joe, its helluva good)

Trailerite.com celebrating the rich and adventurous history of RVing.

The RVing lifestyle has its beginnings in the early 1900s.

Not long after the rise in popularity of the automobile folks began building trailers similar those used today to pull behind their cars and hit the open road.

Sometime during those early days these travelers adopted the name 'Tin Can Tourists' probably because of their tin can like trailers.

After WWII returning veterans looking for inexpensive housing that spurred the interest in travel trailers.

Beware of small critters at high speeds

Now, being the Redneck that I am, I have to admit that I am a member of the Possum Squishing club, having unsuccessfully tried to extend the lives of two separate possums by driving to avoid running them over, only to have them make a taliban run at one of my heavily loaded rear tires.

I can only come to the conclusion that there's something in the DNA of Possum's that makes them highly attracted to offroad tires.

Fortunately, I can officially say that I've not had this happen:

140 mph Autobahn - Deer vs BMW

I don't recommend opening the link above if you're the slight bit squeamish. Personally, I don't think it was a deer, the fur looks alot more like that of a Fox, but please, don't ask me how one successfully fits a small small animal into the intake on a car.

Securing my books to the cabover shelf (Boatgo Storage Nets)

Ever since I moved into the camper full-time, I had begun to collect an ever growing pile of books and DVDs. This was great, in that I was going through books at a pretty decent clip, the only problem came when I tried to raise the camper up onto the truck to take her to dump the holding tank, or to go on a trip.

The books and stuff would stay on the shelf for about as long as it took me to make my first turn, at which point they would shoot off the shelf and all over the bed.

I looked around locally for a solution, and once again turned to the many forums I belong to.

The solution to my nightmare was presented in the form of a elastic corded cargo net meant for the holding of items to the bulkhead walls of a boat by fellow forum meber, Lancealot12001.

From Lancealot12001

I purchased the Boatgo Storage Nets from Cabela's. They are item number FG-01-5250 and come in 42" or 52" length. I used a 42" net over each cabover window. The width stretches from 10" to 18" to accommodate bulky items.

Link to thread with pics

Installation was easy, about 10 minutes with a phillips screwdriver to secure the plastic hooks that the loops on the cargo net secures to.

I can now fill my bookshelf to the ceiling all the way across to even hold my small collection of DVDs and no longer have to worry about books launching themselves off the shelves.

Now, to figure out what to do with my TV remote....

In Search of Fish, the August return to Diamond Lake (08-23-2008 to 08-25-2008)

I guess you could say that I have an addiction to Diamond Lake, which is sort of funny really.

Most of my early memories of camping there involved sites with inadequate shade and annoying populations of mosquitoes. Heck, when I made my one and only actual tent camping trip there back when I first bought my little Plymouth Acclaim, the resultant sun burn and heat exhaustion almost turned me off camping for the rest of my life.

Heck, in my last tale of fishing Diamond lake with some fellow Northwest Pickup Camper Owners, I nearly sank a boat trying to fish in a sea of dragon fly larva.

But, I still find myself inexorably drawn back to that lake, and for the life of me, I don't know why. Perhaps I just love fishing there? Even though I still haven't broken my fishing curse.

So, here I am again, and I find myself returning only a month later to Diamond Lake, this time with the big Fisher Spectrum Sport of Floyd's in tow to try plying my fishing skills with an 18' aluminum boat equipped with a 90 horse power Mercury.

Just a ... Slight.... upgrade from last time. With luck, I won't swamp it this time ;).

---

Much like my previous trip, I reserve a campsite. Because of the fact that the campgrounds around Diamond Lake aren't built with long trailers in mind, I end up reserving the one site I can find that has a double-wide pad so I have sufficient parking to stow the boat trailer next to the camper.

In hindsight, I would have probably been better served getting a more shaded site and leaving the boat parked down by the launch with a locking pal on the trailer's tongue.



My buddy Mason has tagged along for the journey this time around, having had to miss the previous trip and in need of the urge to scratch his fishing itch.

Normally, I strike out for Diamond Lake the previous evening and make camp by around 2-3am. My regular approach wasn't feasible this time, as I had to load the camper up from my current home at the Duyck's Peachy Pig farm, and then drive down to Salem to pick up the boat. By the time I've done both, its already late and I'm getting tired.

So, in the end I wind up departing Salem, Oregon for Diamond Lake in the early afternoon and make Diamond Lake by early evening.

Since there's not too much daylight left, we leave the camper on the truck for the night and get camp set up.

Dinner consists of my usual camping staple of Chip Beef in Country Gravy on toast, and then we enjoy the evening sitting round the campfire enjoying a couple of nice cigars.

Since we want to try and get a jump on the fishing the next day, we turn in early.

---

The next morning, we unload the camper, and tow the boat down to the pier. Given my luck, the wind has picked up a bit and the pier closest to us is on the south east corner of the lake, so all of the waves are moving in towards the launch.

Off loading the boat goes without problem, a little bit of time spent by the two of us walking it off the trailer once its afloat via ropes. So far, so good.

While I drive the truck and now empty boat trailer back up the ramp and take it over to one of the available parking spots available for anglers, Mason in the meantime boards the boat and minds the tie offs while I squeeze myself into a life vest and go over the cast off checklist in my head.

This trip is the first time I've ever taken this boat before, given how much the boat cost, I'm more than a bit paranoid about not screwing anything up.

Now, there's one major issue about motorboat engines you need to understand. Most engines out there, or at least every engine I've ever used is carbureted.

Why is this important?

When they set the jet size on a boat engine, they usually do it at sea level, so its fuel mixture and everything is set and doesn't normally adjust for higher elevation.

So, the engine has a tendency to run rich.

What does that mean?

Means a boat newbie has to remember that its ALOT easier to flood the engine at 5200 feet up than at 100 feet up.

Given my paranoia about screwing things up, I start the engine in idle. No problems. We cast off. Still no problems. As I back the boat around the pier, the engine dies.

Well, when Floyd was educating me on how to run the boat, I mis-remembered his instructions on what pushing the ignition key in does. I remembered it as working as one would push the primer ball on a lawn mower engine, push it in, one short shot of fuel into the carb, hold it to start the motor.

What it actually does is the engine will continue to "prime" the carb until you let it off.

Remember how I mentioned it's alot easier to flood an engine at 5200 feet?

So, here we are, 10 feet away from the pier engine towards the shore getting pushed back towards the rocks and the engine's flooded.

The water around this pier is at best 6' deep at its edge and rapidly comes up.

Engine: Crank-Crank-Crank, ~Sound of Crickets~

Mason: "Matt, what do we do?"

Me: "!@##$!@$#%@#Q@#!@"

Engine: Crank-Crank-Cra-"VROOOM!"

In my frustration of trying to restart the engine, I had moved the throttled back to the idle position, but had failed to push the "neutral" toggle back in when I moved the throttle back to the starting position.

The Spectrum launches forward, lifting the bow long enough to launch Mason back onto his hind quarters, he'd been walking forward to drop the anchor before we ran aground, me still thinking the engine was in neutral.

We're off, at last, crisis averted, male pride.... only slightly dented.

---

So, we off, the Spectrum is purring along, though because of the flooding, the altitude, and the fact that the engine's a 2-stroke, we decide to make a lap of the lake to warm the engine up properly and burn off the excess fuel-oil mix in the carb before anchoring off and dropping a line.




Captain Dunce-Burger, Moi,

and my co-pilot, Mason, Hard Core Rocker.


So, first things first, up at the northwest corner of the lake is one of my regular fishing spots. Its cooler, in the shade of Mt. Bailey and also not too far from the fish funnel on the stream that leads out of the lake.

Lining the shore for about ten feet out are large crops of lake bottom grass that the fish would normally use to hide in.

We bring the boat along side these weedy patches and drop our bow and stern anchors.

Why two anchors?

The wind that day was blowing and had an annoying habit when we first tried just using the big bow anchor of spinning us around like a top.

With Mason's handicap, this made it extremely difficult for him to cast his line out towards the weeds before the boat would swing away from it and he'd be facing out toward the center of the lake.

Two trips around the clock and the stern anchor was dropped and tied off.

We fished this area for about two hours, with a few fish biting around us, but none seemed interested in our bait.

To add insult to injury, the Dragon Fly's were back to taunt us a second time.

This time, they were adults, and I'm guessing it had to be mating season, because they were out in force, making the beast with two backs all along the gunwales of the boat, and occasionally on top of us if we didn't flick them off.

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We finally gave up on anything biting amongst those weeds, so we set off at a low speed watching the fish finder for blips we might hope were large numbers of fish.

About half way along the length of the lake heading due south, my cell phone began to ring, Matthew B, another friend and fishing buddy, he'd reached Diamond Lake. We'd spoke a day or so before and at the time, it wasn't certain if he was going to be able to make it or not.

I gave me the rough position of where we were in conjunction to local landmarks along the shores and then continued on south towards the bottom end of the lake where I'd seen several boats earlier in the day.

As we neared the south end of the lake, I brought us to a crawl and slowly made my way around to the right of gentleman floating in the middle of the water in a giant rubber donut.

What I didn't realize was the man in the donut was also waist deep in tall water plants that weren't immediately visible from the surface of the water.

It wasn't until the fish finder's depth alarm began sounding that I through the engine into neutral and leaned over the gunwale wondering how the hell we were coming up on the ground so fast when we were a 100 yards from the south shore.

What stared back at me through those crystal clear waters could only be described as an underwater forest.

Mason: "What is it?"

Me: "@#@$#&*&Weeds!"

So, I crank the wheel hard to port and throw the motor back into gear. We've barely cleared the forest when I start hearing, "THUMP-THUMP-THUMP!!" coming from the stern of the boat.

So, I kill the engine and hit the controls to raise the shaft out of the water. Wrapped all around the drive prop is a rope of those weeds. They're drawn tight like a rope on a winding drum and no amount of articulation by hand seems to be able to remove them.

Mason: "So, what do we do now?"

Me: "Gun it in reverse and hope it unwinds them."

Ironically, it worked, two brief burst of full speed stern after dropping the prop back into the water and the prop was clean.

Its about this time that Matthew B and family catch up to us. I wave at them to steer them away from following my swath cut from the weed forest and chat for a while before parting ways again to try our hand continuing the search for fish.

Campsite numbers are exchanged and we agree to meet at my campsite for beef stew dinner that night.

Mason and I spend several more fruitless hours failing to catch fish before we finally steam back towards the pier and reloading the boat onto the trailer.

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By the time Mason and I return from fishing, the sun's beginning to set. A few minutes are spent unhitching the boat and securing it back at camp before we detour to the camp showers to clean ourselves of bug spray, sun block and Crab-Anise bait scent.

On our way back we swung by Matthew B's campsite and loaded up the truck bed with Matt and family and returned to camp to get a campfire going and to fix dinner.

Matthew B's daughters ended up getting roped into helping peel carrots and potatoes and not too long after, we've got the pressure cooker chugging away.

Ten minutes later, we're all gathered around the picnic table, enjoying garlic bread and beef stew, chatting about travel misadventures and Matt's hilarious tales from work.

We spend a little while round the campfire partaking of our own choices in libations, before we say our goodbyes.

Matt and family plan to push on in the morning for Odell lake, and Mason and I plan to journey on to see Crater Lake.

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The next morning found us without too much trouble, and warmed up pretty quick. Mason and I had to make fast work of breaking down camp and loading it up to keep from roasting.

As usual, loading the camper was always the slowest part, blame the hydraulic jacks, we can only pump so long before we need to change position from front to rear and so on.

Since we wanted to have enough daylight to enjoy Crater Lake, we skipped fixing breakfast that morning and opted to stop by the lodge to have breakfast instead.

 

 

 

 

Sadly, I seem to always need to fill a certain misfortune quotient, and it met me when we were getting ready to hitch the boat back up to the truck.

As we were swinging the tongue over a bit to line it up with the hitch, the rock we'd wedged under the other wheel worked loose and the trailer started to roll down the slight incline of the driveway.

Lemme say this, no matter how strong you think you are, two grown men are going to be hard pressed to stop 3000lbs of boat and trailer once it gets rolling.

The trailer scooted itself down and crashed into passenger side corner of the rear of the camper leaving a small ellipse shaped puncture in the siding.

No biggie, easily fixed with a bead of caulk.

A little realignment work and we get the boat hitched up and then make the 20-point turn needed to squeeze the boat and camper back out of the site and onto the one-laner road that leads out of the park to dump station and then on to the lodge.

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After a far superior breakfast compared to my last visit, we say our good-byes to Diamond Lake and turn south on highway 138. Not too far along, we stop at the view point overlooking Diamond Lake.



I'd driven past this view point many times, but had never stopped at it before. There was some rather neat little information Kiosks about the Highway below.



I just love the bit where they use an Econoline-based motorhome as a size comparison for modern travel!

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We make the journey south down Hwy 138 till we reach the turn off for the Crater Lake Highway, where we part ways with the main haul and begin winding our way amongst the trees towards the entrance gate to the park.

Fully expecting to pay at the gate, it comes as quite a surprise that we had timed our visit to one of the park's celebrations and our entrance was free.  From the gate, we slowly winded our way up the side of old Mt. Mazama, the ancient volcano that later became Crater Lake. 

We finally crested the sharp switch back road up the side of the great crater and the deep azure waters of the Crater burst forth before us.

 

 

Wizard Island out in the beautiful blue lake in the center of old Mt. Mazama.  That little island is part of the original top of the volcano before it collapsed in on itself. 
 

 

 

Looking out at the jagged outcroppings that dodge the rim of Crater Lake’s bowl. 
 

The Redneck Express hiding on the shoulder of the road, the parking lot was nowhere big enough to accommodate the Express and the boat in tow. 
 

Also discovered the moment we got out of the pickup truck that it was freezing cold, even in late August!  Had to climb into the back of the camper and change clothes very shortly after setting foot out in just the parking lot alone, glad we did, it was even less warm when we climbed up to the rim.
 

We eventually made our way around to the Lodge on the south edge of Crater Lake, here there was parking large enough to accommodate the Redneck Express and the boat.  Here, we weren’t the only long rig in the lot!
 

Continuing on along the south rim of Crater Lake, looking out far out towards the Horizon.
 
 

 

Along our journey around the southern end of the Crater, we turned off to see one of the other spectacle of nature that you can find at Crater Lake, The Pinnacles.

Once again, we managed to squeeze the camper and boat into something that could possibly be described as a parking spot (Or part of the road, depending on your perspective) and hiked out along the trail overlooking the valley that the Pinnacles had formed in.

View Larger Map

 

 

 

 

 

After a while we returned to the Express and made our way back onto the Crater Lake Loop road.  Our next vista stop brought us to the Pumice Castle, a large outcropping of bright orange pumice rock left behind from ancient Mt. Mazama.  A combination of mixed materials and weathering created the castle-like features of this massive outcropping on the eastern wall of the caldera. 

 

 

Our last look east over the edge of Crater Lake before we called it quits and began our journey home.