Camp life

[NorthernRedneck]

So I had a short double ended female hose and a length of garden hose with only the female end. Good enough. I cut a length long enough and attached it to the hose. Dropped the hose down into the sink and cut it off. Hot n cold water adjustment is on the back of the camper and the hose goes into the sink. I only have to finish the drain but I don't have the right stuff out here. It's an hour drive to town. Next trip. In the meantime I have a few cold ones in the refrigerator.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

We're in a severe heat warning . Humidity levels of +35 celcius for this afternoon. I'm at camp alone for 2 nights with absolutely nothing to do for a change. Good thing as my back has been hurting with all the rain and thunderstorms we've been having.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

The main structure of the sink house is done. I came out to camp yesterday and first got to work loading up a plastic shed for my former neighbor as he is getting rid of his site. The camp owner has a skid steer with a set of forks so we used that to load the shed. She who must be obeyed was worried about the size of the sink house and how close to the camper it is so I did some measuring and it can be moved about 6" back. Not a big deal. It's just sitting on fence boards and can slide.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

While I'm waiting for upper management to arrive and give commanding orders on exactly how she wants it, I whipped up a counter piece out of leftover materials. If she gives the go ahead, this is kinda what it will look like with a counter to hold a drying rack for dishes.

In order for the sink to sit flush, I can notch out a corner of the drip tray at the back. I plan on securing it with a small bracket I had in the shed.

The shelf/counter awaiting management approval. Those decisions are above my pay grade.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

The sink area is done aside from a shelf above. The sink is in place. The counter is actually one of the original shudders I had made for the kitchen. 90% of this sink house is recycled materials leftover from other projects. Total cost under $40.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

It works great. Especially on a hot day like today. 27 celcius in the shade. Which brings me to another point. We get a nice breeze coming through that area and with it being shaded, it's 10 degrees cooler.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

We're at camp until Sunday. I have been battling a sciatic nerve flare up in my right leg for a week. So my physiotherapist suggested a couple stretches to do every 20 minutes or so followed by resting with my leg stretched out to relax the sciatic nerve. Here's what I've come up with. Every 20 minutes I get up and stir the fire and bend over putting wood on.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

The r&r is helping my sciatica pain as I can now stand unassisted and for longer than a few seconds but still have to take it easy.

In the meantime, I am planning my next project/upgrade. When I built the kitchen, I wired it the same as a house with 2 plug ins, a switch and light. The shower on the back of the kitchen doesn't have lights. Neither does the sink house. I also want to install a couple plugs along the short pony fence along the camper.

Here's the beauty part of this little planned project. My father in law is a retired electrician. My 14 year old son just spent a week with him and inherited some of his electrical tools. My plan is to bring my son to camp alone sometime in August mid week without anyone else around and we will use his tools and I will show him how to wire everything together as he's expressed an interest in becoming an electrician.

I also upgraded my son to riding the big polaris sportsman 700 this week. He had previously been using my grandfather's old yamaha 125.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

It's 9am at camp and already 25 celcius. The hydro kicked out middle of the night because, well, the additional strain of everyone's ac on the hydro grid overloaded their system only hours into a 2 week long forecasted heat wave. No hydro means no coffee maker. And I don't have a generator here for backup. So I improvised and it worked great. I boiled a small pot of water on the BBQ side burner then slowly poured it into the filter with coffee grinds into another pot. Instant cup of coffee.

Next on the agenda was breakfast.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

Hydro was supposed to be on again by 10am. It was on briefly around 3pm and didn't return until 7pm. Only to surge and ho on and off for 2 hrs before going off completely again until 4am. I'm bringing my generator to camp when I come back out
either Wednesday or Thursday this week. So we pretty much stayed in the shade outside all day yesterday in 37 degrees of heat. The power was out which meant no cell phone service either.

(Just a side note.....camp is exactly 100km from the nearest community in either direction. I can just imagine sitting here with an ev with less then half it's battery life left and no way to charge it as the hydro grid is out. I can easily do around 800km on a tank in my f150 and that's including pulling a trailer occasionally during that time. Imagine if I'd gone out and spent 100k on a new f150 lightning that can barely make 350km on a charge and that gets cut in half pulling a trailer? I'd be sitting here unable to charge to get home.) and that is exactly what scares me as the government is pushing for everyone to switch to electric. That might work in Toronto but drive about 16hrs northwest where the grid is 90+ years old and can't support the additional stress of a toaster oven being plugged in let alone an ev. Rant over...back to camping.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

My former neighbor had a huge water trampoline folded up under his camper. He asked if I wanted it for the kids. Sure! It had 2 previous patches. Both leaked air when I blew it up. I found another smaller leak as well. We blew it up and took it to the lake last weekend to leak test it. I hauled it home and repaired the one leak we'd found. Hauled it back out. Re inflated it only to find both of the previous patches were leaking. I brought the thing back home and spent part of the day today leak testing each patch with a spray bottle of water and soap. No more bubbles. It's inflated again. We'll see if it's still up by morning.

 

[m1west]

looks like a fun toy

 

[NorthernRedneck]

It will be. I've been trying to get it fixed this week as I'm heading back out for the long weekend tomorrow afternoon and wanted to have it hold air overnight before inflating it and leaving it in the lake all weekend. It's got a ladder to climb up on and an anchor attachment below to hold it in place.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

I spent the day yesterday with my 14 yr old son doing electrical with his grandfather's tool he recently inherited. I had him installing electrical boxes for switches plug ins and 2 ceiling lights. The sink house now has a light and switch. We split the line at a junction and ran a line up along the short fence for a plug in. I also wanted a light in the shower house and was originally going to split the line there and have a switch and light. Instead, we ran a power line off the light in the kitchen to power another light in the shower. One switch in the kitchen turns on both the kitchen and shower light.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

Now onto some sad news we received this morning from one of our camp friends. Richard and his wife Laurie moved into the campground about 5 years ago. We've gotten to know them well. I have gone fishing and hunting with Richard. He had a problem with alcohol unfortunately as well as suspected drug use stronger than Marijuana. He passed away from an overdose last night.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

I was bored this morning as it was raining. I hauled out my tools and dug through my scrap pile of lumber and salvaged metal and built a roof covering between the shower and sink house tying everything together nicely.

The lights in the shower house and sink house are recycled from our basement at home as we've been replacing them with brighter fixtures. I ran out of cable staples to secure everything. Next trip out.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

A little deck project started and completed today at camp. This is more than just a deck. It's memories. Dad built it back about 25ish years ago to use at his seasonal campsite. I used it for years at my site where I grew up. When I moved to the city, it came with me and made It's way to our seasonal campsite. It was our main deck until we built the bigger one. We moved it over and it became part of the deck and kitchen. The frame was still solid so I picked up some proper deck boards matching the rest. I removed the old boards and leveled and permanently attached it to the rest. Next, I laid down new boards and reattached the fence along the camper.
I then modified the gate to accommodate the additional gap.

As I said. To anyone else it's just a deck. For me. It's many years of camping memories. Dad built it originally. I added some touches.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

I was digging through my scrap pile of lumber and found enough fence boards to create a lip around the roof to finish it up nicely along the south side of the kitchen and the roof between the shower and sink. That was yesterday. There's more....

 

[NorthernRedneck]

This morning, the weather was crappy and I was stuck inside. I brought my drill in.......that's dangerous.

We'd been talking about removing the u shaped dinette in the camper and putting 4 chairs and a table which would allow us to upgrade the sofa to something more comfortable.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

There's more....

The weather improved slightly this afternoon so I wired up the shed with a plug switch and light.

 

[bczoom]

There's more....

The weather improved slightly this afternoon so I wired up the shed with a plug switch and light.

View attachment 181927

If I may suggest, take that romex wire from the plug to the switch and put it under the switch and put a drip loop at the switch end.
Imaging your roof leaking (or just slowly pouring a cup of water) on the currently installed wire. As the water goes down the wire, it's going to go in the boxes for both the plug and the switch. You don't want that.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

Good idea. I will take a look and switch it around. I had thought about that when I finished off the wiring for the shed this morning. It was raining yesterday so I just threw a male end on the wiring from the shed down to the plug behind the kitchen. I put that one there for the kids in the tent. This morning I tied the power wire to the pole into the shed and kitchen I made sure to have the lines going into the box from the side and bottom. At the pole, I have both the camper and kitchen running to a splitter cable which is protected by a surge protector.

 

[bczoom]

For those exterior plugs (e.g. the ext cords), may I also recommend you seal those joints via ele tape or some junction protectors? Something like these.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

Almost like I was reading your mind. I put my phone down and went around with a brand new roll of electrical tape wrapping up everything box. Used almost a full roll. Made sure everything was sealed as good as I could get it.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

This morning, the weather was crappy and I was stuck inside. I brought my drill in.......that's dangerous.

We'd been talking about removing the u shaped dinette in the camper and putting 4 chairs and a table which would allow us to upgrade the sofa to something more comfortable.

Looking ahead it's going to be just my wife and I so we decided to rip out the whole dinette and replace it with a smaller table and 2 chairs we had sitting up in storage above the garage. We just ordered a sofa and ottoman from wayfair to replace the old one. Just this morning, I was sitting on it and pulled the handle to release the footrest and the cable snapped going to the lever. I already replaced one side last year.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

Here's what we ordered.

We decided on a 3 seater sofa with ottoman. We measured and have 80" of space for the sofa and also wanted a place to store extra blankets and also have a solid surface to put drinks down.

The reason we went with wayfair vs just going to a local store and getting something is this....

The door is only 24" wide. We have to be able to get it in there easily. The frame and back of this sofa all comes apart for shipping. So we can get it into the trailer one piece at a time.

.......and I just had a light bulb moment. At home, we have 4 matching grey chairs similar similar style and size to the black one's. Guess they'll be making a trip out to swap.

Why do I already see myself repainting the whole inside of the trailer? we're already talking about replacing the counter on the island as the thing is all swollen around the edges from water. Why the manufacturer used laminated press boards that absorbs water as a kitchen island, I'll never know. The newer ones are a plastic material light and waterproof.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

I drove out to camp to pick up my sxs and also bring out the chairs. They look good in there. They actually compliment the grey trim on the slide out making it not so brown in there.

While I was there, I changed out an led ceiling light in the bathroom. Led's are nice but they burn out and you have to change the whole fixture. This is the third one I've changed.

 

[m1west]

You have made lots of improvement, over the years on that camp site. Looks quite livable.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

You have made lots of improvement, over the years on that camp site. Looks quite livable.

We started out with a gravel pit that had just been filled in the week before. There were only 3 campers near ours when we moved in. It's been a lot of work and upgrades over the past 11 years.

 

[NorthernRedneck]

This weekend we're doing something completely different. It's Fair weekend at our local fair literally right behind my place. We have 6 acres that back onto the fairgrounds property. There will be carnival rides livestock shows, wagon rides and a bunch of other things. My wife is part of the fairgrounds committee organizing it. Last night we were over setting up big tents outside. I also brought our older fifth wheel to use as a rest area throughout the day for volunteers. We have it for sale as well and a few people are interested in seeing it. So we'll have a for sale sign on it.

We are using our fifth wheel as a mobile office for the weekend and also staying there at night. I will be running a volunteer kitchen feeding up to 70 volunteers throughout the day. My job is basically just stand there and BBQ burgers and hot dogs at lunch and supper time for 2 hours each time. We'll have my generator running with ac on in both campers as a cool down area for volunteers as well as we've been in a heat wave again this week. I set them up facing each other with the awnings lined up perfectly creating a nice shaded area.

The blue dot is our place. The dropped pin is where I set up the fifth wheels next to the main gate. The big green field is parking. The part of the fairgrounds property ours backs onto is all wooded but I have atv trails connected. We can whip back over on the sxs if we need anything. Of course we will have a fire going at night after the gates close for volunteers to unwind.