Winter Camping?

Yowza!  Spent my first night in the teardop in winter.  The outside temperature dropped to 4 degrees.  The weather forecast called for snow, and I knew I would be putting the winter cover on soon.  I thought this might be my last chance for a long while.

Brady and I climbed into the teardrop and the first thing I felt was that the memory foam mattress was basically a frozen slab!  The tiny particles that make the mattress were so cold they barely moved.  Thankfully, after our bodies were sitting on them for a few minutes, they began to absorb some of our warmth.  Soon, it was somewhat pliable.

I switched on all the lights and remembered I had forgotten to turn on the battery.  I grabbed a frozen power cable and plugged the teardrop in to charge the battery.  When I turned the lights on it took them a while to warm up too.  I plugged in my 'new' heater and went inside to make a cup of hot cider.  The heater bogged down the circuit, even though it was plugged in.  Even after 30 minutes, the heater had not warmed the inside of the cabin at all.  I'm guessing that it must need a lot more wattage in order to produce the heat it promised.  I decided to turn it off and went and got another blanket.

I had been waiting all week to watch the final episode of The Game of Thrones.  I propped up my iPad, tapped into the wifi, and snuggled with Brady, as I watched the less than gratifying conclusion.

By the time the show was over, it had warmed a tiny bit.

I started the night with Brady laying on top of the blankets near me.  By about midnight, he was under both blankets and snuggling next to me.  I think he would have fine, but I was taking advantage of his body heat.

By the time the sun rose, the temperature was at its lowest.  The windows were frozen over due to our respiration.

True to the forecast, the snow had begun.

I decided to put the cover on and put the teardrop to bed for its long winter nap.

We're already planning our first adventure in the spring!

First Fall Foray

So the family decided to go fall camping.  Our first trip to Kettle Morraine Northern Unit proved to be beautiful. The fall colors did not disappoint.  It was a gray day our first day there.  We still enjoyed being together and tried to absorb nature's colorful display.

The kids decided that rather than pitch a tent that they would try car camping (a blow up mattress in the back of the CRV) more on that later.  

So, after a chilly and drizzle-filled hike, we ate lunch and decided to put everyone in the teardrop for some family game time.  We started with Uno and then moved on to BS. I have a great memory of us noticing the inside/outside thermometer in the cab.  It was a chilly 48 degrees outside, but our collective body heat soon had the temperature inside at a balmy 68 degrees. As a group we tried to warm it up to 70. What fun when we finally did it!

Soon it was time for the camp fire, which because I forgot fuel for the stove, was going to be our heat source for dinner too!  We cooked chicken and rice over the fire and had a delicious meal together. 

Once the fire burned down (we were all huddled around it as it burned into the evening) the men extinguished the flames with our 'natural flame retardant!'

E and I got the kids in their space and then snuggled into the teardrop. 

It wasn't too far into the night that we realized we had forgotten to put our garbage in the car.  Not only that, we also left a can of icing on the ground.  Um, to say we were glad we remembered before every raccoon in the county came to our site would be an understatement!  After a quick check of the camp area, and the kids, we drifted off to sleep. 

A couple of hours later, I heard Grace letting Erica know they were cold and uncomfortable.  So, she climbed in with Grace an sent Jack into the teardrop with me.  I was snuggled under the many layers and enjoying the wonderful mattress when my son quickly drifted off to sleep inside the teardrop. A couple of hours later, she kicked Jack out and sent him back to the car.

As soon as the sun began to show, the kids were up and packing up camp.  At first we weren't sure what all the ruckus was about; after peeking out the window at them, we decided to stay in our snug space and let them do it.  It wasn't too long when we had to get out of our warm and cozy bed to help them break down the pop up shelter.

Thankfully, the sun was out and it was a gorgeous, but chilly morning.  The thermometer said the low was 37 degrees.  You really feel that when you are outside like we were when camping. 

Instead of a nice hearty breakfast around the campsite, it ended up being a quick pack up and head to a breakfast place kind of morning.  Secretly, we were all very excited to head home because that meant that we were closer to the main agenda item of the day:  meeting Brady.  A Yellow Labrador from the Great Lakes Labrador Rescue Group.  His foster home was in the western suburbs of Chicago.

We all got warm showers, a short nap and hit the road ready to meet Brady.

After having an incredible Yellow Labrador named Baxter for 14 years, we knew it would be hard to open our hearts to a dog again.  Baxter passed away about six years ago and its taken all of us this long to feel like we can do it 

It was love at first sight for me!

And now, our family is +1 more. 

Reflecting Back On Summer...Looking Forward to Fall Trips

 

Had some great fun this past summer.  One of my recent explorations has been the Tangled App for the iPhone. I love this particular preset which is called Black and White Etching.  Here is a link to a fantastic review of the software.

 

 

 It really does look like an antique etching.  Here is the Carpe Diem in front of the house getting ready for an adventure.

 

Here we are at Starved Run State Park.

 

Here is the Carpe Diem at the College Green in Athens, Ohio. 

 

 

High Cliff State Park was one of our last summer trips.

 

 Love this portrait!

Now, to the Kettle Moraine Wilderness in a couple of weeks.  Can't wait to see the interesting topography and test our our first cool weather trip!

50+ States, 68 Countries, 3,109 Visitors!

This is amazing!  This little blog about my adventures with a 1947 Tourette Teardrop Trailer has traveled to six of the seven continents (only Antarctica remains) 68 countries and all 50 states of the United States!  The internet is mind blowing!

 Every state, and the District of Columbia has checked in!

 

A wide selection of countries in South America have visited the blog.

Many countries in Europe, some I have no idea why they would have read my blog!

Asia, particularly India and China have been big visitors.

 South Africa wins for the continent of Africa.

Some of my most frequent visitors are from Australia and New Zealand!  Hello over there!

 

California is my top US visitor, followed by Wisconsin.

Canada and New Zealand are my top two nation visitors. 
There is a big teardrop community in New Zealand!

To all the visitors, welcome!  I'd love to hear from you.  What is your story?  Do you have a teardrop?  Want a teardrop?  Have questions?  Feel free to ask!

Exploring/Discovering/Napping

So, I've often thought that in order to 'explore' or 'discover' I would need to go on a vast and exciting road trip.  Well, as my last post showed, you can have just as great a time (and distinctly better food) by camping in your own backyard.  So this past weekend, I not only explored my own 'backyard,' in the literal sense, but also the figurative sense.

I went for a walk on my way back from a Dr. appointment in the same field I had explored several weeks prior.  The last time I walked this vacant field, it was FILLED with some sort of gorgeous 'Black Eyed Susan 'like' flowers.'  I don't know what they really are, but they were so beautiful.  I picked a handful of them and brought them home to my wife, who loves Black Eyed Susans, and they lived for nearly two full weeks.  They were very, very hardy.

 

I loved photographing them and like I said, the field was FULL of them.  Three weeks later, they were totally gone!

 

All that was left of them were the centers.  I must have walked a half mile in the vacant field trying to find them.  Little did I realize, I had been passing them the whole time.  

 

The centers made for a great subject to photograph as well; I especially like them in black and white.

 

The late summer/early fall sky was a rich shade of blue and the cool breeze made me realize how much I love this time of the year.  Later that same day, I was in the yard moving some gravel when I noticed a strange sight:  it was, what looked to me at first glance to be a very 'thick' hummingbird.  After looking much more closely, I realized it was a moth body with hummingbird wings.  I had never seen anything like it before.  I stooped low to the ground and the creature was completely unafraid of me.  I held my hand out to it, but it refused to stop, but continued fluttering around the flowers sticking its long promiscuous into the head of each of the flowers.  I  posted this video to my Facebook account and one of my friends shared with me that it is called a Hawk Moth or a Hummingbird Moth.  (For some reason, I can't get the video to open here, but here is a link: 

Fascinating, no?

Saturday afternoon gave way to a soft and gentle rain.  The rain continued through the evening and Sunday was a bit heavier.  I could hear the soft rain lightly bouncing off the roof of the teardrop and I thought, "I"m going to take a nap, why not take it in the teardrop?"  So I did.  The rain lulled me to sleep and the cool temperatures made the nap all the more heavenly.  Here's what it sounded like inside the teardrop!

We are planning at least one more family camping trip this year, but I'm also looking forward to giving the Carpe Diem its first snow test later this year.  I'm looking into one of those inexpensive 12 volt heaters that truck drivers use.  I'm thinking that will be more than enough warmth in that tiny little cabin.  

So, there you have it.  You don't have to visit the National Parks to have a great expedition.  You can have one in your very own backyard!

Burleson Recreation Area

I was determined to go camping this weekend despite my busy children!  So, we decided to camp in one of our favorite places; the Burleson Recreation Area; AKA our backyard.

So, when I got home from work last night, I 'towed' the teardrop out to our site and made a fire.  Soon I was sitting by the fire enjoying a Pumpkin Beer; pretty close to heaven!

 

As the sun fell, we ordered Korean Sushi and enjoyed a gourmet meal; you don't get that at every camp site, that's for sure!

Soon, the sun was down, the stars were out and the fire was warming us.  We pulled our chairs closer to the fire to absorb its warmth and enjoyed burning off all our scrap wood that was pulled from our recent garage cleansing.

 

After we'd burnt all of our scrap wood and most of a bundle of hardwood, we called it a night and snuggled in the teardrop.

 

It was a wonderfully cool night; in the upper forties.  The teardrop stayed snuggly inside.  We had the comforter and one other blanket.  The thermometer said that it was about 55 degrees inside most of the night.  I still really want to go at least one more time this fall; I'm pulling for Kettle Moraine.  I would also like to camp, maybe even in the back yard, one time in the winter.  I am considering getting one of those small 12 volt heaters to try in the winter.  We'll see if I can get anyone in the family to come with me!

The first trip to the Burleson Recreation Area was a success.  I'm sure we'll be back here again soon!

High Cliff State Park, Wisconsin

Our last road trip of the summer took us a few hours north of Kenosha.  We were ready for our annual BBZ Family camping trip.  We are the first B (Burleson).  Our wonderful family friends the Bakala's are the second B, and the Z is for our friends the Zingleman's.  We've now had this annual trip for six summers.  When we all started, we were in tents and our kids were much smaller.  Now, the other two families have moved up to pop up campers.  We camped for the first time, with these friends, in our teardrop.  Our kids camped in the small tent that my friend and I took to Iceland and lived in for nearly three weeks.

The campgrounds were large and very nice.  We joined everyone there on a Saturday.  Our first night was incredibly different than the second.  The first night, the campground was packed with young families and lots of kids.  The second night was nearly silent; save for us.

We went on a couple of very nice hikes and explored what was called the Niagra Escarpment.  It was essentially a large rock face that dropped off about one hundred feet.  Beyond the rock face was this large lake, Winnebago.  The view above was from the forty foot observation tower that we climbed on our hike.  

Our friends liked our teardrop, but weren't sure they would be able to sleep in it.  I was again pleasantly surprised at how well we slept in it.  The cool breeze coming in through my side window helps me sleep more soundly than at homes it seemed.  The only problem was that sometimes the sound of the fan drowns out any outside sounds.  I was on the side that looked out at the kid's tent and I could at least see them clearly through my window.  It helps that they were less than ten feet away!  

The Carpe Diem at the entrance to the High Cliff State Park.

Just a few notes on the performance of the teardrop.  The bed area was perfect.  Again, the Fantastic Vent pulled cool air into the cabin through the windows.  When Erica closed hers, I got even more and loved it!  We are still having some trouble with my side's door latch.  There seems to be something wrong with the alignment of the lock and the slam plate.  There are a few other small problems.  The hatch started having trouble unlatching.  I'm not sure if I accidentally moved the latch on the bumper when I trimmed up the metal or if there is something wrong with the actual handle.  I'm going to have to put Jack in the cooler tray again and have him help me diagnose the problem.  Both of these issues need to be remedied before the next trip.  

We are hoping that we will get at least one more family trip in before it gets too cold out.  I'm shooting for Kettle Moraine's northern unit.  The topography there is really unique and would be fun to see in the fall.  I would really like to see how the teardrop does in the late fall.  I'm hoping I can get one of my kids to come with me!

First Father/Son Trip

Just returned from my first road trip with my son.  We ventured to Starved Rock State Park in Utica, IL. 

We were lucky.  The campground is set up so that one half of it, the wooded area, is able to be reserved.  This is nice if you are coming from far away and want to ensure that you have a place to stay for several days.  The other part of the campground is non-reservable and is first come/first served.  Luckily, we found the very last site in the wooded area and were able to lock it in for one night.  We quickly set up our camp and enjoyed some lunch.

Jack airing out his feet after our hike.

After munching, we decided to head to the visitor's center and orient ourselves.  We had heard about the canyons here and were excited to see them.  Jack was anxious to see a canyon and maybe a waterfall for the first time that he remembered.

 This is the first canyon we hiked.  It is called French Canyon.  

French Canyon had lots of water in it, but none coming down the falls area.  We found a little pool at the bottom of the falls that had some fairly large, young fish in it.  Not sure how they've survived or how they will as the summer lingers.  There was a nice person at the canyon who took our photo for us.

Jack scrambled up into one of the many caves in St. Louis Canyon.

This is St. Louis Canyon.  It is the only one in the park that still has water coming down from it at this point in the summer.

We had a good day yesterday.  We relaxed and I learned how to play the card game called:  Magic The Gathering.  My son is really into it and he was very excited to share it with me.  It's a lot like what I remember of Dungeon's and Dragons.  I wasn't a big player, but I got the concept.  He and his buddies are huge players in it.  It was fun to be able to share that with him.

We wished we had brought our shelter with us at about 7 a.m. this morning.  We heard a thunderstorm roll into the park.  It sounded worse than it really was due to the trees and all the leaves that held and dropped the rain.  It was enough that everything we had left out was quite wet, but that's when we were very happy to have been in the teardrop.  We were warm and dry inside.  

However, everything was slippery and wet in the park, so we opted to head home and unpack.  It was a short trip, but a really nice one.

Finally Sealed Up Properly?

It's the eve of my next trip; a journey to Starved Rock State Park with my son. I think I've finally gotten the teardrop sealed up the way it should be. First, I let all the caulk we applied in Ohio dry. Then I tested it with a jet of water directed at the entire under side of the teardrop. I found two small areas where water was sneaking in. I re-sealed those areas again with more caulk and then applied another layer over the entire area where the gap was. Finally, today, I applied a rubber membrane (aka inner tube) to the edges.

I applied more adhesive to the rubber to 'seal' it in and then lastly I put the linoleum in place. The rubber, when the adhesive fully cures, will keep the moisture from penetrating the seam. We are planning on pulling out pretty early in the morning and then a full day of hiking and exploring tomorrow at the park. I'm excited!

Visual Journal: From Beginning to End and a Meditation on Window Making

I finally had the chance to complete a visual journal of the entire process of the restoration and renovation of the Carpe Diem.  What amazes me is that the whole process, from purchase to 'completion' took about six months.  However, of those six months, we only 'had' the Carpe Diem for three.  I drove to Tennessee to pick it up during spring break at the end of March and immediately began restoration.  I took hundreds of photos of the process and it was tough  weeding through those to find just the right ones.

 

The passenger side window before.

Driver side window before.

As is typical on most projects like this, I would take a step forward and three back.  For example, one of the projects I began after cleaning and sealing up the inside, was to rebuild the screen windows.

After cleaning and installing new hinge.

Inside of door.

The remains of the original screen portion of the window.

Cobbled together to make a template.

Replica above; original below.

Dry fit: inside.

Dry fit: outside.

Completed frames ready for screens.

After more than two days replicating the originals, decided to use these sliding windows.  In my defense, I hadn't been able to find a suitable window until I came across a window on, of all places, Pintrest!  A few days later, they were here and installed.  

With that, I give you the before, during and after video of my work on the Carpe Diem:

Carpe Diem Before and After from Todd Burleson on Vimeo.