First Spring Trip to Burleson Recreation Area!

Well, since nearly every camp ground in the state of WI and IL are booked for the holiday weekend, I decided to reserve a site in our backyard; also known as Burleson Recreation Area.  There's always room and the showers are hot!

 

 Before I set up camp, I gave the teardrop a wash.  I also protected all the rubber gaskets with a UV protector so that they'll stay pliable and keep the moisture out.  

 Before

After

One of the things from last year's list was to replace the screws on the door and hatch handles.  The problem was that they are at a severe angle and I tried installing them with my drill; it tended to strip out the phillip's head screws causing a very painful scratch every time you opened the door.  So, thanks to the guy at the hardware store, I found these very cool angle drivers.  

 

Angled driver.

 

Stripped screws!

 

Wish I had known about this tool a long time ago!

I'm actually quite glad that I opted to stay 'at home' on this trip.  It gave me the opportunity to take care of a lot of items from last year's list and some that weren't on there that should have been.  For example:  last year I added the stone guard foam pad to the front of the teardrop.  We had lots of problems with water getting caught between it and the skin of the teardrop.  So, I added a strip of aluminum and caulked the heck out of it to ensure that the strip remained affixed to the skin of the teardrop and 'sealed' the neoprene.  (I did not put any screws in the aluminum, so the caulk/adhesive was all that was holding it on.)  Well, it worked well, but I was less than perfect about how I applied the caulk/adhesive.  The result was a less than lovely 'line' where the aluminum met the skin of the teardrop.  In addition to that, the caulk, which was clear, turned black when dirt collected on it.  So, I decided to mask off the area and use my hammered paint to 'cover it.'  It worked perfectly and looks a million times better.  

This was also my first 'trip' in which I used my CPAP machine in the teardrop.  I learned that the 'fault' I kept getting on my AC Converter was due to the fact that it requires the DC Battery to be at 12 volts or more in order to properly convert it into AC power.  I am probably going to want to add an AC 'direct' plug in the cabin so that I'm essentially going directly from the Marinco power inlet to my AC device.  I'm not sure how to deal with this when we are off the grid.  I'll need to look into this for future trips for sure.  I know that there is an available battery system for the CPAP, but it was prohibitively expensive.  I've seen some devices at Harbor Freight that would work just as well, but are much less expensive.

 

Here is one I was considering from Harbor Freight.  Could be useful for all kinds of camping trips; especially when the battery on the tow vehicle dies like it has on us several times!

I've got several more tiny items on my list that I want to try to accomplish before making the 'long' trip back to the concrete pad where the Carpe Diem rests.  In the meanwhile, here is my view this morning from the teardrop's open door.

 

Happy Memorial Day everyone!

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.