Teardrop Stories

One of the things that I heard when I started exploring teardrops is that people are very interested in them.  I read lots of stories of people stopping teardrop owners at gas stations and at camp grounds and asking lots and lots of questions:  "Do you sleep in there?"  "Where do you get dressed?"  "What is that thing?"  Those are just a few of the questions I heard people would ask.   So, when we started out on our very first road trip, I was ready for the 'looks' and the questions.

It started right in my own neighborhood.  I was finishing preparing the teardrop for the trip when a family of four stopped on their bikes in the street in front of our house.

"Did you make that?"  "Do you know how to weld?" the father asked.
"No, I restored it." I answered. "It's a 1947."
"I have a 1947 too.  It's a little taller than yours.  I bought it thinking it would fit in our garage, but its too tall to fit, so I have it in our driveway.  Stop by anytime and take a look at it if you would like."

Hitching it up and starting our 2,300 mile road trip northward, we got lots and lots of fun looks and double takes.  More than a few times I saw people point and get very animated when they saw us on the road.

The Carpe Diem at the rest stop in Escanaba, Michigan.

Whenever we pass a 'classic car,' we see a big smile on the driver's face.  There's a mutual respect for the labor of love put into bringing a piece of Americana back to our modern times.  

When we were camping at Agawa Bay in Canda, which was our first 'official' night in the teardrop where we had to 'pay' to camp, we loved seeing people walk or drive by and look.  We saw a modern, factory made teardrop in the campground.  They didn't seem very interested in us, but we were fascinated by their teardrop's pop up expansion design.  It looked much like ours, but when they parked, the whole roof lifted off to create a huge living room and a second 'bunk.'  When we got home we looked into the design and found out more about it.

It is called a Safari Condo Alto.  It's a slick design that surely game me trailer envy.  We didn't bother the owners, but we did walk by several times, v-e-r-y slowly.  

When we had it parked in my brother-in-law's driveway, we had several families stop to inquire what it was and what it looked like inside.  

As we started back from our visit to Athens, we stopped for gas in Nelsonville, Ohio.  One gentleman came up to me in the filling station.  

"How old is your teardrop?"

"It's a 1947."

"My dad had one just like that," the man from Tennessee told me.  "I had my first spanking in a teardrop like that!  My dad said I was misbehaving and he tossed me inside.  I'm 67 years old!"

"Well, that's how old this teardrop is!"

"I think we had the same one, but yours in a lot better shape than I remember ours.  Everything that should be old, is new!  You've done a really nice job on that thing.  It's beautiful!"

"Thank you!"

"We passed you several times on the freeway, I was hoping you would pull over so I could talk to you.  I was telling my son all about the teardrop when we saw you on the freeway."

It's wonderful how the teardrop pulls people together like that.  There's something about them that breaks down barriers and encourages people to share and ask curious questions.  One of the things I hope to be able to do with this blog in the future is to record those stories. 

First Trip Review

The Carpe Diem's first road trip is in the books!  We had an awesome time; we camped a total of 9 nights, traveled over 2,300 miles through five states and two countries!  In a very roundabout way, we made a loop around Lake Michigan.

We learned about how narrow the turning radius is with the basket on the front of the teardrop. Thankfully, the bumper that I damaged pretty significantly at first glance, literally popped back into place after about 45 minutes.  I don't know how it did it, but the plastic coating was all that was 'damaged' on the car.  It returned to its proper place and you would never know that it had been damaged by me turning too tightly.  Adding the 12" extension made a monumental difference.  It is now so much easier to maneuver the teardrop. We learned how important it is to check that the coupler has completely latched onto the tow ball.  Thankfully, we learned this lesson on a backcountry road away from heavy traffic.

Kenosha to Sugar Island.

Sugar Island to Agawa Bay, Ontario and then further north to Wawa, Ontario.

Back to Sugar Island and then onward to Powell and Columbus, Ohio.

From there we went back to Powell, then to Granville and finally to Athens, Ohio.

Then it was time to close the loop and head home.

Google has us at about 1,950 miles, but in fact, we put on just over 2,300 miles in all.

We had one major repair; the caulking and repairing of the area under the doors where lots and lots of rain got into the cabin.  The 'fix' never really properly set up and in fact, we had more rain on the return trip.  Not to worry, we removed everything, yet again and are currently drying out the teardrop.  When it is dry, we'll re-caulk, add a rubber barrier along the seam and try it all over again!

All in all it was a very successful road trip!  We learned a lot about what we want to add to the teardrop and tiny adjustments we will make to make the Carpe Diem even better!

The Carpe Diem Visits Ohio University and Narrowly Averts Catastrophe!

Both my beautiful wife and I attended The Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.  It is in fact, the place we met and fell in love.  It was quite fitting then that the last 'leg' of our first trip in the Carpe Diem go through there.   

The Carpe Diem at the College Gate in Athens, Ohio.

Before we get there, we need to catch up a little on the trip since the last update.  We loaded up and headed to Granville, OH where our good friends Mike and Christina were in town to visit their family.  We met them for a nice brunch at a place called Day y Noche.

Mike and I with the Carpe Diem.

After a great visit with them, we dropped them off at Mike's parent's home.  We were able to see his Mom and Dad too.  I was very close to them too.  

Erica and I turned towards Athens and things were looking well.  Then, near disaster struck.  We were on one of the many small roads that lead towards Athens.  We heard a loud plunk and then the sound of metal scraping across concrete/gravel.  I was able to quickly check to be sure that it was safe to pull over.  I did so and we carefully got out to take stock of what happened.  The tongue of the trailer popped off the tow ball.  Thankfully the safety chains held, the tongue of the trailer actually rode up onto the basket on the front of the trailer.  If we had been on a larger road, or going faster, things might not have turned out as well.  

The basket took a little bit of a hit; nothing a sledge hammer can't fix.

I learned to pull up on the tongue to make sure it has properly latched! 

The road rubbed the tongue a bit, but nothing a little Rustoleum can't fix.  

We took a huge breath, hugged each other and counted our blessings.  We started back towards Athens.  The rain had held off all morning, but it started again along the way.  Almost everything had changed.  Even the freeways were different; the small towns of Lancaster and Nelsonville had bypasses which were terrific for travel, but I'm not sure they will be good for the small businesses in those towns.  We made it to Athens and went to The Strouds Run State Park.  Neither of us had camped there before and mid July, during the week, is apparently the least visited time in the park.  In fact, we were the only people in the park.  It rained almost all evening and into the night.  Something was going on with our battery and it did not fully charge while we were in Powell.  So, the hot and humid weather, and the relentless rain made for a less than perfect night of sleep.  Well, that and the fact that we were the only people in the entire park, in the middle of Appalachia, without any cell service... Nonetheless, we made it and here is the view we had when we woke up this morning.

Here was our campsite.

I love the panoramic feature on the iPhone!

We hitched up and headed back to Athens.  We thought that early morning would be a good time to try to take the photo of the Carpe Diem at the top of this post.  Then, we headed north to pick up the kids.

My parents and my nephew with my kiddos!

The skies looked ominous as we started toward home.  About half way home the skies opened up.  We stopped for gas and I checked on the teardrop.  I was not happy to see a white, milky-type substance dripping from the front of the teardrop.  The caulk was clearly not dry and it was obviously not reacting well to the pounding rain.  I decided to not think about it and deal with it when we finally got home.  

The arch at the border of Ohio and Indiana; a brief respite from the rain.

About five hours later, we pulled into our driveway.  The kids were great; they jumped out and started clearing out the car and the teardrop like a pit crew at the Indianapolis 500!  A little while later, we had the teardrop on the concrete patio, the luggage and laundry emptied and were ready to assess the damage from the rain.

The aluminum 'drip guard' that we had glued in place came off again.  Thankfully, it fell into the basket again and we were able to retrieve it.  One corner started peeling away a bit.  We'll need to re-glue that corner once everything has dried out.

All our gear washed and ready to dry.

The sheet of linoleum on the back of the teardrop drying after being washed of the liquified caulk.  We put the EZ Up overt the teardrop so that we could let everything dry.  Once it does, we'll start all over with the caulking process.  Hopefully we'll get a stretch of dry weather.  We were all very happy to shower and head to a much needed night of rest.  It was a terrific trip, but we are all glad to be back!

Teardrop Pick Up Journal

The trip south to pick up the teardrop was a crazy blur of a couple of days.

I started heading south at 6:00 a.m. and met my good friend and wingman, Jim Tingey near Highland Park, IL.  As we made our way south, the weather slowly degraded.  Just outside of Chicago, the snow started.  It got progressively worse as we got closer to Indianapolis.

  At one point, we saw a State Trooper turned the opposite direction to oncoming traffic with his lights flashing. 

Moments later, we came over a hill and saw traffic stopped for as far as we could see.  We wisely pulled off and found a back route around Indianapolis.  We joined back up with Interstate 65 on the south side of Indianapolis and continued on our way.  We later found out that the whole interstate had been shut down on that small stretch due to a very bad crash.  We had successfully dodged a bullet!  The weather continued to get worse; at one point it was snowing so hard I could barely see the yellow line.

We traversed the entire state of Indiana, a small section of Kentucky and finally Tennessee.  I made a questionable call and took a 'back' route to Cookeville rather than taking the interstate.  We got to see some picturesque parts of Tennessee and arrived at Hans' at around 6:00 p.m.

After catching up with the Beans, we headed over to the garage and got our first official look at the teardrop.

Some things were pleasant surprises while others were more sobering.

The teardrop was smaller than I had imagined.  The skin of the trailer was in pretty good condition.  The tires were going to be a big problem.  They 'rubbed' on the aluminum skin when the trailer was moved.  We tested lots of theories:  the axle must be too big; the tires are too big for the frame and others.  We wouldn't know for sure until we took it to a tire place and they examined it.  The three of us enjoyed some Wild Turkey and had a terrific conversation about all manner of things.  We all turned in about 11:00 with plans to get started early in the morning.

The first thing we did was pull the trailer over to Wal Mart. 

We needed to pick up some items.  We purchased a safety chain and connectors, a temporary light kit, some cleaning pads, duck tape, and WD40.  While we were there, we took a look at the trailer tires.  They would be perfect; if they fit.  They were about 1/3 narrower than the automotive tires that were installed on the trailer.  With excitement, we purchased three of them (one for a spare) and asked the installers to put them on the trailer.  This would have been awesome because we would be almost ready to leave.  Turns out the bolt pattern didn't match.

We were going to have to try a tire specialist.

On to our second stop.  They thought that they could sell us a narrower profile tire that would fit the rim that was on the trailer.  They installed them and then it was pretty obvious, they were too thick.  They rubbed on the aluminum skin. 



The installer was awesome.  He tried all sorts of things to see if we could 'make' them work.  There was a lot of pounding with a sledge hammer and hammering.  In the end, we realized that this was not going to work.  







 So, I had an idea.  The 'spindle' or the 'hub' seemed to be the problem.  The hub we had on the axle was an automotive hub, not a trailer hub.  For this reason we would not find a tire that would fit the bolt pattern that would be the width we needed.  My idea was to remove the hub and replace it with a 'trailer' hub.

They directed us to a trailer specialty store.  We headed to New Era Trailer about 15 minutes away.  They were just the ticket.  They had the wheels, the hubs and even the lighting package we needed.  We purchased all of it and took it back to the tire specialists.  Their installer was tremendous.  He had the new hubs and tires installed in less than ten minutes.  We were nearly road ready. 

We pulled the trailer back to Hans' house and started working on the lights.  The snow had decided to come back and our hands were cold and we were slowly getting soaked by the snow/slush/rain that was falling pretty heavily.














Finally, we had the lights installed.  We were ready to hit the road.

We said our goodbyes, checked on directions and hit it!

Notice the snow!

We made it about two miles when I noticed the hatch.  It was acting like an air foil.  It was lifting up as we hit about 50 miles per hour.

We stopped.  Pulled out a bungee cord, that thankfully was left inside the cabin, and strapped the hatch down.  We knew it was missing the hatch handle and striker, I don't know why we didn't anticipate the problem.

We were on our way, again.  We made it less than a mile when we realized that it was still lifting up.  We stopped in the snow/sleet/rain and decided we needed to purchase some straps to hold the hatch down.  Jim and I went to an Auto Zone and bought some straps.  We asked for a cardboard box or two to use to keep our bodies somewhat dry as we crawled under the trailer to attach the straps.  After twenty minutes or so of fumbling with the straps, we figured out a system that seemed to work pretty well.  We started off again, it was about three o'clock in the afternoon.  The snow and rain was still coming down.  Jim followed behind me and gave me regular updates on how things were looking from behind.  We parted ways in Nashville and I was on my way north, without my wingman.

The snow did not let up until I reached Illinois.  I stopped once just north of Indianapolis.  I always love seeing the windmills in the giant wind farm there.  The night was clear and I could see hundreds of little red blinking lights that are found on the top of the windmill.  After a restroom break and another large soda, I was ready to make it the rest of the way home. Unfortunately I did not get to stop in Ohio to meet my friend Larry.  Things just did not work out for that visit, but I'm planning to meet with him this summer at some point.

I pulled into our driveway at about 1:15 in the morning.  In the past 48 hours, I had spent 22 of them on the road.  I took a shower and crashed.

Now that I 'own' it, how am I going to renovate it?

Once again the Teardrops and Tiny Trailer Forum has been a lifesaver.  I found two owners who have 1947 Tourette Tourers just like mine on the forum.  Both of them were generous with their insight and advice.

One of them did a complete overhaul of the trailer.  He separated the hull from the chassis and replaced the entire flooring.

As I'm learning more and more about what went into that overhaul, I'm thinking that I will probably do something very similar to my Teardrop.

I started asking questions about how to insulate and 'skin' the interior of the Teardrop.  I received several excellent responses about what types of glues and foams to use.  And then I had one of those moment where I realized I had completely blown it.  I had visions of me covering the interior with foam insulation and single sheets of birch plywood and lacquering them to a beautiful finish.  How on earth did I plan on getting those large sheets of birch plywood into the interior?  Through the door?  Duh!  I suddenly understood why one owner used cedar strips to do the job: they could easily be inserted through the doors!

I'm sure this is just the first of many, many more revelations I'll have over the next few months.

Larry and Jill, two owners from just outside of Dayton, Ohio were very kind to e-mail me and answer a slew of questions and give some terrific advice.

This is Larry and Jill's completely restored 1947 Chevrolet Truck and 1947 Tourette Teardrop Trailer.  Sweet isn't it?

As of now, I'm thinking that I will remove the cabin from the trailer and upgrade and repair it as needed.  Then we'll be able to access the interior of the cabin from underneath.  This will allow me to insert the full size sheet goods into the cabin and the roof after I've wired the entire trailer for lights and electricity.

That's my next task:  figure out what I want, electricity wise, inside the cabin and what additional lighting features and switches I want to add to the exterior too.  I'm going to study the forum posts on these ideas and hope to glean as much as I can from others mistakes.