Camper Maintenance

We had been aware since early November when we were at Dauphin Island, AL that we had at least one leak in our camper that we had to deal with.  And once we had stopped near Orlando around Thanksgiving and investigated further it was apparent that we had at least four leaks to sort out.  It has taken until now to feel as though all of those problems have been successfully resolved.

It has primarily been the continuing Curse of Corwin Ford that is to blame for this situation.  If our van would have arrived anywhere close to when we had been told when our order was placed, we would have had plenty of time for a planned shakedown cruise.  And we likely would have used the camper several times before embarking on our current adventure, so the odds were good that at some point we would have dealt with some rain and had ample opportunity to discover these issues much sooner.

Two changes to our van have eliminated most of the leak problems in our trailer:  adding mud flaps and raising the trailer ball height.  I've given a detailed account of our problems and solutions here on the Unofficial Camp Inn Forum (though a condensed version follows):
http://www.campinnforum.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=35263#Post35263

Our new mud flaps.

Our Ford Transit Connect Van's tires would pick up water on the roadway and its low, square rear end would eject the water almost directly at the condensation drains of our side windows, forcing water in through the drains and into the cabin.  Adding mud flaps solves this problem by greatly reducing the amount of water getting thrown on the camper.  It should also reduce the frequency with which we need to wash the camper, which over time will help offset the cost of this needed upgrade.

The van's hitch receiver was nearly the same height as the one on our previous tow vehicle (2013 Mazda CX-5), so we used our existing ball mount with a 2" rise on the van.  However, on the CX-5 the trailer was very slightly nose up, whereas on the van it was very slightly nose down (being within a quarter inch of being dead level).  That slight difference was enough to cause rain water to pool up on the rear galley drain pan of the camper, where it would be sloshed forward along the drainways of the galley's deep storage lids when braking, and be forced under the lids and into the deep storage compartments.  The slightly nose up configuration greatly minimizes the amount of water that accumulates on the drain pan and thus solves this problem (newer Camp Inns have been redesigned to eliminate this potential problem).

We had some other minor issues to resolve as well.  The foil waterproofing tape on the driver's side pass-thru door had started to fail.  So we replaced that and took a close look at all the other door openings that also used the same tape.  There was also a spot in the upper curbside corner of the galley hatch where a piece of this foil tape was missing.

We removed all of the door seals (cabin and pass-thru) and thoroughly wiped them all down with Armor-All, re-installing them after they had dried.  (It is a bad idea to let the Armor-All get on the camper's raw aluminum skin, so cleaning them in place was not a good option.)  The Armor-All helps keep them pliable, so that they should continue to work as intended and not fail prematurely.

We've purchased a product called HyperVent and laid it on the floor of the cabin.  It creates airspace below the mattress, so that if water does ever get inside the cabin and remains undiscovered, it has a better chance of evaporating on its own.  Otherwise, water can get trapped under the mattress, creating an environment for mold and mildew to grow and allowing moisture to slowly work its way into the woodwork.

The original leak that we had discovered in Alabama was due to the galley hatch weatherstripping having been installed incorrectly at the factory, which caused it to fail prematurely.  So that was also rectified.  The pictures below show the original installation, the correct factory installation and how our installation looked after our repair.

How our cap seal was installed - on top of the side galley seal.

The portion of our cap seal that was starting to fail and causing a leak.

How a correctly installed cap seal should look - the side galley seals butt against it.

Our cap seal after being correctly installed.

We're hopeful that we are now ready for another year on the road, though we'll need a nice hard rain to know with absolute certainty.  We are hoping we'll get that this weekend.

Reminiscing in St Pete

We drove north earlier this week to do a little reminiscing in St Petersburg, FL.  It was there 30 years ago that I was squeezed out of my grandmother's house by my Aunt Pat's annual southern migration.  I had spent the summer of 1985 bicycling solo across the U.S. and Canada and then down the East Coast, arriving in St Pete around mid-November.  It had been at least ten years since I had seen my grandmother, who at the time was 91 years old and still living on her own.  She lived in a tiny 600 sq ft house that my great uncle Charles Wiggins had built in 1948.  He had been a planing mill operator during the construction of the Panama Canal, before eventually retiring to Florida in the 1930s or 1940s (he was definitely in St Pete by 1945).  Being such a compact house, it wasn't possible for the three of us to live there together, and I was the uninvited guest...

The house on N. 28th Street built by my great Uncle Charlie.  With commercial zoning, it is currently listed for $125,000.

A young Uncle Charlie at work during construction of the Panama Canal.

So that caused me to find another place to live.  Fortunately, there were lots of available options to consider.  I lucked out when I found a tiny space attached to the rear of a house a few miles to the east of my grandmother's house.  I called it a lean-to, which appears to have originally been a screened-in backyard porch that was converted to a living space.  There was a tiny kitchenette, cramped bedroom and tiny bathroom.  There were ceilings that were low and which sloped at various odd angles, funky indoor-outdoor carpet and miscellaneous garage sale furnishings.  But being so small (no more than 200 sq ft), it was reasonably clean.

The lean-to was behind the main house, just in front of the converted garage apartment in back.

My reason for being in Florida then was much as it is for us now - I was waiting for warmer weather before continuing my travels.  The objective then was to head for Europe in the spring.

Living alone, I initially had lots of time on my hands.  It wasn't long before I realized that I had two next door neighbors who were similarly bored - Alea's two dogs, Courtney (a young, goofy Golden Retriever) and Brown Dog (a much more reserved and mature rescued mutt).  Courtney was quick to make friends, and on one occasion she dropped a tennis ball by the chain linked fence that separated us.  The rest was pretty much history, as Brown Dog quickly realized the value of  having neighbor who knew how to play his favorite game.  He wouldn't come near the fence, but possessing above average intelligence, he would flick his head to send the ball rolling up to the fence and within my reach.  We all had lots of fun together and quickly became great friends.

The house behind Alea's house was home to dozens of feral cats.  Courtney had learned that it was possible for her to squeeze under a portion of the chain link fence adjacent to the cats.  Once Alea left for work each morning, she would get under the fence and spend the day chasing cats from one end of the neighborhood to the other.  Precisely at dinner time she would squeeze back under the fence, exhausted, famished and grinning ear-to-ear.  At times I had found Courtney out running loose in the neighborhood, and whenever that happened I would put her back in the yard.  But once I had observed how she was getting out I felt it was my duty to inform Alea.  That was the first time we met (though very briefly).

About the same time, a girlfriend whom I had met while visiting Washington, DC came to spend the month of December with me.  But by the time she climbed on the train to return to her home in Illinois, it was clear that our relationship had run its course.  Not long after that, I managed to lock myself out of the lean-to.  I turned for help to the only neighbor that I knew - Alea.  It wasn't long after that we started dating, and a short time later I moved in with her so that we could both cut our expenses a bit.

By March it was time for me to continue on, having purchased a one way plane ticket to Luxembourg.  At the time I had no idea that I would return to Florida, and that we would resume our relationship six months later.

It was fun seeing how much the city had changed in thirty years, and how much had stayed the same.  Aside from the Gulf shore areas, St Pete was somewhat dying on the vine back then, having gained a reputation as a place where people go to die.  Parts of it still seem to be struggling a bit, but in general it appears to be a much more vibrant place.

Getting Settled in Palmetto

We've read a few blog posts lately from folks that gush about the comforts of home after months or years on the road.  We certainly appreciate a place to reassess what we are carrying with us and to prepare for next year's adventure.  But for me, the most welcome aspect of living in a house again is simply that I can once again have coffee ice cream on occasion and fresh cantaloupe every day.  And Alea is enjoying a bit more variety on our daily menu, and it is also nice to know that an occasional cold or rainy day has no real consequence for us.  Aside from that, we've enjoyed our time in our Camp Inn trailer and are anxious for warmer weather up north, so that we can once again get rolling.

Seemingly every morning there is a feeding frenzy off the dock.

Our immediate concerns, now that life has slowed down a bit for us, have been to get our finances in order, estimate our income tax for this year and figure out our health insurance for next year.  We've also detailed our van, getting it thoroughly waxed so it is easier to keep the tar, bug splats and tree sap off of the paint.  Yesterday we performed a thorough cleaning of our camper, including polishing up the woodwork.  We've emptied everything out of the camper, assessing every item that we are carrying.  Worn out things are being discarded and unneeded items will go to Goodwill.

The camper - emptied out...

And being aired out.

We've slowly been getting to know our new neighborhood, including finding a bicycle route into Palmetto that avoids the main highway.  The only store in the immediate vicinity is a General Dollar store.  In the Midwest and South we would often pass several of these stores every day.  It took a while before we ventured into one, but since then we've found that they provide a number of items that we use routinely at prices below what we pay at Walmart.  Plus they offer smaller sizes of some household items, which helps us conserve space that can be used for other items which we need to replenish more frequently.  Since they are so conveniently located, we'll likely be shopping there more often in the future.

Earlier in the week we got the new cap seal installed on the galley bulkhead.  It was causing water to get inside the galley on one side of the hatch ever since Dauphin Island, AL in early November.  It failed because it was incorrectly installed at the factory, as shown in the pictures below.  The cap seal is supposed to come straight across the top of the bulkhead, ending just short of the outside wall.  When correctly installed, the galley hatch seal should be shorter, butting up against the cap seal.

How our cap seal was installed.

And how a proper installation should look.

This morning I installed new mud flaps on the van.  We were having water entering the cabin of the camper via the condensation drains on the door windows, a problem that we did not have with our previous tow vehicles.  The low, boxy rear end of some tow vehicles (ours included) happens to send road spray shooting at just the right angle, straight up into the window drains.  The mud flaps are the recommended solution to stop this from happening.  Now we are hoping for some rain, so that we can see if it really works.  We'll leave the bed out until we are able to tow in the rain, as it will be easier to determine if any water is still getting inside (and to dry things out if this fix isn't successful).

Tomorrow we finally get our front windshield replaced.  It received an irreparable ding a couple of days after we had driven off the dealer's lot, and a replacement windshield was not in stock in either Boise, Tacoma or Grand Forks, so we decided it was easier to wait until now to get it replaced.  The thing that made it difficult to find a replacement was the integrated QuickClear defroster, which seems to be more common here in Florida.

With all of our pressing issues slowly being resolved, before long we will be shifting gears and planning next year's travels.  That should be up the Atlantic Coast to Maine, then west along the Northern Tier to around Chicago and then along Bicycle Route 66 to St Louis.  From there we'll drop down a short distance to the Trans America Trail, which we will follow to somewhere north of Nashville, and then it will be back down the Natchez Trace to Louisiana.  If we can time things right, from there we hope to follow the Southern Tier to San Diego.  But we might need to find a place to park for a while, in order to have the best time of year for crossing the southwestern deserts.

Palmetto, FL: End of the Road for 2015

We had a rough start yesterday (our final day on the road for 2015), thanks to Lana throwing up in bed at 5 am.  We got some more sleep once that was sorted out, only to wake up to find it raining (the forecast had showed that it would be dry for our two day trip across the state).

Lana enjoys her new den.

We left early, with me riding the first 37 mile leg.  The traffic was much lighter than yesterday, though most of the roads had no shoulder and one long stretch was pretty rough.  Just before I rendezvoused with Alea I had gotten soaked to the bone in some fairly heavy rain.  

Soaked to the bone, my final ride is over.

It was lighter rain by the time that Alea took off, with the weather getting drier and the tail winds stronger as time wore on.  We decided to end our cycling a few miles early in Wauchula (after Alea had ridden 28 miles).  It was lunch time, and it just made more sense to end there, rather than riding just a few more miles on a full stomach.

Almost there...

Anti-climax: Alea coasts to a stop in Wauchula.

The last couple of days were a mini-shakedown cruise of sorts for our recent changes to the van.  Nearly everything worked great, though we learned that it was necessary to move the location of our floor pump, as doing so provided more room for me to get my bike out of the side door.  And we made a minor adjustment in how we store the generator, partly to protect its control panel when Alea's bike is removed and stored, and partly to make it a bit easier to get her bike in and out.

We're thinking we will donate our pop up bug shelter to the Goodwill.  We used it once, and it worked as expected.  But we have come to find that using lemon-eucalyptus oil or a similar non-DEET natural oil bug spray is usually good enough at keeping the bugs at bay, especially if we also use our citronella candle.  We have room to store it, but not without making it more complicated to store and access other items.  That is counter to our mantra of being able to access any piece of gear directly, without having to remove any of our other gear.

We arrived in Palmetto around mid-afternoon and set about getting settled in.  The sun briefly greeted us as we rolled into the driveway, and was a welcome change after a cloudy and rainy morning.

A happy Lana settles in at her temporary home.

Our home for the next two months.

Our view of Terra Ceia Bay.

The backyard.

Day 125: Haines City, FL

We are once again on the move, after returning to the point on our route near Mt. Dora where we had stopped pedaling a bit more than a week ago.  We've made the decision to end this year's travels tomorrow near Zolfo Springs, FL.  That means that this is our final night of camping for this year.  It also means we have around 130 or so miles to cover in two days, so today we split the riding.  Alea covered 36 miles this morning, while I rode the final 34 miles in the early afternoon.

Refueling at Green Mountain Overlook.  Surprisingly, we had no trouble breathing
at the staggering altitude of 308 feet above sea level.

Yay!  Three and a half miles with no traffic!
(Note Alea's new rack bag).

There was more traffic than we like seeing along a good chunk of today's route.  And when the traffic was better, the roads mostly had no shoulders.  We expect we'll see more of the same tomorrow.

When we returned from Palmetto last weekend we previewed the roads that we were hoping to use to ride all the way to Teri and Carson's vacation house.  Nearly all of them had no shoulders, and many had a fair amount of traffic (and that was on Sunday).  So we made the decision to avoid those hazards and end this year's trip near Zolfo Springs.  We will begin our 2016 travels there in February.

Tonight we are staying at Central Park Carefree RV Resort ($42, full hook-ups and showers) in Haines City.  There are something like 354 spaces here, plus they have a separate mobile home park just down the street.  And for our $42 we could have had a dinner of pancakes and sausage, but that didn't really appeal to us.

Our Haines City neighbors.

We really enjoyed our week spent staying with Alea's sister, Jean.  It gave us the chance to give the camper and van a quick cleaning and to reorganize the van.  And by using her wi-fi connection, we've likely avoided having to buy extra data this billing period for our AT&T mi-fi.

But Lana seems to be somewhat relieved that we are traveling again.  That is mainly because, in addition to her own pets, Jean fosters cats and dogs.  So Lana had to figure out how to interact with three dogs and six cats.  She did pretty well with Jean's dog Trip, but the two chihuahuas that she is currently fostering was a different matter, as they would yap and charge at anything that moved.  The cats were a mixed bag - some stayed hidden, some were kind enough to let her chase them and one made it clear who was in charge in the household.  I think she appreciates the simple social environment of the camper, where it is so easy to stay out of trouble. 

We are looking forward to the next two months as a time to clean the camper top to bottom, continue to consider refinements to the camper and van, and for me to buy an alternative to my Chromebook (so that I can write without always being tethered to the internet).  

Days 123 & 124: Still in Oviedo

One thing that I have repeatedly failed to mention is that one result of our travels is that Alea has lost about 20 pounds over the past four months (not that she was overweight to begin with).  Considering that she has probably also gained a lot of new muscle mass (and muscle is heavier than fat), she's probably shed 25 or more pounds of fat.  And the great thing about that is we've both been eating anything we want (I've lost 7 or 8 pounds, since I was already fairly lean from all my years of bicycle hill climbing).  So that is a very big benefit of the lifestyle that we've chosen.

The Sando Sisters: Alea Sando, Ann Carlson and Jean Sando.

One purpose of maintaining a blog is to increase the chances that we might reconnect with old friends and acquaintances, which happened last night.  Alea's friend Marty (Leach) Malone called her to say hello.  It turns out she still lives in Palm Harbor, FL, not all that far from where we'll be staying for the next two months.  So we are certain to reconnect with her while we are waiting out the winter.

To my knowledge, Marty's ex-husband is no relation to me (though there are Malone descendants of my 3rd and 4th great grandfathers in Florida, so it is a possibility).  The irony is that we share the same name: Steve Malone (they had divorced before I met Marty in the mid-80s).

I shifted gears yesterday afternoon and started working on a little project for my sister-in-law, Jean Sando.  Before we arrived, she had a leak in her laundry hot water line and the plumber removed  a section of sheetrock to make the repair.  So I offered to repair the hole that was left after he was done.  I got it patched and retextured, but she'll need to do the painting, since she no longer has any paint of the correct color.

The patch, after the first coat of mud.

I've been wrapping up our changes to the van.  That included having to relocate my fork mounts after having our leather seats installed, as I hadn't left enough space to allow for any minor adjustments to the seat position.  We also received our new Dremel tool today (the battery on the old one finally gave out and no replacement batteries are being made for it), so I finished grinding off the fork nubs on Alea's bike (so that it goes on and off her fork mount much more quickly and easily).  We also received her tiered laundry basket, which she is using to store her cycling clothes.  It makes it very easy to organize her clothes in a manner that it is easy for her to quickly find and access what she is seeking (our cycling clothes are stored in the van with the bikes, everything else except our coats are stored in the camper).

Partially ground fork nubs. 

Our packed van after all of our recent modifications.

A close up of Alea's tiered storage for her cycling clothes.

When we arrived in Oviedo we also discovered that water had somehow been getting into the cabin of the camper through the doors.  It turns out that this issue is related to our Ford Transit Connect van.  While it is about the same width as our former Mazda CX-5, the wheelbase is wider.  Wider than our camper, and wide enough that in when we drive in rainy weather road spray is forced up into two slots at the base of the cabin door windows, where it makes its way inside and onto the floor of the camper.  The irony here is that in our epic Corwin Ford of Nampa debacle our special order van was to have had splash guards, which possibly would have prevented this problem (it certainly would have lessened it).  So there's yet another negative consequence of their inept handling of our order (it has been a gift that just won't stop giving)

I've ordered some vinyl splash guards that are being shipped to Palmetto, which will provide a permanent fix to the problem.  A temporary fix is to simply put tape over the slots if we are driving in the rain (making sure to remove the tape when not driving, as they are condensation drains, allowing any moisture that accumulates inside the cabin a path to exit to the outside).

So we are once again ready to hit the road, though our travels for this year will very soon be over...