Our Big Trip to Texas

Roosevelt State Park, in Mississippi
After our first big day of towing we were thankful for a state park near the interstate.  (I was especially thankful to get a break from the road construction in Mississippi.)  Before heading out in the morning we stopped at the deer pens. How cool!

Tyler State Park, Texas
Wireless access in the whole park!  Fantastic!  The kids' favorite part about this park was the thriving racoon population.  They loved staying up past their bedtime and watching the racoons by the dumpsters.  (Conveniently located across from our campsite.)

Grandma's House
It's always fun at Grandma's house.  She filled our bellies and invited lots of relatives over to visit.  We had a great round of Christmas in October.

We took in the Texas State Fair.  It's the largest state fair in the country.  You just wouldn't believe this place.  There's a full blown auto show, bird show, buildings and buildings full of exhibitors, midway rides,
Big Tex (a 52' cowboy) and 21 story Ferris wheel.

Dinosaur Valley State Park in Glen Rose, Texas.
I remember visiting this place as a kid.  I was really excited about sharing this place with my children.  When I went as a child, we waded in the water and we could (kind-of) see fossilized dinosaur tracks in the riverbed.  Now, Texas is having a huge drought.  (Everything is bigger in Texas, right?)  We picked a really great time to go to Glen Rose.  There were dinosaur tracks visible that hadn't been seen for 30 years.  It was A-Mazing!!!

These dinosaurs were at the Sinclair exhibit at the 1964/1965 Wold's Fair in New York.

We also visited the Fort Worth Stockyards.  It was such a treat to see the longhorn cattle drive right through the streets of Ft. Worth!

After a  fantastic week in Fort Worth (ending with some much needed rain) it was time for us to head back home.  For a little change in scenery, we decided to take the Little Rock/Memphis route home.  It's only about 50 miles farther.  We slept at Village Creek State Park in Arkansas our first night. We were the only ones in the horse camping area.  The girls were delighted that some campers with horses pulled in before we left in the morning.

We planned to drive the rest of the way home from Village Creek State Park in Arkansas. 

< insert deep anticipation-filled-movie-announcer voice >  Tune in next time to hear about our unexpected stop.  What kept the Sanders from getting home?  Find out in next week's episode of "Adventures with the Sanders."

Room Dividers, the details

 
I would love to take all the credit for making our room dividers but they weren't my idea.  I found a great thread on Airforums that had instructions for making the dividers.

Here's how I made our room dividers:
We purchased two sets of vertical blinds.

They come in 3 1/2'' widths.  The slats were too wide for our curtain.  So, I cut them (lengthwise) down to 2 1/2''.  They were also too tall.  I cut them to 70''.

Here's the sew-boring details:
 

• Cut the fabric to make a giant pillow case.
• For the front curtain:  144" tall (plus 1'' for two 1/2'' seam allowances) by 51'' wide (plus 1'' for two 1/2'' seam allowances.)
• For the back curtain: 144'' tall (plus 1'') by 42'' wide (plus 1'')
• Sew over the top edges 1/2'' inch
• Sew the fabric edges together like a giant pillowcase, right sides together.  
• Turn the "pillowcase" right sides out.
• Sew a sleeve 3'' wide for each vertical slat.  Front curtain will have 17 sleeves/slats.  Back curtain will have 14 sleeves/slats.

We were able to use our current track but needed to get new curtain sliders.  VTS sells sliders for our track but I was able to pick our curtain sliders up locally.  Georgia's "oldest and largest RV dealer" is only a convenient 3 miles from my house.  They've been open since 1952. 

I didn't want to use the traditional curtain pin hooks/drapery hooks because I was afraid they would fall out easily.  Instead, I used 1'' binder rings that I picked up at the office supply store.

After I made the curtain, I made holes in every other slat to hang the curtains.  I made a hole in both sides of the fabric where I attached a brass eyelet.  I also made a hole in the vertical slat.  (Putting a hole through the slat will help keep the curtain from sagging.)  I used a nifty tool that I bought at the fabric store to punch a hole in the fabric and attach brass eyelets.  I used the eyelet tool to make a hole in the slats too.  (I didn't attach an eyelet but the tool made a hole just the right size.)

tiny brass eyelet, 1'' binder ring, handy eyelet tool

 assembled curtain hardware

I found the perfect place for my vertical-blinds left-overs.
  

A bunk bed too...

What's that?  It's a bunk bed!


  Hooray!  Beds for all three kids!

This brace supports the weight of the bunk.  The notch allows us to fold the bunk up and latch it to the ceiling.

Speaking of a ceiling latch, we used a (slightly modified) window latch....

We haven't found old-style bunk bed brackets yet.  (Do you have a set for sale?)  In the meantime, we've installed three brackets: one on each end and one in the middle. The brackets keep the bunk from flipping when someone climbs onto it...












We had one more mystery to solve before we could install our new bunk bed.  After carefully planning out and fabricating the bunk we brought it to the trailer for a test fit.  We had a problem.  The bunk was in the way of the window crank.  OOommmphh!  Now what? Well, I set off in search of bunk bed photos...


Mystery solved!  The windows under bunk beds have knobs for cranks!  We added a set of knobs.  (Thanks again for the photos, Norm.  They've been indispensable!)

 The ultimate test.  The bunk with a mess of kids on it.

Oh yeah, we put in two room dividers too.  I used vertical blinds and fabric to make these accordion dividers.  (The original dividers would have been vinyl.)

 This is the door that is between the kid's "bedroom" and the bathroom.

note: you can see the bunk in the "up" position in this picture

 This is the bathroom side of the divider.

both room dividers

The worst part about making the vertical blind dividers?  Buying vertical blinds.  In public.  

"Hey, honey... why don't you ask the nice sales person where the vertical blinds are."

"No. YOU ask."

I used binder rings to hang the dividers. 

Our front sconces finally have a cover!  We got these great fiberglass shades from Moon Shine Lamp & Shade. 

You might think we're running out of things to do on the inside.  Well, we're not.  Not yet, at least.  Our list is getting shorter though.  Our trailer is sure starting to feel homey.  I think it's time to do a little camping...

Camping in Luxury

We've been working really hard on the trailer since our last camping trip in July.  Here are some pictures from our trip to Cloudland Canyon State Park for the TAC rally this weekend.

Check out the inside of our trailer: 

This place is starting to feel like home. The girls were excited to sleep in their beds for the first time. 

Brian telecommuting from Cloudland Canyon State Park.  

Our friends said "The world is ending! The Sanders got a cell phone."

At the TAC rally on Memorial Day weekend Kristi the vintage awning lady gave me lots of tips and pointers for making my own vintage awning.  In August, she emailed to tell me she had an awning available that would fit my trailer, if I was interested.  She caught me at a weak moment!  After having taken a month off from sewing the curtains, I was back at the sewing machine again, in the middle of sewing the pillows and seat cushions.  My answer was a resounding "Yes!  Yes!  I would love to buy that beautiful awning that I don't have to make!"

Brian spent lots of time and energy reaming out our awning rail before we left.  When it was time to put up the awning it was as easy as pie (that I didn't have to make!)

With such a pretty awning maybe no one will notice the air conditioner. 

Seven trailers and families showed up for the TAC rally.  We had a great time visiting with other trailer folks, looking at their pretty trailers, picking up bad habits new hobbies (I think Samuel will soon be addicted to Geocaching) and making new friends.  We were even gifted a beautiful and delicious chocolate-cheese ball.

Thank you Natalie, Terry, & Paula Deen

We also got to meet some new vintage Airstream owners.  They weren't camping this weekend but came to the campground to visit some friends.  We gave them a quick tour and loved hearing about their plans to bring their new '57 Flying Cloud back to life.  (I hope we didn't scare them off with our horror stories!)

Cloudland Canyon has a trail to the bottom of the canyon, it has 600 stairs.  So, we did manage to get a little hiking done.

Watch out for cracks!

What's going on here?

There was a lovely waterfall at the bottom of the canyon.  

< insert best Wizard of Oz voice > Pay no attention to the water bottle in the picture!

The weekend was too short.  Shorter still because we left Sunday evening to avoid driving home in Monday's Hurricane Lee downpours.  Can hardly wait to go again... but there's more work to do first.

We Are Wimps

 I admit it.

We were going to wait to get the air conditioner.  It's just too dang hot to get any work done without it.  Maybe it has something to do with our last camping trip in the hundred degree weather, too.

 

I won't have to find lifters for this roof vent.

 We installed the A/C and turned it on.  We left for our mid-day-heat-break/millionth trip to the home store.

We returned to a VERY chilly trailer:

Our new A/C is everyone's favorite eye sore.

We've spent the last couple of weeks prepping our woodwork to go back in the trailer.

removing the hardware

For the most part, we've been able to reuse the original woodwork.  A few pieces had to be replaced entirely:

facing on the front gaucho
streetside twin facing
middle twins baseboards
overhead kitchen cabinet doors
fridge-side panel
(new) access panel under kitchen sink

For the replacement pieces we purchased birch veneer from the local home store. In places where part of the veneer was missing Brian was able to use pieces from the old veneer to match up the wood. 

The Sanders, sanding.  First with a belt sander, 80 grit.

 Then with a palm sander, 150 grit

A coat of sanding sealer first, then on with the Shellacking.
For the new wood:  2 coats of amber Shellac, 2 coats of clear Shellac
For the original wood: 1 coat of amber Shellac, 2 coats of clear Shellac
Thank goodness it dries fast.  Only two hours between coats.

 

It dries so quick, in fact, we had better results Shellacking inside.  It dried too fast in the heat.

 
Our Formica counter for the kitchen is really neat.  It has little copper flecks in it.  Most of the copper has tarnishes so the flecks have a pretty copper-green patina.  The counter is stained though.  I read all kind of things about how to get the stains out.  I feel like I tried them all: lemon juice & salt, baking soda, several surface cleaners.  Nothing worked.

 Then I tried the Mr. Clean Magic Sponge:

clean on the left, stained on the right

Ta-da!  It worked!  

What's in those things anyway?  Do I even want to know?

Our propane tanks are here.  The boxes they came in are more interesting, it seems:

     

Oh dear! Someone should put up some walls.

I keep walking in on people.

    

    

 

Stinky slinky telephone.  Who wants to play?

UPDATE:
Just for you, Frank.  Here's the "pretty" air conditioner.

Having an A/C on our vintage trailer reminds me of driving a minivan.  I always said "It's nice to have, I'm happy to have it" but I could never bring myself to say "I love it!"