How I spent my Sunday

Or,  How to not watch the World Series making templates for trailer wheel wells and replacing oriented strand board flooring with plywood glued and laminated into the subframe.  Wandah was manufactured in 1995 by Sunline in a factory near Harrisburg, PA.  They still have a web site up but when we drove to the address last year in hopes of yucking it up with her Makers, we were disappointed to discover another business there.  Sunline had gone under two years before, which only tells one that virtual reality may be, after all,  superior to real, everyday reality.  Like a lot of travel trailers, these things are stapled together with the cheapest and flimsiest of modern, American ingenuity.  We were heartened to hear, incidentally, that our Wandah was better than most, according to a Santa Barbara welder who rebuilt the rear bumper. "There's at least something in the frame to weld to," he told Renee. "All these newer ones, forget about it."

So, we're into the template and floor replacement not to mention bringing the furnace plenum back to life, which involved hammering and pinching in the vise with clamps and custom cut wood pieces and wedges.  The forward floor bit went "supah"  with Gorilla Glue lamination pressed together with 5 "C" clamps.  The plenum, the sheet metal box that distributes the heated air,  loved my caresses and should see action again soon. We're talking to Buffalo sheet metal guys who can create their masterpiece from our cardboard template.  Can you see Renee slowly recovering from her earlier gloom?

And we've heard from Cardinal Puff,  aka stalwart Ned, who's lamenting the course of developments on the Albion River where the Redwoods still stand, though he tore his house down.  Maybe I forgot to tell you that parts of it were rotting, so everything had to go except the kitchen, mostly because there are beautiful cabinets there that Ned has made (and, naturally, has not finished as all carpenters who work on their own, and mostly other people's houses, know. It's the time thing and how much carpentry can you stand in one day and stay away from your guitar, or the lettuce in your garden, or the latest book that's got you hooked.  Oh yeah, and you gotta play with the children. Definitely).

So, Cardinal Puff, aka Huff, wants construction to move forward in a timely manner, but not too fast, which may be the case now, because in desperation - well not exactly tearing out your hair desperation- The Cardinal, since his first telephone call to me before the tire thing where I said I was coming as fast as I could, has hired a crew that is "fitting him in" and hurrying up to get to another job. "This is wearing me out," Ned said. "Supervising.  So much is happening so fast, I don't have any time to work. If you came, Jimmy, we could find some time to breathe, get the job done and have a little fun, too." Right on!

In the Operating Room

Wandah - poor baby - is on the Clear Creek repair apron. The stench of burned rubber and piss permeate dear old Wandah. Renee needs gentle coaxing especially when dealing with stuff like the savage attack on the silverware drawer. The expression on her face tells it all.  Some corrections are in order from our previous post.  


The trailer brakes are electric and the wires are all intact.  The leaking brake fluid was in fact water dripping from the spangled water lines snarled in the axle.

Clear Creek At Last

 

Gothenburg, our Pony Implode Station.We limped to North Platte for a tire and wheel.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Our furrow at the Gothenburg exit.

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October 27

We decided on an early start in the morning to make Buffalo before dark. From our campsite at the edge of  the Missouri River at Nebraska City, we tumbled into the black at 3:30 AM and headed north on State Highway 72. Hours into the interstate darkness and as we were nearing Gothenburg, the site of an historic Pony Express station, I had been thinking the morning sun would never catch us. As  dawn was appearing in the mirror, we shuddered on a whoosh of wind, the bow wave of a semi we were passing at seventy miles an hour.

Suddenly, the Duramax shifted into third and in the dragging confusion of air I canceled the cruise and we fell back. Sliding into the travel lane I blinked as I thought I saw snowflakes scurrying behind in Wandah’s wake.  I saw sparks and knew the rim was quickly losing circumference. Again, like in California last year, I had destroyed our port tire. This time,  perhaps because of the shockwave of wind, it didn't take a passing motorist to point first to a smoking tire and then to their eyes. The wheel, grinding smaller on the pavement, cut a furrow in the soft roadside grass at the exit.  Renee clawed  away the turf to place first one jack then another under the frame. We removed the chewed rim, which revealed the full extent of the damage to the head interior and frame. The exploding tire had stormed its way into Wandah’s vitals.  Looking up into a gaping hole,  I could see the toilet shrouded in blackened rubber dust. Just below at the axle the 30 amp electrical wire looked like lobster gear warped around a propellor shaft. With patient cutting Renee pried away the cable with a screwdriver. Wandah’s brake lines were dripping fluid. We still had truck brakes, of course, but could we go on without any lights for Wandah?

Renee was in despair. I cleared away the splintered wood and sharp sheet metal and bolted on the spare. We agreed to limp into the Gothenburg Pony Express station for a fresh horse and as Renee started the engine, I suggested we try the blinker.  I was beside myself with joy. She works, they work. A miracle.  Not minutes before,  Renee was ready to abandon ship. With blinkers and running lights, Wandah, wounded as she was, could thrash on into the notoriously vicious head and cross winds and the bowels of Wyoming. With renewed Hope I could look forward to parking Wandah in the shadow of Ned’s  Redwoods as we resurrected a new hillside hideaway.  We could, with a new wheel and spare, press on to the soothing sounds of Clear Creek and the magnificent Big Horns in our backyard.

On The Road With Wandah

It is Fall and Renee and I are traveling again from Colsons Boat Shop in Lubec, Maine to Buffalo, Wyoming and the cabin on Clear Creek at the foot of the Big Horn Mountains. Our Cape Dory 36 has been in Steve Newman's shop for over a year getting her hull, deck and topsides painted with Awlgrip.  Sailing will be in the picture next summer for sure.  Each year we never know what's going to happen next.  These past two winters I've always boasted I was going to be a ski lift operator at Jackson Hole.  Last year Renee bought Wandah, a sixteen foot travel trailer that took us to Florida, Texas, Arizona and California where we fell in love with the Redwoods in Jedidiah Smith State Park. As it turns out the lift operator thing may not pan out again this winter since my old friend Ned, who happens to live among some redwoods along the Albion River near Cape Mendocino, tore down his house except for his kitchen.  He then sent out an SOS for a skilled and happy carpenter, a known quantity.  So, it looks like Renee will hold down the fort on Clear Creek.  But she'll be busy making tons of her famous kelp  soap that tore off the shelves of the McCurdy Smokehouse's Muholland Market last summer. We'll save our legs for great powder skiing at Jackson Hole in the Spring.