The Inaugural Trip

After leaving my dad's around 2pm CT, I drove from Monroe, LA to Jackson, MS via I-20 and I was surprised to not really feel the trailer. (It was there, I checked every 20 seconds.) Very light-weight and slightly less noisy than the trip south-bound. From Jackson, I took the Natchez Trace Parkway north. (I wanted to go south and do the last 100 miles. I'll do that someday soon though. No time.)

I've passed The Trace many times over the years and wanted to bike, hike or drive it. This was my chance as I ultimately did 3/4 of it twice (down and back). The first night I made it to the Jeff Busby campground at milepost 193 around 8pm. (Remember, I can only go 55mph max.) The cats and Amos and I settled in for the night. 

The campground was small with only two other sites taken (one very large RV and another spot with people sleeping in a Chevy Blazer). I couldn't see much but had researched the place pretty well earlier. And really - if someone attacks a camper and finds 4 cats - they're gonna run! 

Amos ate, drank, paced and peed outside while I readied the cabin for our first night.

Statler had some tummy troubles (all over Izzy and Simon) so I had to baby wipe bathe the larger cats before letting them loose in the cabin. Tupelo was clean (riding shotgun, not shitgun) but both she and Izzy were a little apprehensive entering the cabin. Eventually, they got comfy. (Sisters!)

Statler, understandably, had some issues acclimating - mostly spending a few hours in the litter box. Simon - apparently the globetrotter of the bunch just thought it was a giant fun jungle gym and loved it.  

The A.Ingram family portrait, circa 2014 - clockwise from bottom left: me, Statler, Izzy, Tupelo, Simon and Amos.

Having not really seen the campground or surrounding area, I was pleasantly surprised by this beautiful view of the pine trees as the sun rose the next morning. 

Statler and Simon also appreciated the view. (Blurry brothers.)

An hour or so north was Tupelo, MS (the kitten's partial namesake - the other being my favorite Van Morrison song which is [interpretation related to the] Tupelo tree), where I found the most amazing surprise of a Krystal burger not a mile off of the parkway. I got a to-go order and we lunched at the NTNP Visitor's center. 

I also got my first gawker at the Vistor's Center - a guy in a pickup truck that circled the Jeep/Trailer combo twice while I was loading Amos back inside. Turns out he's had plans to build a teardrop for 30 years but hasn't ever "gotten around to it". I told him he should. 

The Trace is a beautiful drive and the journey home was extra nice since I got to see most of the parts in daylight that I'd only seen in the dark on the drive down. This bridge over the Tennessee River near Tuscumbia, Alabama was especially nice to see in the light. It was somewhat scary in pitch dark on the way down but you can see it's very sturdy here. The bridge is next to the location of Colbert Ferry which has some interesting history. 

I stopped for gas outside of Nashville, next to the Loveless Cafe where I'd dined on the southbound trip, and took the time to look in the Good Sam app to find a suitable campground for the night - it was fun trying to figure out how much farther I could realistically drive and how long it would take to get there. Because the reviews were the best and the place looked small and not overly commercialized (aka I didn't really want to park on concrete next to a 40' RV with an HDTV), I chose Singing Hills RV Park in Cave City, KY - just north of Bowling Green. 

I made it to the RV park around 8pm after speaking with one of the owners Beth to make a reservation. I was greeted by her husband Eldon and pointed to my campsite. Both of the owners were very nice in my short time there. The grounds looked great too - easy access to restrooms and showers, quiet location, a fishing pond, Wi-Fi, etc. I've put it on my list to check out again sometime when I have a little longer to stay and explore the area. 

This trip though, I was only there for about 12 hours. I got the cats situated in the trailer. Simon really wanted to come back out though. Meanwhile I made a feeble attempt at a campfire but it was drizzling and very windy so that didn't work out. It wasn't necessary - just a thought of a nice fire on my last night of vacation. So I cooked some cajun red beans in my backpacking stove and ate that with some cheese and crackers for dinner before retiring for the night.

The next morning I woke up early to get on the road. Amos had some breakfast while I loaded up the Jeep with cats and secured the trailer cargo. 

Then, we headed north to Ohio.

As we neared the Ohio border, I noticed some white stuff on the front of the trailer in my rearview mirror. It was sleeting and I wasn't sure if it was ice sticking to the trailer or paint coming off. Once I had the chance to stop, I was disappointed to see that it was the latter but happy to see that the Kilz2 really didn't get any impact at all. I shouldn't be too upset either since the red was nearly wet when I left Louisiana. I have more and can retouch that area (and do another coat or two anyway) at home in the garage where it will have time to dry.

I pulled in my driveway around 6pm that night, unpacked the animals and my stuff and then called my friend who'd picked up my held mail to bring it over to me. I made a few brief attempts to back the trailer into the driveway but it didn't go well. The temporary tag from the trip down expired that day, I had to go back to work the next morning and would have to take it with me.

Rolbak's official license plate installed late on my homecoming evening. 

So - the first trip was complete, the trailer was mostly complete and I was home returning to the daily grind. I have much to do on the trailer - completing the wiring and interior, rebuilding the hatch lid and finalizing the cabinetry and some exterior paint work. Overall though, I'm extremely proud of what my dad and I accomplished in just under 3 weeks and am looking forward to my trailer hobby and some amazing camping and road trips in my future.

Driving Away

I guess it's time I posted this last major build post. I'll probably end up renaming and/or relocating the blog and continue with updates as the trailer build progresses. And there will be trips to document too ... For now, here's what happened.

When we last left off, we had primed and sealed the exterior with Kilz2 and it was glowing in the dark.

The next morning, I did another coat of Kilz2 over everything glowing. And then my dad started on the exterior paint. Red! To match the Jeep!

The first bit of color ... 

From there, on a serious deadline to get the trailer road-worthy (aka legal DOT lights, securable and not glowing in the dark) I completely slacked off on photos. (Thanks to my stepmom Cindy for documenting some of the rest.) I did the rest of the trailer wiring - through the hatch while dad painted. 

Door painting while attempting to crawl inside and wire stuff. 

A silicone seal around the Fantastic Fan vent in the roof. 

Post hatch wiring when we found the hatch wouldn't close. I rough cut the front of my counter off and dad made some serious dents with the sawz-all, a hammer and chisel on the 2x2 rails and the frame of the hatch. (It wasn't fun to demo what we'd built but I had to get on the road and the hatch had to at least close for that.)

The battery box and framing was complete. We wrapped up the wiring and packed it under the battery for transport. The trip home would be without 12v power.

I also took advantage of the bed side storage and backed in parts yet to be used - rear stabilizers, wiring and sockets - as well as things I'd potentially use on the road like my backpacking stove and an inflator that doubles as a vacuum. 

Windows in, painted around and opening for some breeze.

Since the real plate for Rolbak was somewhere on I-71, we added a sheet of paper to the license plate bracket to satisfy the police. Then we made some interesting work of rigging the hatch to close. 

Ready for take off!

Dad helped be back the Jeep up to the trailer. 

Then he said good-bye to the cats (Statler, Simon and Izzy) and his grand-beagle Amos. (Tupelo was up front since she called shotgun.)

Optimizr with her companion Rolbak. (#databasegeek)

And we were off. (And praying it didn't just fall apart completely.)

On the road! (At 2+pm CT...)

The Semi-Finale

Wow. Time flies when you're busting your butt day and night to get a teardrop done. I've actually been home in Ohio for 3 days, back at work and back to reality, but I know I neglected posting for the past bit and wanted to update this to get everyone (that hasn't already seen it) up to speed with the progress.

I didn't do much of the extra traveling I'd planned for the trip, in fact I extended my stay at my dad's and even came back to work a day late just to get Rolbak road ready and not looking like a giant glow stick with Kilz all over it. Even though I'm back home, the project really isn't complete - there's a lot of work to do inside, some wiring stuff to complete, some refitting (possibly rebuilding) of the galley hatch and some additional exterior painting to be done. It looks like I've acquired a new hobby and I'll post updates on those updates as they happen over the next months/years. Until then, here's the first of two updates since we left off back on Nov. 23rd.

With the headliner installed, we started working on prepping the exterior for paint and also finishing up the wiring that runs between the headliner and roof. (Hindsight note: If I ever build another trailer, I won't put any wiring up there. I'd rather find a creative way to run conduit inside or underneath where it's accessible for repairs/replacement than where I can't get to it without making a giant hole in a pretty part.) Here, we have some wood putty application on the exterior.

On the interior, I wired up a small section next to the bed (head end) for a reading light and 12v socket. I made a small box out of some 1/2" birch and made holes for the socket and light wiring using a 3/4" step bit.

The electrical panel for next to the bed, installed. 

As much as the headliner install was a complete pain - pulling and pushing a full sheet of luan into the channel and bending it - the actual roof was 20 times worse. We actually broke 2 (maybe 3 sheets) which we'd already had to cut to 49.5' wide out of 8'x4' sheets. Plywood really doesn't like bending, even at 5mm thick. Eventually, we got creative (aka redneck) with some ratchet straps. 

And bricks ...

Then, I made sure that I had all of the wiring from both under the trailer (which had to go into the cabin and then out to the galley hatch for tail lights) and inside the roof - fed through the PVC conduit up into the raceway. 

After that came a bunch of work with the jig saw. The small piece is a .25" piece cut from the galley side walls that was used as a template to create 1.75" "ribs" for the galley hatch.

I cut six of these ribs out of 1/2" ply to form the curved part of the frame for the galley hatch.

Meanwhile, Dad worked on adding some angle iron brackets to support the battery install on the tongue. We also slowly kept ratcheting the rook piece down and gluing/nailing it in place. 

On the hatch door, I installed some spars and some other pieces of wood to allow mounting locations for tail lights, the license plate (still MIA at this point) and a handle. 

A close up of the license plate backing piece with a section for a light over it. 

The next photo is of an awesome screw up on my part. I'd already cut out a space for the vent fan in the headliner (laying on my back with a jig saw above my head ... fun) and now I cut out the same hole from above in the roof layer also using the jig saw. Since one of the seams in the roof runs right across the vent hole, I went to re-nail the pieces using my new nail gun. Unfortunately, I chose the 2.5" nails which went not only through the roof and supports, but also through the headliner. I'll have to fix that later ... until then it's a back scratcher. 

We finally got the last curved piece of the roof down into position and ready for nailing. 

Then, we installed one last piece of luan below it which was thankfully a completely straight install with no roof/body curves to worry about. 

Luan install on the galley hatch went similar to that on the roof - we used ratchet straps to bring it slowly into position while applying glue and nails. The applying wood putty to cover the holes. 

And, here's the exterior - completely covered. We ended up adding a small piece of wood (1"x2"-ish across the seam of the last curved panel and small straight piece to cover and/or push the bit of bowing from the curve.

Phew. I'm exhausted just typing this all up ... 

After that came priming. We used Kilz 2 latex primer to act as both a primer and a sealant for the wood. I painted the door ... 

And we painted the exterior.

The next morning (with sunglasses on from the glare) I gave everything a second coat of Kilz.

Then, I went to work underneath the trailer securing the wiring - especially the 12 gauge wires that run from the battery to the raceway in some PVC conduit.

Another shot of my PVC and zip tie mastery ... 

Dad finalized work on the battery box installation and also installed the tongue jack.

Next, we installed the door using the 1/2" stainless steel piano hinge I got online from a marine supplier. (Oh, and we also had a neighbor friend who used to be a carpenter shave 3/8" off the straight sides of the door since neither of us were confident we could be that exact with the saws.)

 The next part of the saga involves some demolition, painting and me driving off into the near sunset at 2pm CT heading back to Ohio.