Adventure #4 - Lake Easton State Park, WA

Shooting for something fairly close to home with spots available on Labor Day weekend, we headed out to Lake Easton State Park just east of Snoqualmie Pass on I-90. While their is no big lure to stay at the state park, it is quite a nice setting and an easy 90 minute drive from Seattle. Plus, there is a sandy beach and play structure for the kids!

This was the first adventure where we have literally left as soon as I got home from work. While I did quite a bit of prep work the night before, most of the "packing" happened in about 45 minutes and of course a few essentials were left behind...tooth paste, my pillow, and the girls were very disappointed to have no maple syrup for breakfast.

Since this was Labor Day weekend, camping space were limited, but we arrived Thursday and were able to claim a first come first serve site. It was fun on Friday to watch all of the people arrive, and the streamed in pretty steadily starting about 2:00. The interesting part about camping on a long holiday weekend is that you get lots of people who don't often camp and I found that considering how many people were camping, I didn't get an overwhelming number of visitors. My favorite were a couple from Utah with their 3 year-old and another on the way. They had built a custom camping trailer modeled after a European gypsy wagon, and while small for a family, they had been on the road for about a month! They were a bit jealous of my sink and I was jealous of their pot belly stove...more inspiration to consider!

We did get to try out a few new conveniences, including a redesign to the sinks water holding tank. 

The design is quite simple and includes a 5 gallon bucket with an outlet at the bottom and a foot pump attached to the top for pressurizing during use. 5 or 6 pumps provides enough pressure for about a minute of washing and with a faucet aerator installed, we use less than .5 gallons per minute (gpm). 

I also finished wiring the 120 volt outlets, installed a new 35 amp hour battery and an 800 watt inverter. Combined these two additions will allow us to run lighting and charge phones/iPads for at least two days, in theory, and I am hopeful that we will have enough power to get through two nights. I played with charging the battery via solar panel this week, but either have a faulty charge controller or a bad connection as the charge controller would not register an amperage reading from the solar panel. Eventually I will upgrade to a 140 amp hour battery once we decide to install a refrigerator, but for now the 35 amp hour battery should meet our needs.

The best part about the new power supply and outlets is the ability to stay up and read after the girls go to sleep. Contrary to what my wife would say, I really do enjoy reading, just don't often find the time. I found LED lights at IKEA with a USB port and used our old iPhone charging bases. They only use 1 watt of power, but provide ample light that can be focused just on the book.

Cheers!

Adventure #3 - Gorge Amphitheater

Epic weekend with good friends watching one of our all time favorite performers, Jack Johnson, and had a surprise performance from Eddie Vedder, one of our other favorites...the night could have been one of my top 10 experiences ever! It was surreal!!!

The camping trailer was a magnet as soon as we pulled into the Gorge camping area, our friends following us said that people just stopped and stated as we drove by. We had a pretty steady flow of admirers throughout the afternoon  interested in how the concept came about, how long it took to build, and the process I went through. We even had one woman stop by to say "you have built my dream!"...so much fun to get these kinds if comments!

I brought along one of the soon-to-be installed solar panels and unfortunately had a wiring issue that I need to resolve, but hooking it up was quick and will allow us to be out for days in a generally sunny environment. Eventually I will be adding a wind turbine for days when the sun doesn't shine.

Kitchen coming together

In preparation for a trip to the Gorge Amphitheater to see Jack Johnson (with a surprise guest appearance from Eddie Vedder!) I spent some time getting the kitchen fully functional, including the sink powered by a foot pump.

This included finding a great set of bathroom vanity cabinets at Second Use in Seattle. I had to trim a few inches off the bottom, but they are an amazing compliment to the kitchen space and provide some much needed storage for pots, pans, snacks, dry goods, and games for the girls.

Flooring Complete!

Choosing flooring proved to be a much more challenging decision making process than anticipated. 

Lightweight quickly eliminated most options, including bamboo and most cork which topped the list.

Flexible in order to move with the trailer eliminated most of the rest.

It came down to self adhering cork, which unfortunately didn't seem like it would hold up to wet feet or bikes and the abuse of dragging coolers and gear in and out, so scratched that from the list.

Vinyl was easy to scratch due to the PVC and VOCs that would off-gas and create an unhealthy indoor environment.

In the end, while it didn't even make my initial list, laminate won. It is fairly lightweight, very durable, flexible and affordable. While not the greenest of materials, most manufactures now have a "green" line that offers low VOC embedded adhesives and comprehensive production recycling standards. I also decided to nail rather than glue the laminate, and because if the small space (about 60 square feet) I was able to use laminate with interlocking  panels and nail around the edges that will eventually be covered by moulding.

 

Adventure #2 - Ocean City, WA

Nearly a year ago I conceptualized the idea of a family camping trailer that could take us anywhere we wanted to go in style and with minimal impact on the environment. While some may not agree that driving on a beach fits the bill for "minimal impact", it has been a romantic idea that this weekend materialized. Since the trailer has only been functional enough to tow since Memorial Day weekend, booking a camping site at a popular state park has been pretty much out of the question.

I had been watching https://washington.goingtocamp.com regularly to see if anything popped up via a cancellation, and on Friday morning a prime site at Ocean City State Park opened and I booked it immediately. We hitched up Saturday morning and took our time after leaving I-5 at Olympia winding through back roads and stopping to take in the sites. 

We realized after stopping for groceries in Aberdeen that Kayden forgot a swimsuit, a must for this little open water aficionado! Walmart was next to the grocery store, so I pulled around and parked in the loading zone while Heidi and the girls all went inside to find a swimsuit. It didn't take more than 10 minutes, but in that time I had a steady stream of admirers stop by to take a look, ask questions, offer a compliment or want to take a peak inside. It was if I had just towed the circus into town for its annual visit, just amazing!

We finally ended up at the state park in space 153, with lots of space, some share, full utilities and just a few hundred feet from the beach trail. I was on cloud 9!

The state park and beach are buffered by a beautiful series of wetlands and sand dunes, and about a 4 or 5 minute walk gets you onto the beach that stretches for miles in each direction. Driving is allowed on this section of the beach, which at first seems completely disrespectful, but drivers are quite courteous and there is plenty of room for vehicles and people, along with herds of horses and riders, scooters and kites!

We opted to spend our Sunday afternoon on the beach and decided we would try out driving...it turned out to not only be easy, but a great way to spend the day and how nice to have a kitchen and solar shower at our immediate disposal!