Home Makeover - Camper Edition

 Yes, it is true! After 4 long months Barb is ready to reveal her camper makeover. When she first started this project in April, she thought it would be a breeze and she would be done in a few weeks. A cold wet spring was not conducive to wallpaper which significantly delayed the project. But with the kid's departure last week and our own departure next week it was time to crack the whip!

She had been whittling away at it over the past couple of months, but this past week was the final big push. Although she is not totally done, she is happy with where it is for now. 

But first, the before pictures. This is what the inside of the camper looked like when she started. 

The camper is almost 20 years old, dated, but in great shape, it just needed to be freshened up. And when Barb does something she goes in with both feet. Removing all the linoleum, replacing the handles on the cabinetry, wallpaper, backsplash, new carpet, new shades and new curtains.  

The in-progress pictures are scary and overwhelming. I personally stayed as far away as possible, only peeking in there when she had a question or wanted to show me something. The first thing she did was recover the dinette cushions and started the backsplash in the kitchen. 

Next up was the wallpaper. Talk about slow and tedious. Her advice to anyone thinking of doing this, do not pick wallpaper with lines. Too hard to maintain the lines and make it appear level in a camper. 

Then came the flooring. We are still not sure how this is going to work. We used leftover LVP from the house. Not sure how it is going to stand up or hold together in a moving vehicle. We shall see. Last up was the carpet, shades and curtains. There is not a lot of carpet, the stairs, up by the bed and under the dinette. 

Now for the finished(ish) product!

I think it looks great if I do have to say so myself! I am super proud of her. The wallpaper is kind of a birch bark design. She cut, planed, stained and varnished the wood around the slide out. She made the curtains my hand and cut and installed the carpet herself. 

She only replaced the carpet on the steps going up to the bed so far, the dinette carpet will wait for another day. The pictures on the wall are ones each of us picked out from previous adventures. I picked out several of her and she picked out several of me. 

There are a few other final touches she wants to do but for now we are ready for our next big adventure!

While she was doing that, I was having my own fun this week with the garage installing posts, LVL's, 4 more trusses and purlins for the extension. 

No skidsteer and boom to help with the trusses this time, we beefed them up by hand with an assist from the tractor. 

We now have all the trusses up and can carry on with finishing the remainder of the roof. I highly doubt we will get that done in the next couple days, but we'll give it a try!

Kevin needed help with two pours this week. Brutal. It would not have been too bad except for the heat. 90+both days. 

Then of course when we are rushing to get things done before we leave the brakes on the Jeep start squeaking. Why, oh why does that have to happen now. A couple hours later I had new brakes (and one new caliper) in the Jeep and it is ready to roll. 

Friday was of course the 4th. Barb and I celebrated it by working on the garage. It was also our baby girl's birthday! 44 years young, we are so proud of her. 

I have fond memories of 4th of Julys past spending it at my dad's place in Shell Lake Wisconsin. What I remember most was the fireworks. Dad used to fly his plane to South Dakota or Iowa, fill it with fireworks and fly it back. I am not sure of the legality of that, but I have a feeling it was a little sketchy. Firecrackers, sparklers, M80's bottle rockets and some bigger stuff that I did not know the names of. After dark, we would all pile into the boat and watch the fireworks that were lite over the lake. Great memories, I wish I could go back and experience one of those days again and really appreciate it. 

This coming week is going to be action packed and one we have been looking forward to for months!

Empty Nesters!

 Barb and I first became empty nesters in 2005, I was 43 when our youngest Forrest graduated high school and went to Arizona to continue his education. As many of you know, finding yourself alone with your spouse can be a shock to your system as you stare at each other in the deafening silence. 

Our answer was to sell our house and move to a lake home starting a new chapter of our lives. Fast forward 20 years when Forrest, Somer and Lily stopped by for a visit. A 9-month visit! As one of our friends asked Barb, "You already carried him 9 months once, how does it feel to do it again?".  

It was not bad at all. We got to do things with them that we would have never been able to. It had been 20+ years since Forrest and I had been able to hunt and fish together and we got to do both several times. While we have spent time with Somer a week or two at a time in the past, these past 9 months gave us the opportunity to really know her. And Lily, our 13-year-old granddaughter, it goes without saying that the time with her (and her with us) is something that neither of us will forget. I don't recall spending one night with my grandparents let alone months at a time!

I wanted to write about and show pictures of all the good times we had, but I could not have done it better than Somer did in this Instagram post. I hope this link works!

If I were to be totally honest though, while we are going to miss them, there is a certain peacefulness having it be just Barb and I (and the girls) again. Now our lives go back to "normal". While Forrest and Somer did help with a meal or two a week, Barb no longer has to plan and groceries for 5. Yes, life will be different, we are going to miss them yet are happy for them as they carry on with their RV lifestyle adventure and wonder where they will end up next. 

They spent their last few days here packing up. Boy, do they have a lot of stuff! Luckily, they have a toy hauler to fit all their toys. 

Before we knew it, they were loaded up and ready to head to their next destination; Oklahoma for a few weeks. Hugs were tight and maybe a few tears as we watched them disappear around the corner of the driveway.....

Before they left, Forrest and I (and Kevin) got out on another adventure. It was one that we had been waiting months for and what we had been practicing for over the past several weeks. It was another archery shoot, this time at Terry Peak Ski Resort in Lead. Total Archery Challenge (TAC) is an organization that puts on shoots across the country. We had been to one in Salt Lake City (Snowbird) in the past and now this one. It is a challenging shoot where you ride the chairlift up to the top of the mountain and shoot various full size 3D targets on your way down. Here we are discussing our bet while riding up the lift...

As I said, Forrest and I had been practicing for weeks. Kevin, had every intention of doing the same, but life got in the way and pulled out his bow the morning of the shoot having never fired an arrow.  Wanting to make it interesting Forrest and I bet $1/point with a total of 264 points on the line. For example if I shot a bullseye (12) points and Forrest missed entirely, I would be $12 up. We would total up our score at the end and the loser would have to pay up. We tried getting Kevin to go in on it as it would have been easy money, but having not practiced, he wanted nothing to do with this bet!

The ride up was fun and the camaraderie was even better. For the next several hours we laughed, ribbed each other, lost a few arrows, but overall had a great time. 

When it was all said and done we sat down in the lounge at the lodge and added up our scores. For the second week in a row, Forrest and I tied! How is that even possible?!?!? To make matters worse that nonpracticing no good friend of mine beat us both by 8 points! The only redeeming aspect was that he opted out of the bet!

Now for the moment you have all been waiting for, it is photo real or is it Memorex? Remember that commercial? If you are over 60 you probably remember it. The photo below was taken with me standing in our living room with no fish in hand. Forrest then just told AI "Add world record walleye". While it did not add a world record walleye, it did add a pretty nice one. It also added the entire background and my hands holding the fish. In the original picture my hands were down by my side. 

There were a few clues, the biggest being that the fish is "too plastic-y" as one person said. Another person said that the sky is just too perfect, while another said my teeth looked "bucky". The meanest of all was posted on our Facebook page where someone said it was obvious fake as I was too good looking!

Besides proving that I caught the biggest fish each time we go out, there are other good uses for AI. The best I have seen so far comes in the form of dog videos. Specifically, this dog video.

This week was all work for us and very little play. Barb has been busy working on her camper remodel. She is not ready for me to show you anything yet, but it will not be long!

As for me, I have been a slave to the garage and made some great progress! Sunday Kevin came over with this skidsteer to drill three holes for the extension on the end of the garage. That's right, the garage is not even done yet and we are already planning an extention. Actually, it was always in the plan, now is just the time to start working on it. The siding steel arrived this week

We were only able to get down about 18" at the deepest due to the rock, but we drilled some rebar into the rock which will act as a stabilizer as well. The next day I poured concrete into each of the tubes and waited 3 days for them to harden before I put in the anchors and the posts. 

While waiting for those to harden I started on the siding. Day 1 found me about 1/2 done with the north side. Day 2 got me almost done with that side, I need to wait until the extension is up to totally finish that far end. Day 3 I worked on the west end, it was a long hot day, but I got that entire side done in one day!

No pictures of the girls this week, but I will leave you with a picture of our biggest yucca that is in full bloom. We have them scattered throughout the property. I do not know a lot about them, but what I have observed is that is that they do not bloom every year and some do not seem to bloom at all. 

AI

 Have you dabbled in AI? Artificial Intelligence seems to be the buzz word of the year. The search engine on my phone has been taken over by AI, much to my chagrin. Why can't they leave things well enough alone? I just want text about what I am looking for not some minutes long voice description telling me everything I didn't want to know about a given subject. And half the time it does not hear you correctly and gives you a description of something totally different than what you wanted. 

Then there are the pictures. Some of them are hilarious, others are so real that you cannot tell AI from real. You can put just about any picture in, make a request and it pops out a picture. Like this likeness of Zoey, Chloe and Jack. 

Forrest put in a picture of Barb and a request of having her riding a French Bulldog and this is what it returned. At first glance 

While the dog looks a lot like Zoey, the picture of Barb was super distorted putting 30 pounds on her and giving her buck teeth. Or maybe that is actually what he put in!

From what I am told, AI can actually write a blog for you by just putting in a few key words and pushing a button to have it generated. I have never tried that, that would just take the fun out of it for me. I do think I have one commenter that uses AI for her responses. Actually, many of you have the same commenter, if you read her comments, they include such detail on almost everything in the blog, it just does not sound natural and it always include a link. I might be wrong, but I do not think so. 

All of this makes you wonder, what is real, what photo was actually taken? What essay was actually written? I, for one, have to get better at determining if something is generated with AI or is real. A friend recently sent me a picture of his living room asking me if I liked how he painted it. At first I focused on the whole picture noticing the newly painted walls. I did notice some other subtle differences but never guessed that it was an AI generated photo until he told me he hadn't actually painted his walls at all!

What have we been up to the last 10 days? Work continues on the garage. We got as much of the roof done as we can for right now, the full 36' of the garage area in fact. This allowed us to move the boat out of the house garage and put it in the new garage! One of the struggles of working on a steel roof in the summer is the heat. With temps in the 80's and 90's, you only have a few hours in the morning before the steel starts getting too hot to work on. 

We are now getting ready to start phase II of this project which will be to add a 12' covered shed or lean to on the end. This will require us to drill some holes for posts, put beams across the 12' span, put more trusses up and cover it. This area will be for our covered trailer and protect it from the hail. 

We ordered the siding which arrived on Friday, but the temps were in the 90's Friday, Saturday and Sunday so we opted for other tasks. 

Like tackling the last that damn grout! I am sure you are as tired of reading about grouting the stone as I am writing about it. We did another bag yesterday completing about 20 more feet. One more session like this and we will be done!

But, it has not been all work, work, work, we had several fun days too! The first was when Forrest and I went to an archery shoot at Custer State Park. This was a free event put on by the park and what a blast! There were 60 life size 3D targets ranging from 15-100 yards throughout the course, and we bet $1 per target a potential $60 win if one of us were to win every target. The first target was at the check-in station. a 35-yard shot at an antelope with several observers and if you hit the bullseye, you won a prize. Both Forrest and I had been practicing a lot at home and either of us should be able to put it in or very close to the bullseye at that range. 

I approached the station, lined up my shot and let the arrow loose only to watch it slam into the rocks under the target. What the ?!?! I heard Forrest (and someone else) laughing behind me. On top of the humiliation, that arrow broke so I was down the $15 cost of the arrow on top of the $1 loss to Forrest because he hit closer to the bullseye than me. In fact, he took the next 5 as well, so I was down $6 in the first 6 stations! It was then I realized that my sight was in the wrong position! I had moved it when I was back at home and not put it back in it's "home" position!!!!!

After that I started doing much better and over the next three hours, up and down the hills we shot the remaining of the 60 targets. I won some stations; he won some stations. We were hot, sweaty and thirsty. Neither of us had any idea of who won overall, but we decided that the loser buys Dairy Queen instead of paying the net of our $1/target. After tallying up the score (twice mind you) we were tied! How did we tie after 60 targets?!?! You know what that means right? Dad buys Dairy Queen of course. 

The next "fun" event came when Barb and I loaded up the boat and camper and headed west into Wyoming. Destination Glendo Lake Reservoir! For you travelers out that, I am sure you have seen those check stations along the interstate with signs saying, "All watercraft must stop". The state of Wyoming requires that all watercraft be inspected prior to being launched into Wyoming waters. Why? They do not have invasive zebra mussels in that state yet and they are trying to avoid them. This is the first time we have had to stop at one of these stations and we had no idea what to expect. Pulling in, we were greeted by a 20 something kid with an iPad and he started asking questions. "Where was the boat in the water last?" "How long ago was that?". He then tells me that the lake the boat was last in was "on their list" and I needed to be decontaminated. Well, the boat, not actually me. 

He filled the livewell with 130-degree water and let it sit. He then hooked up a hose to the motor and ran 130-degree water through the motor. The idea is that it is going to kill anything that should not be there. Once everything was "decontaminated" he put a metal seal on the winch of the boat and gave me a slip to give to the guy at the boat ramp. 

2 hours later, we arrived at the Glendo Lake boat ramp, gave this inspection guy our paperwork, he inspects the seal, removes it and allows us to launch. They take their invasive species very serious in Wyoming!

What happened once we were on the water? Of course there is a competition on the water as well. They came in the form of first, most and biggest fish. This was our first fishing outing of the year so we had a lot riding on it for whoever wins gets bragging rights for the next few weeks!

First fish went to Barbie when she landed a nice 16" walleye. Into the livewell it went! Then I caught one, a 18"er that gave me the lead on the biggest fish! Fishing a new lake is tough. You do not know where the fish are, what they like or how to catch them. But we did okay. For the next two days we battled back and forth with the most and biggest fish, and wouldn't you know it when it was all said and done, we tied for the most fish!

That just leaves the biggest. Who do you think has bragging rights to begin the year? I am not going to say, but I will leave you with this picture. 

But wait, is it real or is it AI? Only I know for now, I may reveal the real answer in our next post!

The hardest part of this entire trip was the fact that we left the girls at home. This is the first time in 4 years that Barb has spent a night without Zoey and visa versa. Barb was a nervous wreck leaving "her baby". She required "proof of life" pictures several times throughout the day each day. Here are a few that she received, the first one is the best!

Before I go, I have a question for all you arborists out there. The apple trees seem to be doing well. I am watering them regularly and they seem healthy, except in the last week or so something has started eating the leaves. Is this something I should worry about? Any advice?