Mobile Scout Camping Adventure #1 - Salina, KS

In our last post, we hinted we'd be camping soon, and it's time for the big reveal on our first camping adventure.  

You see, Sweet Melissa still needed to go through the 'what would it be like to actually spend the night camping in her' exam.

In Kansas the state parks and lakeside campgrounds start shutting off the water supply this time of year, so we opted to make our first foray into camping together an 'urban camping' experience. Not too far from civilization, but somewhere we could set up the camp kitchen, test Sweet Melissa's refurbished heating and electrical systems (and insulation!) and simply get away from home for a weekend.

So we chose Salina KOA, a friendly place ninety miles from home, and headed up the interstate in search of adventure.

Here's our review of how camping in a vintage camper went at this KOA location. We hope it helps folks on the road near Salina, KS feel good about choosing this spot for an overnight stay.

First things first: the facility. This KOA is located adjacent to I-70, first exit east of the I-35 interchange. It's tucked back behind a hotel and a busy truck wash, so the road in can be a little congested. The campground offers tent sites, cabins and water/electric or full-hookup RV sites. (They're closed the month of December this year to upgrade more sites to 50 amp, if that's important to you.) 

What was important to us, camping as we were in a no-potty, fifty-five year old canned ham camper, was how close we could camp to the restrooms! We are pleased to report that these restrooms would pass muster with the fussiest housekeeper--clean, well-lit, only accessible with the key code given at check-in AND there are three private showers with dressing rooms in each restroom.

Camping Confession #1: We hadn't brought along the portapotty, so we giggled our way through the campground together at 3 a.m. to use the facilities. Ahh, the memories!

Overall impression of the KOA in Salina, KS: Pros: easy to access from the interstates, close to restaurants and shopping if you need them, clean, well-maintained facilities, friendly, helpful staff and easy-to-navigate campground with all pull-thru campsites. If you're not into trailer or tent camping, the cabins looked plenty comfortable, equipped with outdoor grilling kitchens and patios.

Cons: traffic noise from I-70.


Now on to our travel report for our first-ever camping experience in Sweet Melissa.

To this blogger, there's nothing quite like a meal cooked outdoors, so it was important to me to get the cooking facilities set up first thing. I mentioned in an earlier post that we'd purchased an Ozark Trail Camp Kitchen and this was its trial run, away from our driveway.

I'm pleased to report that the kitchen served its purpose well. It's compact and easy to stow and the Hubs set it up in less than five minutes. It's also plenty sturdy, meant to hold a camp stove on one end and provide a food prep surface on the other. Here's a pic of what it looked like, complete with our evening meal of Dutch oven chili and coffee brewed on our Coleman camp stove coffeemaker.

 

Did we mention the temperatures plunged into the 30s overnight? That became important an hour after sundown when sitting outside, even in our cold weather Ozark Trail camp chairs, became uncomfortable.

 

We opted to hang out together in Sweet Melissa's cozy dinette, reading and talking and relaxing away from television, work and other distractions.

At bedtime we cracked a window for ventilation and lit the Mr. Heater Portable Buddy catalytic heater. The camper, I'm happy to report, stayed toasty warm all night.  

Consumer tip: if you use this heater with small propane bottles, you'll have to change the bottle after running it six hours on low heat. At some point, if we decide to do a lot of cold weather camping, we'll hook it up to a larger bottle.

Early the next morning, we set up the Coleman stove again and cooked breakfast in the great outdoors. Was it chilly? Yep, but it was also fun, and we followed it up with a stroll around the campground to gaze at RVs big enough to hold Sweet Melissa in their kitchens.

Then it was a quick trip through those squeaky clean showers and then off into town to check out the local attractions. We can highly recommend Jalisco Mexican restaurant, straight down Ninth Street from the campground, just past the Central Mall--friendly service and great food.

We'd chosen to pay for an extra night so that we could hang around after the 11:00 a.m. checkout; still cheaper than a hotel room and it took the pressure off of us to dash home midday. We wandered back to the KOA late afternoon and broke camp. Headed back down the highway to Wichita by the light of the rising super moon, ready to plan our next camping excursion.

We learned a lot this past weekend, what not to pack next time and what we forgot, quicker ways to set up and break down camp and how long it takes to cook a meal on a camp stove.

We learned that the checklists we'd created for safe set-up and break down of camp were not obsessive but necessary. We also learned that we love camping together.

And here's what we've decided after camping overnight in the city limits...it's a comfortable, less expensive alternative to staying in hotels when there's a city we hope to visit. With KOA campgrounds (and other 'vintage friendly' possibilities) spread across the country, we love the idea of taking along our 1961 Mobile Scout on our adventures.

We aren't locked in to being urban campers, lake campers, national park campers or 'off-the-grid' campers, but we hope to experience all those kinds of camping in the coming years.

We're leaving our options open to all the ways we can enjoy Sweet Melissa as we travel.

See you next time!

Mark and Kate

Finishing Touches and Creature Comforts

You know the part where I said we wouldn't be posting again for awhile about camper rehab? That was just for fun. As someone told us recently, you never quite get finished perfecting your vintage camper.

Custom battery box on '61 Mobile Scout

The past couple of weeks, the Hubs has been hard at work completing the 12v system so we can camp without shore power. His latest awesomeness was to customize a Harbor Freight tongue-mount box to match Sweet Melissa, and also hold the two deep cycle batteries to power that system. I think he did an amazing job, myself.

His next task was to connect LED strips under the shelf at one end of the bed, on the over-sink shelf and above the dinette. We tested them that night and they give off plenty of warm, comfy illumination for camping 'off the grid'.

Remember that nifty Avanti fridge we bought that runs on 12v or 110v? He's got that hooked up, too, so that we'll have food safety without coolers no matter where we camp.

He's also taken care of our old, leaky roof vent with the installation of this new one, purchased at Trailer Parts Supply in Wichita. The fan is hooked up to the 12v system, as well, so even if we're camping far from electricity, the air can flow freely.

Which is particularly important with the addition of our heating system, a Mr. Heater 'Buddy' propane fueled catalytic heater. Great to use in a camper IF you provide adequate ventilation while it's running and IF you install a carbon monoxide detector. The new ones, like ours, have an auto shut-off feature if the C0 level gets too high, or if the unit gets knocked over, but we believe in being extra safe.

What else have we accomplished? Oh, yeah, curtains! While my seamstress-new-mother-of-twins-systems-administrator-just-sold-her-house-and-moved daughter takes a well-deserved break from sewing the REAL curtains for the camper, I had to come up with something reasonable to cover all those windows. Especially since WE'RE GOING CAMPING! Stay tuned for more on that after the weekend.

I went to the source of all things crafty, Pinterest, and found a page that showed how to make curtains without sewing. Then I made a(nother) trip to Walmart and bought pink and aqua towels for $2.87 each. Since I made two curtains with each towel, those are pretty cheap window coverings, even adding in the iron-on hem tape. I know, I know, my seamstress wizard fellow glampers are going crazy right now, but for a girl who can't sew a seam, I thought they were pretty cool as a temporary solution!

 So, with the bins packed full of groceries, first aid supplies, health and beauty stuff, extra propane cylinders and tools, we are ready to roll on our first camping weekend. We'll post pics of our Ozark Trail camping kitchen that's perfect for holding a Coleman stove and everything I need to cook at the campsite, when we do our first camping blog.

Looking forward to the weekend, fellow campers!

Of Vintage Camper Shows and First Journeys

It's been an amazing week for Sweet Melissa's rehab team! The Hubs and I pressed forward to finish the final details as the day of Stone Barn Farm's Vintage Camper Show in Dexter, Kansas drew near. Burned some serious midnight oil doing things like last minute paint touch up, getting an official weight certificate from the public scale, cleaning the camper one more time, purchasing a spare tire and deciding how to stage the Mobile Scout for the show.

Early Saturday morning we pulled out of the driveway and rolled down I-35 and US-160 to Dexter, KS, by way of Oxford to pick up a fellow camper and sister-in-law. Sweet Melissa pulled straight and true at 65 mph, in spite of some serious crosswind. So glad to know she'll be easy to tow to the campground!

It was the Field of Dreams for the two of us, being greeted by the sight of a field full of canned ham campers.This little beauty, for example, was outfitted as a food trailer. Pretty eye-catching, don't you think?

And this gorgeous trio of trailers was glamped to the max by some savvy women who'd come down to camp the night before. We gained a lot of inspiration by talking to the owners and feasting our eyes on their accomplishments. 

 Equally inspiring were these classics, including a clever little 1930s teardrop, whose owner also creates custom teardrops to suit his customers' needs. God bless Yankee ingenuity!

Even our hostess for the camper show got into the act, bringing out her Serro Scotty as a 'before' showing before she starts her rebuild.

Our neighbors for the show are bringing this classy canned ham back to life and added plenty of color and fun to the day.

Also had a great time looking at the campers brought to sell at the show. The white and tan Winnebago sold that afternoon! Can't wait to see it prettied up later on down the road.

This is a good time to tell you that Sweet Melissa won an award! She took second in the show, right behind Krickett, this spiffy Comet from Fort Scott, KS. What a beauty!

One more camper photo to share, a sister Mobile Scout. She's a 1962 10' model, cute as a bug and owned by a fellow Wichitan. The Hubs had a great time swapping camper lore and repair tips with the owners.

All in all, a fantastic first outing for Sweet Melissa. Fourteen months of crazy, grubby, knuckle-scraping work and we're overwhelmed by how well she turned out. Would we do it again...hmmm, maybe. But it's going to be awhile before we take on that big a project again!

Here are just a few more pics of the second place princess in all her glory. I've added BEFORE photos for comparison. A little better, don't you think?

Dinette Before!

 Dinette After!

Before!

After! 

Thanks for hanging in with us as we stumbled, fumbled and prayed our way through her rehab. We've got a bit of fine tuning to do, now that she's been road tested (better clearance lights, adding sway control), but for the most part, she's ready for the campground. Stay tuned for our camping adventures!

It's Getting Closer Every Dayyyy...

Proverbs 2:8 For he guards the course of the just
    and protects the way of his faithful ones.

 So, remember all those details we discussed on the last post? Well, an impressive number of them have been checked off my legal pad in the past couple of weeks. Things like rehanging vintage mirrors on the pantry door and adding a few more vintage accessories, like this metal Coca Cola sign we bought in Galena, KS while visiting a Sisters on the Fly camper show. We're also blessed with talented friends who gift us with personalized camper decor for Sweet Melissa. Thanks Heidi!


One more happy progress note is receiving the mattress we ordered and finding it a perfect, comfy fit. Now if I can talk the Hubs out of taking naps while he's working!

One of the best things we've discovered about working the past fourteen months bringing Sweet Melissa back to life is the interest and pleasure it generates in family and friends. We hope that someday soon our growing tribe of grandchildren can accompany us on camping adventures. Right now, the Hubs was simply happy to share a vintage camper moment with the grandson.

Almost forgot! We found the right fridge to fit in the cabinet that once housed the original propane one (with a little coaxing and some reconstruction). It's an Avanti AC/DC Superconductor, meaning we can run it on 110v shore power or from 12v deep cycle batteries. Looking forward to giving it a trial run soon!



And speaking of trial runs, stay tuned for our first journey, not to a campsite but to a vintage camper show! Stone Barn Farm & Cabins in Dexter, KS is hosting the show to be held October 15 and sponsored by SKT. It promises to be amazing, with a dozen other campers already registered. Here's the pic we provided for a sneak peek of Sweet Melissa. We'll bring you up-to-date day of show. The excitement is building!

The Heart of Vintage Camper Renewal--Details, Details, Details

Do you know that I possess a legal pad that once held twelve pages of details to be completed on our 1961 Mobile Scout? For the past fourteen months, we've been slogging through the list like a mule-drawn plow through wet clay. Remove water-damaged birch paneling...check! Replace all galvanized screws on camper's exterior with chrome-plated ones...check! And so forth.

But now that the end is in sight, we're actually getting to focus on details that have some emotional reward (I know, weirdness, but when you've put this much effort into a project, there has to be something fun once in awhile!)

Hideous Before

For instance, my favorite project in the past couple of weeks was peeling away horrendous, melted on self-adhesive, plastic-coated paper that lined the top, bottom and sides of every cabinet and drawer and replacing it with removable shelf liner. Just kidding, the peeling off part was horrendous, an inch at a time or less, with a razor blade and not without injury. But the reward! I was able to actually move some of the dishes and utensils I've had gathering dust upstairs since July 2015 into those shiny, sanitized, cabinets!

Beautiful After

Old Mobile Scout Clearance Light

New Mobile Scout LED Rear Light Set

 Hubs had his own reward epiphany in the form of replacing the vintage but badly clouded, scratched and not terribly illuminating lights on Sweet Melissa with LED versions that guarantee she'll be seen in the darkest rainstorm. Hooked the wiring harness to the truck tonight for a test run and he's over the moon happy with the visibility and overall shininess!


To be able to see progress in such visible ways has fired us up once again to keep going on this vision quest. We also have the added bonus of making a whole new set of friends at Harbor Freight as we race toward the final details! Safety chains...check! Sway control kit...check!

To close for the night, here's a quiz for all you trivia addicts--what size mattress do you buy for a fifty-five year old travel trailer? Anyone? We learned that it requires a 'three-quarter size' mattress, also known as an 'antique' or 'short full' mattress, 75" long x 48" wide. Now you know.

The mattress has been ordered, by the way, should be here soon, one more detail checked off the list. We really are going to park that vintage Mobile Scout trailer in a campground in 2016, honest. It's on my list.

Mobile Scout Camper Progress-Lights, Windows, Air Conditioning!

Even with his crazy, crazy work schedule, the Hubs has been able to sneak in some time over the past few weeks refurbing the Mobile Scout. Awesome additions have been made!

Air Conditioning!

He had cleverly finished the new a/c cabinet and we'd been watching the end of summer sales (really? in early July?) Lo and behold, we snagged a Heuer 5000 btu unit at a steep discount. Did a trial run on a 100 plus degree day, should be perfect for our needs. "Hallelujah!" is all this Kansas camper has to say.

Lights! 

One of the decisions we made at the beginning was to replace all exterior lights with LED. We've stuck to that pretty faithfully, except for the original tag light.

But here's the fun thing...after seeing how much it would cost to purchase custom taillight flanges, the Hubs decided to do a little Kansas engineering that involved, you guessed it, tin cans! Thanks to a #5 can of pork & beans and his brilliant strategy, we now have taillights that match our classic canned ham camper. (Buy the beans at Walmart, you'll have the can AND the beans for about five bucks!) I think they're perfect! What do you think?

Mechanical Stuff

While painting the wheels, the Hubs also decided it would be wise to repack the bearings with grease and make sure everything wheel-and-axle-wise was in good running condition. So grateful for his cautious soul. By the way, the painted wheels make all the difference in the '61 Mobile Scout's profile, don't you think?

Something else that made a big difference in the Mobile Scout's curb appeal was to take the time to wash the windows. Who knew that removing a couple of decades' worth of grime would make Sweet Melissa sparkle?

Painting Science Tips from the Hubs! 

One more awesome hurdle cleared in the past couple of weeks was to paint the front above the shiny diamond plate we'd installed earlier. Hubs says the secret to great painting is to purchase a Wagner HVLP paint sprayer (be sure you buy one that is 4.1 fluid ounces per minute output or greater).

This will allow you to spray all types of paint up to and including enamels or epoxies. He also wants me to tell you to be sure to experiment with how much you thin your paint. The correct mixture of paint and thinner makes all the difference in a smooth paint surface. One more painting science tip: we used Zinsser Bullseye Cover Stain Primer. It adhered to the aluminum surface perfectly and gave us a good base coat for the color applied later.

Seriously, we're going to have our vintage camper ready for fall camping season, in fact, we bought insulated chairs for sitting out in the campground on those cool autumn nights. Can't wait to use them!

Cleaning and Painting Chores on the '61 Mobile Scout
This rainy weekend (more than six inches of rain in two days!) has moved us farther along on with the 1961 Mobile Scout rehab project. The Hubs, the creative side of this rehab team, has been unleashing his artistic genius as he adds the swoops and flourishes he envisioned when we brought Sweet Melissa home one year ago tomorrow. What do you think? Cool, right?

 

The street side painting will be just as fun, once completed. He's also added a nice touch with diamond plate on the front end.

 

Meanwhile, inside the canned ham camper, I managed to remove, with the help of a product suggested by my best buddy, the major rust stains on the 55-year-old Formica on counter and dinette top. Thanks Judy and Mold Armor!

All in all a productive weekend, more progress tomorrow if the monsoons don't return!