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Jenn looked for a spice rack to add to our trailer. After her online search, we felt that the available racks didn't fit well, or wasted too much space. So I designed and built a spice rack to fit inside the door under the sink. I measured a number of our jars of spices and found that they were consistent in size, so I designed a rack that will hold up to 14 jars of spices in two rows. I built it from oak to match the existing wood of the trailer. I found some 1/4" and 1/2" thick pieces of oak at Home Depot, and cut them to size and glued the rack together. I applied two coats of clear satin finish, and screwed the rack to the inside of the door. Here is the result:
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When you get a trailer or other RV, you find things that you would like to modify. We call them mods. So here are our first batch of mods to our Escape trailer.
 Blanquillo is home. We picked her up on May 28 as scheduled, and went from Chilliwack, BC, to Larrabee State Park in Bellingham, WA, where we visited Jennifer's college roommate, Gayle. Then we went to Camas, WA, where we spend two days with my sister, Susan, and also saw my other sisters, Anne and Linda. We next went to Del Norte State Park, part of the Redwoods National and State Park ( an interesting way to manage natural resources ) and camped at Mill Creek Campground. Then it was off to home, where we are now.
Today, I had the responsibility of visiting the CA DMV to register the trailer. Always a fun time. I appear to have been successful. We will see when the title and license plates arrive. I was told it would take extra time because the trailer was of foreign (Canada) origin. Update: The plates arrived well before the temp expired, so apparently the folks at the DMV in Sacramento knew just how to handle the processing. We are ready for Blanquillo. We store our trailer in our side yard off the left of the driveway. The gate was 12 feet wide, and I was able to back our prior 16 foot long, 7 foot wide trailer into the opening to the side yard. But could I do it with the new 19.5 foot trailer? I wasn't sure as I have to make a right angle turn to back into the driveway then another right (left?) angle turn to get the trailer into its spot. So I hired our handyman to replace our 12 foot gate with a 16 foot gate. We used redwood, commonly available here in California. Due to its length, I decided to make the gate in 4 sections, like a bifold closet door. Oh, yeah, since the driveway slopes, I had to find a way to make it open uphill. By hanging the hinges at an angle, it opens fine. Although we had some unanticipated problems due to the fact that wood bends, even 4x6 posts, we did manage to make it work.
Here are the photos I just received for our Escape. It looks like it is completed and sitting in their storage area, waiting for us to pick it up. We hedged and gave them an extra week in case there were any production delays, but it looks like that was not necessary. So we will pick it up in about 2 weeks as planned. It could have been sooner. Darn!
Here are photos of our new trailer during its second week of construction. It won't be long now.
While our trailer is being built, each week, Escape Trailer Industries sends some photos of it. It's very exciting. Here are our week 1 photos.
When you order an Escape trailer, you receive a list of the standard equipment for the trailer model and a list of the optional equipment. Yes, they build them to order and if you don't see what you want on the list, ask and they will probably add it to the build. Where else today can you get a custom built trailer? Probably on high end motor homes and some trailers, but this is the first I have run into on a main stream product. Escape is a small manufacturer; they just completed their 1000th trailer, but they are growing fast. The wait time is about 9 months, although we were able to get a faster delivery slot by asking - and waiting for a cancellation.
So what did we add to our standard equipment? We decided to name our new Escape 19 trailer "Blanquillo." This is Spanish for "little white thing." We originally thought about naming it "huevo nuevo" as I like the alliteration, but I found that "huevo" means "egg" but also is often used for "ball" as in testicle. That seemed too crude for us. The Urban Slang Dictionary suggested "blanquillo" as an alternative, more polite term.
Why a Spanish term? We live in northern California and there is a heavy Spanish influence here. We saw others using French terms, so we thought about possible names in other languages and Spanish seemed appropriate given the area where we live. I started camping with my parents first in a tent then in a 1958 Tour-a-home stick built Trailer (a trailer made with a wood frame covered with aluminum sheet). The Tour-a-home was a park model, that is, it was built only for connecting to utilities in an RV park. My dad modified it to be self-contained, installing gas and water systems.
Our family of 6 toured the country from Maine to San Diego and we loved it. |
Our EscapeRetirement is great. We bought a travel trailer and are exploring National Parks. (Actually, we bought one and sold it and bought a second one better suited to us. It happens...) And I have time to do some woodworking projects and things around the house. And now I have gotten interested in ham radio so there goes any free time. Archives
July 2015
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