September Project

Howdy everyone!  I hope you had a great Labor Day weekend.  Mom and I don't normally camp over the big holiday weekends, so we were home taking it easy.  That's one of the perks to being in that retired category.  We can pick and choose our days and weeks to avoid the crazies on the road and the crowds in the campgrounds.

We have an eleven-day trip coming up in a couple of weeks.  Miss Murphy, Momma Sharon, and I will be heading out on a state park trip.  We will be camping in two SC campgrounds and one in NC.  I'll share all the details with you in another Story.  That's because I want to tell you about a little project we have cooked up.  And "cooked" is the key word here.

Early in our camping career, Mom bought a neat camping and cooking kitchen at REI.  It packs up in its own little case, but when it's out and unfolded, it's quite impressive.  We haven't used it in several years and I told her it would be neat if we could take it out, dust it off, and use it in our Clam at the Maryland DOG.  And that's just what we did!

It's the perfect height for prepping food, mixing up a meal for Murphy, and keeping plates and utensils handy.  It has a nice shelf for stuff like canned foods and Murphy's bowl.  There's room underneath to slide in our storage bins too.  But there is one portion of it that needs some attention.  Do you see the toaster oven?  It's perched on two spacer bars and there's a lot of wasted space there.  Plus, that little oven has fallen off before!

A trip to Lowes last week resulted in the perfect solution.  Mom picked out a nice piece of 1/2-inch oak plywood and had it cut to fit that lower section.  We needed something that wouldn't warp and was a good weight.  She sanded all the edges smooth and then did a test run in the driveway.  Nice fit!!

I told her that we just couldn't leave it plain . . . it needed to be jazzed up.  "Paint?", she asked.  "Nope, I have another idea", said I.  We have just about run out of room for camping stickers and decals.  My door is full, the Yeti is close to being full, and now they are showing up on the ice maker for goodness sakes.  "Put them on the table", I suggested.  VOILA!!

We did a test run on a piece of the left over wood to make sure the stickers would stick and then Mom sprayed it with shellac to add a protective coat.  We've got room to put more from our remaining 2017 trips and probably next year's outings too.  We will stick them on and shoot them with shellac as we collect them.  Mom was so excited with the project, she put the board on wrong and snapped the photo from the wrong side.  Silly Sharon!

So that's our little September Project that I wanted to tell you about. Now if I can get her to make those curtains for my windows that she's been talking about for a couple years, I will be good to go for my State Parks trip.  Stay tuned and until I have something to report and another Story to tell, always remember . . . 

"Peace, Love, & Camping Projects"