Leaving Town

The Bureau of Reclamation is running a "High Flow Experiment", releasing high levels of water through the Glen Canyon dam for five days starting on Monday, November 10th. While these flows are still a dribble compared to annual floods in the Canyon before the dam, these releases are three to four time higher than the flows we experienced during the Canyon trip last March. I really wanted to spend a couple days at Lees Ferry to see the high flows. River Runners for Wilderness posted a map with the dates that the high flow would reach various parts of the Canyon.

With the High Flow Experiment providing a good excuse, and continued postcard quality photos coming from bloggers that have been in Zion National Park, I'm headed out to make a loop of it, complete with wet gear for a hike in Zion's Narrows on my way between Lees Ferry and Pearce Ferry.

BJ and Turk are staying home, so it's going to be an interesting solo trip for me.  I'm not taking the MiFi so that she'll have Internet access. That means you may end up with posts about mods that are already in the can, or I may find connectivity along the way so that I can do some updates to slip in ahead of the always exciting mod posts. ;-)

Picture This!

On the 24th of October, I published a blog post with 17 possibilities for new faces on our refrigerator doors. I wanted to leverage a concept I'd heard about from Jon Vermilye. Our 6.5 cubic foot Dometic would require a laminated poster 20 inches wide and 46.6 inches high.

Based on the quick feedback from readers and our personal (but differing) preferences, I ordered two posters with matte laminate from PosterBrain in Denver, Co. I placed the order over the weekend, and received the two posters the following Friday. They had been carefully wrapped in tissue and packed in a strong mailing tube, sent express post.

I laid the two posters out on the floor for a first look. Both of these posters were based on photographs that were 4000 pixels in the vertical direction. I'm glad I didn't chose one of the photos that was only 3000 pixels vertically - I think it would have been pushing it.

In our case, the doors are faced with white Masonite. Once the piece is slide up out of the bottom framing, it can be flexed in the middle to remove the face sheet from the door. I didn't have to do that but I wanted to see how difficult it might be to remove them if I chose to dry mount the posters to the face sheet.

Last look at the complete poster before surgery.

Since I had it out, I used the upper face sheet as the pattern for cutting the top section from the poster.

I put the face sheet back in place, and then slid the poster section into place. It is sized so that it matches the Masonite, and sits all the way down in the bottom of the door frame. On this piece, the poster is only held in place by the framing of the door.

The lower section went in place in the same manner. The only change was that I used a small amount of Donna Dee's favorite clear adhesive/sealant* on the back at the top center of the poster before reinstalling the upper trim piece to insure that the poster wouldn't shift from side to side in the frame. Once again, the poster section is sized to fit all the way down into the bottom portion of the door frame.

This has been the simplest project to date. It took less than 30 minutes to cut and install the two pieces. Our final decision choosing the Buttes of the Cross photo was because it played best with the grey/blue stock cushions, tan curtains and floor.

* Silicon sealant which has no other place in fiberglass RVs.

That Should Do It

Sometimes I'm not terribly bright. I was about three days into this project and couldn't figure out why I was so sore. It eventually dawned on me that brushing the elastomeric coating under and over the wall flashing was involving deep knee bends every two feet. After a couple days I was able quit the ibuprofen!

The first coat was really thirsty and I figured I wouldn't have enough product on hand.

The second coat went on much easier. There was some question as to why I started where I did. I frankly didn't even think about the bedroom downstairs - the sun was coming up and shouldn't everyone be up? Daytime temps were running high enough that it was a waste of time to try to work much beyond 10 a.m. - the coating would start drying on the roller.

I'm not looking forward to doing it again, but I am very pleased with how the project turned out. We ended up using 85 gallons and I was smart enough to not carry the other 15 gallons up the ladder! It will be interesting to see how much difference the reflective white makes in our utility bills.

We've committed to a week of dog sitting and then maybe we can hit the road for a short trip.