To connect our holding tanks to the dump station we bought ourselves an RV sewage line and the requisite attachments. There were several everything-you-need kits available at our local Camping World to choose from, but we bought the one that was not only very highly recommended by the staff, but also happened to be on sale: The RhinoFLEX Swivel kit.

For very obvious reasons, once this lovely piece of equipment has been used once, you don’t want to store it where it might come in contact with, well, anything. As a result, these kinds of sewer lines are designed to fit in a 4” square bumper, which is essentially the standard size in the RV industry. Pop a little rubber cap on the end of the bumper, and you should be able to slip the sewer hose inside it, thus simultaneously storing the hose away from everything else and making efficient use of otherwise wasted space.

I say “should be able to slip” because, as it turns out, either our 4” bumper is no longer a 4” bumper — due to warping, rusting, or whatever — or the housings in the RhinoFLEX kit will not let it fit, as it advertises, in a 4” bumper. Regardless of the explanation, the fact of the matter was clear: our PUP’s sewer hose wasn’t going in the bumper.

Putting the hose inside the PUP was out of the question. But if not in the bumper, where?

In a vinyl fencepost, of course! It’s the first thing you thought of, right?

From vinyl fencepost to PUP sewer hose storage!

In the picture above you can see the white vinyl fencepost — which actually measures 4.75” square instead of the standard 4” square (more on why in a bit) — installed under the PUP, just behind the tires. It looks rather exposed down there, but part of this is the color difference: just about everything else that’s been slung under the trailer’s body is black, but the fencepost only came in white. I may eventually paint it, but mostly I wanted to get it installed for now.

RhinoFLEX coupler (and hose behind it) inside the fencepost.

In this picture you can see the uncapped fencepost in place beneath the trailer. The black pipes to the left constitute the sewage draining system: the round black cap at far left is the attachment point for the sewer hose I’m trying to store. My mounting location, therefore, is actually closer to the “business end” of the sewage system than the bumper is.

The main sewer hose is stuffed inside of the fencepost, behind that orange thing you see sitting inside. That orange thing is a dump station coupler that came with our RhinoFLEX kit. It’s a very clever little piece of equipment that fits into the dump station inlet to form a solid elbow joint with our drainage hose. So it will get every bit as dirty as the drainage hose itself (if not more so). Alas, the dimensions of this coupler ensure that it will not fit in a 4” bumper, even if the hose will supposedly do so. So while all the other ickiness was heading to the bumper, this icky little coupler was going to need to be stored elsewhere.

Since I was starting from scratch, I opted to get a 4.75” fencepost — $22.97 at Lowes — which is big enough to fit the coupler in addition to the hose. Score!

Secured cap on storage. Note holes drilled in the end for "airing it out."

Here’s the full length of my fencepost sewer hose storage system. I currently have it mounted to the outside frame (not the inner “box” frame) with four simple corner brackets. I think this will be sufficient — even loaded with the hose this whole contraption doesn’t weigh much — but I’ll be watching these mounts closely for signs of cracking and loosening. The passenger-side fencepost cap is permanently affixed to the post using screws, but the driver-side cap seen here is attached with two basic safety pins (also from Lowes) angled through the top-right and bottom left corners. It’s a very solid fitting. I’ll probably eventually tie off the pins to the frame somehow so that I can’t lose one or drop it on the icky ground around the dump station.  Or maybe I’ll come up with a better capping system.  This works for now at least.

I couldn’t get the camera to focus on the black parts beneath the PUP, but I think you can sort of see that my storage post fits right between the gray-water tank — the rectangular black mass visible beneath the post on the left side — and the gooseneck of the shower drain — the black loop visible against the post on the right side partway down. Between these features and the stabilizing jacks, this storage unit had very little effect — if any — to my PUP’s already pathetic angle of departure.

So another modification is in the bag. I might take a break for a bit now.  Some other matters are pressing, and this was the last of the items on the “must-do” list prior to the next camping trip.

Speaking of which, we’ll be out in the PUP in two weeks. So I’ll get to test these modifications and get started planning on the next round, too!

It was really cool, and I wanted it.

Of course, we don’t really have a patio like they do, and most of the time it’s too bloody buggy here at El Cid to use one if we had it.

The solution? Bring the lights indoors. Into the house. That, I figured, would be really cool.

I’ve been wanting to do this project ever since, but I also didn’t want to spend much money on it.  As with the new tent trailer (or the Commander, or …), this was a patience project: we figured out exactly what we wanted (in this case enough commercial-grade white-strand lights to encircle the family room) and then waited, waited, and waited some more until we found what we wanted at a price we could afford.

I’m pleased, then, to announce that the lights have arrived in our house.  Install took about an hour (we have crown moulding, so most of it is just tucked up).  Now when you flick a switch, you get an illuminated gloriousness that just instinctively makes you happy.  Here’s a shot of one corner to give you a feel for the thing (don’t mind the mess):

It's Christmas in August! Happy Hannukwanzmastide, everybody!

Am I the only one who can’t help but smile at that?

Being the kind of fellow I am, of course, I’m now looking to start modifying the trailer. Going to start small, I think, by just cutting apart a cabinet or two.

It’s possible that some people out there thought I was joking. Those people, it hardly needs to be said, don’t know me very well.

It wasn’t too long into our maiden voyage of our new tent trailer that I began to frown at a few things that needed improvement in one way or another. One of them was this cabinet:

The Niagara's stock microwave and stereo cabinet. What a waste!

First of all, it’s really strange to me that my PUP has a built-in stereo system, much less a microwave. Setting that aside, though, I kept looking at this cabinet and thinking it was quite a waste of space.  There’s the little storage space at the bottom beside the outside door there, but what’s the rest of this thing doing?  Holding a little stereo and a littler switch?  Egads, what were they thinking?

Right away, I started making plans for some sort of cubby in this space.  My family’s old PUP had a little pocket tray beside the outside door, and it was a great place to put a flashlight, keys, bug spray, maps, and whatever else might otherwise clutter the countertop beside the door. Why Fleetwood/Coleman didn’t incorporate such a thing, I can’t say.  Clearly, though, it needed to be remedied.

First things first, I needed to see what was hidden in the cabinet.  It might have been that it wasn’t really wasted, after all.  Maybe it was hiding some obscure and unsightly piece of equipment.  So I pulled the microwave partially out, and yanked the stereo.  I found nothing but a clutter of wires (for stereo, light switch, and microwave) and empty space.

So I started marking and planning:

You can see I changed my mind on how tall a main hole to make.

My plan was to move the stereo up from its stock position — it made no sense to me that it was down toward the middle of the cabinet wall, when moving it up would make it (and its clock) easier to see from our bunk — and then use the existing stereo hole as the upper left corner of my big cubby hole.  I also ultimately decided to move the switch up about 3/8″ so it fit better with the overall look of the area.  If you try this at home, remember to measure everything multiple times; there’s no “undo” on chopping up cabinetry.

You can see some stray pieces of blue tape on the cabinet corner and then below the big cutout area.  What I’m doing there is figuring out where the bottom of my cubby hole is going to be.  It turns out that the maufacturer had a very nice piece of wood running the whole horizontal length of this cabinet.  I could feel it from the storage area beneath this, and I could see it when I pulled the microwave out a bit.  Using this existing “floor” saved me from doing extra labor and also adding more weight to the trailer. Satisfied with my plan, I cut it all out by drilling holes in the corners and then running between them with a cheap jigsaw.

No turning back now!

This picture gives you a good look of all the wiring (try not to cut it!) and the nice “floor” hidden in here.  I did give some thought to trying to make a deep storage area back behind the microwave, too (yet more wasted space), but I decided I wasn’t up for it.  Besides, the microwave may need that room for cooling.

So how am I going to build this cubby in here?  What am I going to make it out of?  I had some plans, but they involved unfinished particleboard and were admittedly somewhat crude.  Not for the first time, the Wife came to the rescue:

Check out the curb carrion!

See that there to the left?  It’s a drawer she found sitting in a trash pile by the curb. The bottom had fallen out, several of its screws were loose, and the front of it — I suspect this was the reason it was getting trashed — was covered with a child’s doodles in various media.  When I got home from my first day of teaching yesterday, I was honestly surprised to find this thing was sitting in the entryway.  ”What’s with the drawer?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said.  ”One of the neighbors was throwing it out and it seemed like some of the wood was still good.  I thought it might help.”

And so it did, my dear.  It didn’t take but a minute of looking at it to reckon how to stabilize it and convert it into my cubby hole.

The shrunken drawer, ready for installation.

Voila.  What I’ve done is yank the doodled front off the drawer and cut down what had been the bottom and back of it, thus shrinking it from a wide drawer to a narrower one.  It’ll go into the hole in pieces and be assembled in there — since it’s bigger than the opening — but I wanted to be sure it all went together first.

What am I going to put in place of the front?  Well, nothing.  The drawer is going to be flipped up to form my cubby hole.  The old bottom will be the back of the cubby, the old back will be the top, and the old front won’t be needed since it’ll be resting on the cabinet “floor.”  Must admit, I was sorta proud of my cleverness (and grateful to the wife for her curb-watchingness).

Bracing modified to allow passage of wires.

So how to mount the cubby inside the cabinet?  Well, I again tore parts off the old drawer. The little wood brace you see in place here was previously being used to attach one of the sides of the drawer to the front.  I’m going to use it to attach that same side (through the same holes using the same screws) to the cabinet floor.  Ditto for the other side.

I did switch the brace from being on the inside corner of the “drawer” (as it was originally) to being on the outside of my cubby (and thus inside of the cabinet, if you follow me).  This was done for several reasons.  First, it will look cleaner when things are done, since these braces will be hidden behind the “walls” instead of exposed at the base of the cubby.  Second, it will be stronger, since any pressure against the sides of the cubby will press them against these braces; if I’d installed them in the drawer fashion that pressure would be pushing the sides away from the braces and ripping them out.  Third, it will be easier, since the braces will help me square up the cubby and I can now secure it by driving a simple woodscrew from the cubby interior into the brace.

This particular brace pictured here, you can see, had to be modified to allow passage of these wires.  I hadn’t realized where this pass-through was when I made my big cutouts.  If I had, things would be a bit more elegant than this.  That said, I ended up using this minor screw-up to my advantage: once the “wall” of the cubby is in place, the smallest sliver of this hole is still visible. It’s just big enough to act as a drain hole for the whole cubby. Or to sweep debris through into the lower cabinet on the actual floor of the trailer, where it’s easier to clean up. All’s well that ends well.

Always cut away from you, kids.

My cutouts weren’t exactly perfect — I’m not that good at freehanding with a power saw — and I knew I’d want some sort of trim to clean things up regardless.  While I was putting the kids to bed last night, the Wife went to Home Depot and got this cheap plastic trim made for bathroom tile installation.  She thought I might be able to cut out the interior flange and be left with a nice piece of right-angle corner trim.

As you can see, I did just that.  But as it was with the drawer, she was more brilliant than she knew (or maybe she thought of all this and let me discover it myself?).  While I did make finishing trim by cutting out this flange, I also used a bit of the trim with the flange left intact to secure the back of my cubby hole.  You can see this last bit of trim work in the last of these shots of the finished product:

First Niagara modification completed. Got me a cubby by the door!

The wood finish isn't a perfect match, but it isn't eye-catchingly off. And the whole thing is nicely finished.

I really like the depth and size of the completed cubby. It's a far better use of the space!

So that’s it.  One modification down.  Several more to go.

Next up will be adding either storage for the sewer line or some kind of foot-washing system by the front door.

We’d been looking for an RV of some kind for a number of years now: tent trailers, hybrid trailers, and travel trailers. Given my summers off and our love of the outdoors, having an RV suited our style. We just had to find the right one at the right price, which was very difficult to do.

Thankfully, we think we have it now: a 2007 Fleetwood Niagara. I grew up with a couple of tent trailers (around here they call them a “pop-up”), and I can tell you this ain’t much like what I’m used to: it’s got high walls that provide high counters, massive king-sized bunks, a slide-out dinette, and even an interior shower/potty. It’s very nice. Have a look:

The Niagara at home. All closed up it's still a big boy.

Popped up it's even bigger. Check out the slide-out!

Niagara stock interior front. Roomy, and Sherry loves the sink.

Niagara stock interior rear. Check out the hard-walled flushing toilet and shower.

We’ve taken it on one trip so far: a maiden voyage to Edisto Island here in South Carolina. It went well. Jeep got a little over 11 mpg pulling this beast, which seems fair for the fact we were going through a lot of small towns. I’ll be interested to see what it gets when we’re crossing the country at highway speeds.

Our first campsite. Note the Commander awesomeness.

Our son plays in the dirt. "I found ants, Daddy!"

The wee lass sleeps in exhausted peace.

Being the kind of fellow I am, of course, I’m now looking to start modifying the trailer. Going to start small, I think, by just cutting apart a cabinet or two. Nothing too crazy!

If you know me only as a writer or a professor, the new job surely will sound strange. My brother and I — and our saintly patient wives — are for at least a while slipping into management of the family business that our dad started as a “hobby” in his retirement: 4xGuard.

Super manly logo.

We’d already been doing some work for 4xG — redesigning its website and logo, working through new product design, and just generally talking through issues as they came up — but things are much more official now. Yes, I am now collecting a paycheck to help design and sell skidplates and other off-road accessories for Jeeps.

Strange for a specialist in medieval literature, I suppose, though it does sort of make sense when you think about it. After all, what 4xGuard makes is simply the modern equivalent of this:

Medieval skidplates, baby.

The new job means a bit less free time in my life, obviously, but it’s also something I really enjoy doing. Plus, well, it gives me a good excuse to build new goodies for my Commander. It’s work, right?