Clear Springs COE 2d Day

Let me finish up last night.  I BBQ'd some ribeyes while Gina prepared some sweet carrots and taters.  Mmmmmm.  Don't stuff always taste better cooked outside especially at the lake!  The lake, by-the-way, is Wright Patman and it's huge.  There are many COE campgrounds at the lake.  After dinner, Gina and I had some bourbon and watched a movie.  Good stuff.

Next day, Glyn and Skye stopped by for a visit coming up from Paris, Texas.  Glyn is my brother and as you may have guessed, Skye is my SIL.  They arrived early afternoon at about the same time as Gina and I had finished shopping.  During the morning, we'd went to Wal-Mart for some stuff, picked up some firewood, and had lunch at Cracker Barrel in Texarkana.

We cracked some beers, poured some bourbon, and started a fire late afternoon.  We were joined by the neighbor camper named Kevin.  Didn't catch his last name.  Kevin was coming out of some personal, painful events, and seemed genuinely happy to share our campfire.  Burgers, mac and cheese, and green beans were the menu for the evening.  Great time!  Glyn and Skye stayed the night and left early afternoon.  I HATE leaving family.  But, we had them to ourselves for about a day.  We really enjoyed seeing my brother and SIL.  As a joke, I told my two sisters that Glyn was my new favorite sibling 'cause they couldn't make it up.  It was a good laugh.  Here's a pic or two.

Clear Springs COE

Arrived yesterday and set up around 4 pm.  Very beautiful Corps park.  Our spot is A4, a loop off of a loop right on the water.  We'd called my sisters and brother a couple days ago to see if they wanted to come up from the Dallas area and meet us for burgers and dogs.  Kind of figured it would be difficult as that's today, a Sunday.  With school and work, a 5-hour round trip drive plus the visit would be difficult.  Anyway, one sister has already backed out.  One isn't feeling good and probably will as well.  This will be the brundt of the group as they're the two with kids.  My brother and his wife are the last two.  They said they we coming, but it is drizzling a little spotted with sunshine.  We will see.

I'm just happy to get out of the house and exercise Voyager and Herk.  I'd winterized Voyager a month or two back and had forgotten the water purification system inside.  It has 4 cylinders that were full of water.  With the freezing temps, I found that the plastic cylinders had totally shattered when they froze.  That wasn't good, but I would have had to deal with it later and now, that expensive lesson has been learned!

Now, it's Sunday morning and I'm having coffee--two cups--and waiting on two sibs to get back with me to find out what I'm doing tonight.  Here's a pic of our site:

BBQ Slide -- No It's Not a Dance

Well, I tackled a project today that I've been wanting to do, a 3' x 3' slide-out shelf in Voyager's bay.  My reasoning is to make it easier to pull out my common items and provide a BBQ platform under the awning for those rainy days or when a table isn't available.  Total project cost was roughly $40.  

3/4 OSB (only used half):  $8
4 Sets of casters:  $10
Angle brackets:  Had them already
Screws:  Had them already
Shelf liner:  $6
Spray glue:  $4
6' Aluminum angle:  $13

Need a drill, drill bits, jigsaw to cut metal, circular saw to cut OSB.  I might have missed something, but the pics below should be clear enough to notice.

Before Pic:

The rails:  Two 3', 2x4s mounted with casters.  To keep the casters from swiveling, I drilled a hole through the moving parts and screwed in 1 screw on each caster.  This keeps the casters from moving in a circular fashion and proivdes a moving track for the angle "iron" on the shelf to ride on.  In the front of the pic, you can see two brackets.  Their purpose is to keep the shelf from falling.  Although not in this picture, I cut them back so they would not interfere with the contents on the shelf.  See below.

This is the bottom of the shelf.  The aluminum angle is at top and bottom, with cut 2x4s roughly 2x2s (not perfect) to keep the OSB from sagging.  OSB stands for oriented strand board--the wafter looking board that is the shelf.  As you can see on the right side, I cut out a wooden handle and attached it.  Later (see below pic), I removed it and painted it silver, a color I had sitting around.
 

In this pic below, I am attaching the shelf lining product.  It's a semi-spongy, waterproof, and somewhat rugged material found in the household area of Wal-Mart.  Really cheap.  Also purchased a small can of spray glue.  To keep the edges from pulling up, I screwed in some really small screws if you look closely.

In the pic below, you can see what it looks like after shelf is installed and all items are in storage.

In this pic, the grilll is out and hooked up.  I know what you're thinking.  The grill smoke is going to go all into the bay and smell up everything.  Well, I can assure you that the bay door closes on top of the shelf enough so there's little chance of that.  Plus, can open the other side and let it waft out if needed.

Snow Day...Yeah, No Work!

Good stuff on occasion.

I Am 99.99996394488% Sure...

...that I like this song bunches.  Yeah, I'm bored, but needed to mark the day.