![\"ny-round-rock-beach.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2008\/06\/ny-round-rock-beach.jpg\")
<\/a><\/p>\nIt’s a particularly strange sensation because quite a few things happened and yet I wasn’t writing about them. \u00a0 On Friday night we took the boat out for an evening tour of the lake. Across the lake and a few miles south there’s a spot called Split Rock, and just west of the split rocks is a beach famous for its beautifully round rocks and driftwood. Somehow conditions are just right for the slate and granite to become circular and nearly polished, and wind up here on the beach.<\/p>\n
On Saturday Eleanor and I took off to Plattsburgh, where Colin Hyde restores vintage trailers. \u00a0 We met Colin at the shop and toured a few projects in progress, but our main task was to take a look at our beloved 1968 Caravel, which has been sitting at Colin’s shop for three years. \u00a0 We left it there, partially restored, and haven’t gotten around to finishing the project.<\/p>\n Until now. \u00a0 I want the Caravel to be usable for next summer, so we loaded up a minivan full of interior cabinetry \u00a0 to take back to Vermont for refinishing or rebuilding. \u00a0 It is now proven that you can fit the entire interior of a Caravel in a Honda Odyssey with room to spare. \u00a0 I’m going to return all the parts to Colin over the next few weeks, either refinished or completely rebuilt from new wood. \u00a0 It will take a while but I think I can get it all done before it’s time to go. I plan to document the process here, so you’ll be seeing more of this.<\/p>\n On Sunday we had Colin and his wife Suzanne and son Malcolm over for a day of play by the beach. \u00a0 They hit it right because the weather was gorgeous: about 80 degrees, sunny, and very calm on the water. \u00a0 We did all the usual beach day stuff: \u00a0 a little wakeboarding, catching rays, playing in the water, then dinner on the grill, a game of whiffleball on the lawn, \u00a0 and finally saying farewell to our guests at about 9 p.m. (when at this time of year the sun is just setting).<\/p>\n It was in every way a pleasant day, and at the end of it I began to feel the writer’s block breaking down. \u00a0 I think a heavy workload and lots of little concerns built that block during the week. \u00a0 While I don’t expect this week to be any easier, I think having a little project as a distraction will help keep me writing in this period of non-travel.<\/p>\n So I’ll talk about that for a moment. \u00a0 The interior of our 1968 Airstream Caravel is supposedly oak. \u00a0 It does not look like the sort of oak you see in lumberyards today. \u00a0 The grain is very broad and knot-free. \u00a0 The color is sort of a yellowish, possibly due to the age of the varnish. \u00a0 This makes it very difficult to match. \u00a0 Some of the wood is 1\/4″ veneered plywood, and other pieces are solid 1″ thick \u00a0 planks.<\/p>\n Water damage, physical abrasion, burns, and hack repairs have all taken a toll on the wood, and many pieces are beyond refinishing. \u00a0 If I replace just a few pieces and finish them with modern polyurethane, they are likely not to match the older pieces, and in most cases will make the older stuff look terrible. \u00a0 The solution appears to be to refinish everything so it all looks about the same.<\/p>\n This isn’t as bad as it seems because there isn’t really a lot of cabinetry inside such a small trailer. \u00a0 The whole thing amounts to perhaps three sheets of 1\/4″ plywood (albeit expensive veneer plywood), and some 1″ planks ripped to appropriate width. \u00a0 My first mission this week is to take some samples to the local wood specialists and see what I can get to match the grain and color. \u00a0 I may have to adapt the wood with a light stain. \u00a0 I also will consider changing all the wood to a new species if the cost is not outrageous. Personally, I think the Caravels I’ve seen with cherry interiors are very nice.<\/p>\n While the interior is out of the Caravel, perhaps this fall, Colin’s elves will start to finalize the interior. \u00a0 The serious work on this trailer was done in 2004, including a new plywood subfloor, stripping of clearcoat, re-wiring, refurbishment of the bathroom, plumbing fixes, new axle, a spare tire holder, extensive exterior metal work, dent repair, new insulation, new belly pan, Marmoleum finish floor, upgraded power converter and electrical panel, window repairs, refrigerator refurbishment, etc.<\/p>\n That was a hunk of work, especially the metal repairs, but there’s still a fair bit left to do. \u00a0 We need to reinstall the interior, reinstall the appliances (fridge, catalytic heater), \u00a0 finish the plumbing, get new foam and upholstery, add curtains, add a vintage awning, refurbish some exterior nameplates, and polish the skin. \u00a0 I will likely also remove the TV antenna (the trailer doesn’t have a TV), add LED clearance lights, and get the trailer clearcoated as it was originally.<\/p>\n Not all of this can be done in the next few weeks, of course. \u00a0 But if we can have the trailer ready for next summer, I’ll be satisfied. \u00a0 It will be fun to take to the Vintage Trailer Jam in 2009, and \u00a0 we could even use it as our temporary house in Vermont rather than taking the big Airstream across the country again. \u00a0 I’m not at all sure what sort of living situation we’ll have next summer, but it’s nice to have options.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I have hung back on the blog this weekend to let my thoughts catch up with events. It has been a time when a lot of “not much” seemed to happen. Sometimes I find myself simply living the events of day to day without having any motivation to analyze them, which is lot different from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[20,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tour.airstreamlife.com\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/a><\/a><\/p>\n