Our rotted camper floor: New tile to the rescue!

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by Jim Bessey

Porcelain tile fixes rotten floor in our 1980 Shasta camp trailer 

This isn't my usual place for writing about tile, but my recent experience with some serious rot in our camper's floor makes the exception. I wanted a durable, rock-solid new floor and porcelain floor tile seemed like a fine fit for that. Doesn't hurt that tile is almost always pretty, too.

When we bought our 1980 Shasta camper about 6 years ago, the floor just inside our door and into the bathroom had a "soft spot." I fixed that by doing some plywood patching, by adding floating laminate flooring in the main area, and by overlaying linoleum in the bathroom. Until last month, that was good enough.

When Lin and I went camping earlier in June, we discovered that the "soft spot" had returned with a vengeance. Afterward, I parked the camper in our driveway turn-around and set up shop. We had another camping trip coming right up, so I had to hustle. First I had to fix the steel fold-out step, which was very springy (that was a clue for me for what was to follow).

The extent of the rot made me sick

The floor problems began right inside the door, the single highest-traffic part of our camper. I knew some serious fixing was in order, so I put a new blade in my cordless sawz-all and started what I'd hoped would be a strategic surgery. No such luck.

The damage was horrendous: wet-rotted frame members, plywood so soft I could crush it in my hands. The extent of the rot made me sick. It went under the entry closet, over to the oven cabinet, and all the way to the bathtub. In all, I had to remove everything down to the protective metal under-skin for a total of over 15 square feet.

Even the wooden 2 by 2 framing was ruined, and that's what held everything together.

Talk about needing a Plan B! I had to search my shop for suitable materials and start improvising right away. Had to cut out the bottoms of the closet and the vanity, just to get access. I laid in strips of 5/8" floor decking to span the dead space over the black water tank. Had to locate the metal cross-members and screw that down to firm it up.

The right trim and finish fixes everything

Next came a layer of 1 by 6 pine at right angles to the floor plywood, to tie things together and gain some strength (since I couldn't plywood the whole floor in one shot). Trouble was, the 1 by 6 material was too thick to go under the existing floor plywood--the old and new floors had to "interlock." So I had to switch to 7/16" plywood, slip it under the old floor where it was still good, then infill with 1/4" lauan plywood.

Doesn't that sound like fun? Took me an entire Saturday to do all that.

I used up all my 'scrap' material, two tubes of Liquid Nails, and had to make another run to Lowe's for more plywood. Ran out of screws; ran out of underlayment staples. Ran out of daylight, too.

It all worked out in the end, though. The floor was oddly-built and ugly, but felt really solid underfoot. With another full day available to me, I set-up for tile cutting, grabbed two boxes of left-overs from the garage, and spent a few hours cutting and laying new 12 by 12 porcelain tiles. Trust me, there were some tricky cuts!

The right trim and finish fixes everything. I scrounged through all of my left-over shoe moldings, some newly-acquired scribe moldings that matched perfectly, and caulked all the grout joints with tile-industry caulk that would stay permanently flexible. I figured grout would just crumble and fall out once I got back on the road.

You be the judge. Take a close look at the picture above. It's nothing fancy, really; but I'm hoping this floor will last until we're ready to give up on our 30-year-old camping trailer. It survived our week-long camping trip very nicely.
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 How about you? Have you ever had to do some emergency surgery on your camper? It's not fun, is it?

While camping at Spruce Row Campground -- We hike the Taughannock Gorge Trail

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by Jim Bessey

Trail length:  .75 miles
Trail rating:  Easy
Scenery rating:  10 out of 10

Jim, Nick and Layla pose on the Overlook, Falls behind them.

They say "Ithaca is Gorges!" Since we were camping just a few miles away, we had to visit one of the coolest gorges in the region: Taughannock Falls Gorge (pronounced "tuh GAN uck"). This soft gravel trail follows the water's path from the falls to Taughannock Falls State Park on Cayuga Lake. It's wide and shady with very little grade change along the way.

Nick, Jim and Layla along the creek bed. Trail behind Nick.

The trail crosses a fairly new bridge and terminates just a few dozen yards from the spectacular falls. It's fun to start at the Overlook, see the people down below, then go there yourself afterward. That's exactly what we did. We'll let the pictures tell the story.

View from the Gorge Trail, down the creek bed.

Jim and Layla under the bridge to Taughannock Falls.

Jim, Lin and Layla near the trail's end at the Falls.

Taughannock Falls from trail's end. Gorgeous, huh?

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How about you? Do you have a trail hike review you'd like to share? If you'd like to submit your review for posting, you can reach me via Comments or by using the link at the top of this page.

Day Three at Spruce Row Campground -- We hit a few roadbumps and make a big splash

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by Jim Bessey

The Cement Pond at Spruce Row (website photograph)

We've spent two nights at Spruce Row Campground and RV Park, just north of Ithaca, NY. Both nights have been gorgeous. The first morning didn't go so well, though.

Make no mistake: this is a lovely campground. It's big and green, has a dandy pool (more on that in a minute), and enough shade to dodge the harshest sun. Oh, but the showers--not so good.

The showers are old, and weren't high budget to begin with. But, for me, as long as there's some hot water I'm okay. A little water pressure never hurts, either. Unfortunately, these facilities have neither force nor heat. Have to admit, that's a risk you take when you go camping. We found a fix for that...

The pool! I read one disparaging review of that pool online, before we arrived. Let me just offer my opinion to the contrary, loud and clear. It's a great pool.

They call it The Cement Pond, like in the Beverly Hillbillies. Turns out, it really is a cement pond. The owners dug a hole the right size and shape and poured concrete to fit. It takes you a minute or two to get used to the idea, but it works very well.

All four sides of the "pond" are step-tapered into the water. The shallow end goes from zero inches to about two feet, and the deep end bottoms out at seven feet. You can perch a lawn chair at the edge and let your feet trail into the water, all the way around.

The water itself was just plain perfect, maybe 80 degrees. It was heavenly. We'd swim a bit, then lounge on one of the sloped sides, then plunge back in again. Loved every minute of it, and I'm headed back soon to cool off again. (We still have temps in the low 90s today.)

As for the bumps...well. I understand about Slow Down and Speed Limit 5 mph. Every campground has trouble with drivers in a hurry. But this place has some serious speed bumps. Even carefully easing the truck and camper over these rattles things loose inside both vehicles. Some are about 8 inches tall; I measured. Ouch!

So that's where we're at. A couple small complaints, and one great big Oh Yeah! for the pool. Anyone for water polo?
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How about you? Do you have a campground review you'd like to share? If you'd like to submit your review for posting, you can reach me via Comments or by using the link at the top of this page.

Day One at Spruce Row Campground, Ithaca, NY -- our first time here, so far so good!

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Nick and I have a game of Gin at our Spruce Row campsite

My wife decided it was time to try a new campground, and she wanted to tour the Ithaca region a bit this year. I did a Google search for "campgrounds near Ithaca NY" and here we are. First impressions: it's big and shady and not too shabby at all.

Of course I checked a few user reviews first, but they ranged from "love this place" to "never again." We just had to see for ourselves. We waited to make reservations until late last week. It's the 4th of July holiday week, so we could've been shut out. Instead, we have a pretty nice site. Grassy, shady, and big enough for truck and camper and us.

The layout is typical. All the services and amenities greet you on arrival, with campsites laid out in a series of roads farther back. Decent roads, too, mostly good gravel. Registration was fast, friendly and easy. Good little store inside. The whole place is just filled with trees of all sorts. I love trees!

So far we're settled in nicely. Our new camp doggie, Layla, has had a fine walk on a maze of grassy trails marked for her use. The campers around us are courteous, though one did have his music cranked a little too loud for a while.

We'll check out the showers and pool today, our first morning here. Take a longer walk around the whole place--it's quite a spread, with over 200 sites both seasonal and transient. Then we'll become Ithaca tourists and have a look around this beautiful Finger Lakes destination. I see a whole batch of wineries, restaurants, and state parks scattered all around us. Should be fun! 
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How about you? Do you have a campground review you'd like to share? If you'd like to submit your review for posting, you can reach me via Comments or by using the link at the top of this page. ~Jim

Music and Camping: What can we do about Radio Spam?

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When I go camping, I've just gotta have some music!

photo by Andrew Taylor

by Jim Bessey

When we go camping we leave the TV behind. It's one of our little rules. I still, however, need some background noise. Assuming, that is, the campers next to us don't have their stereo cranked up. (Yup, it happens.) So we have a sweet little battery-powered radio that plays softly near the picnic table. 

I like to listen to Bob Kingsley's Country Top 40 on Sunday mornings. Sometimes I can catch a Saturday night NASCAR race on Big Dog Country 1035. My wife likes hot-pop and dance music, stuff she can dance to in the dark by the campfire. We prefer radio because it also gives us weather updates, just in case. I think it's smart to stay in touch with the news and weather, even when we're taking it easy outdoors.

Bags of coins (worth millions?), hair tonics (Guaranteed!!)

There's one big fat drawback to our music plan: RADIO SPAM. Can you hear the growl in my voice when I say that? Radio ads repeat on a near-hourly basis, so it's bad enough listening to the same come-ons from our local car dealers. Those, I can handle. But the SPAM -- mostly national-level crap -- makes my blood boil.

My dad used to get the Legion Magazine, because he was a Korean War Vet. There was a whole page of jokes and political cartoons near the back, which I liked. Right behind them, though, were the advertisements. Remember those? Bags of coins (worth millions?), hair tonics (Guaranteed!!), and carburetors that would get you 100 mpg -- it was all there every month. NOW that same garbage is all on the radio, for heaven's sake.

A few years back, a big media company that rhymes with "mEntercom" bought a half-dozen of our local, previously independent, radio stations. Now this batch of call-letters forms a fine conglomerate that apparently offers the national advertisers JUST what they wanted. If you hear one of these Spam ads on one station, you know you'll hear it on all of them. Swell. What kind of advertisements am I complaining about, you ask?

How about the amazing secret stash of gold coins recently discovered in a Swiss vault? These RARE and extremely valuable treasures can be yours when you order the free DVD that explains this incredible opportunity in detail. Oh boy!

That one's not so bad. But do we have to listen to Fantastic Offers for Male Enhancement?? Do we really? These are carefully worded so as not to offend. Well, not much anyway. Yuk

One of the regulars, limited to JUST ONE trail offer per household, promises wonderful weight loss for fat women over the age of 23, all in a simple pill. No diets, no exercise, just one pill. The bubbly girl who testifies about this pill's power went from a size 14 to a size 4 in just six weeks!! Sure she did.

These ads are SPAM, nothing less. They're come-ons, they're baloney, and they never stop playing -- despite exclamations of severe time limits on these Amazing Offers. Frankly, I'm sick of them all. I can't believe having this junk played every day is the price we have to pay for music, weather, and news. Should we simply give up and switch to an MP3 player? (It would plug right into the back of our camp radio.) Should we play CD albums instead? What do you think?
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Your comments and feedback are always welcome!