I have just returned from the 21st Annual Dam Gathering of the Tears at Antlers RV Resort in Lakehead CA. As usual, I had a wonderful time. I saw friends that I haven’t seen since the last gathering last year, I made some new friends, and I met a bunch of great folks from all over. A few old friends couldn’t make the trip, but I’ll catch up with them another time, maybe at next year’s Gathering.
This year’s DAM Gathering trip was intended to be a trial run in preparation for this summer’s long trip to and through the Canadian Rockies. As such it was a complete success. I discovered what works, what doesn’t work, and what has to be changed before I spend a month and 4,000 miles in the Lo-Liner.
As always, I took homebrewed beer to the Gathering. This year I took 10 gallons of beer, five gallons each of DAM Red Ale and Dark Mild Ale. The DAM Red Ale was very popular and didn’t last through Saturday evening’s Chili Pot Luck dinner. The Mild lasted a little longer, making it back to my campsite after dinner for a few beers with friends. I need to pay better attention to transferring the beer cleanly from the secondary to the kegs. I did this for the Red, but not for the Mild. By Saturday evening, after having been drug around for 3 days, the Mild was pouring with chunks of yeast residue. The Red poured clean right up till the keg was empty.
I parked the Lo-Liner close to the concrete pad and picnic table, so I didn’t need my fold-up table, but ended up with a canopy support pole in an awkward spot next to the picnic table.
Lo-Liner in camp at 2014 DAM Gathering
You can see the orange guy lines I used for the canopy poles. Last year on the Tour of the Great Northwet, the guy lines were black, and I tripped over them, and walked into them numerous times. No trips this trip!
The Lo-Liner has a conventional awning rail along the passenger side. But I couldn’t get an awning made to fit it in time for this trip, and I don’t think I could install one by myself. So I improvised an awning from a side panel from my Caravan canopy. I had previously put grommets in the four corners, so I added one in the middle of one side, and two along the opposite side. I improvised four awning holders to go into the existing awning rail and bungeed the new awning to the side of the trailer. Three tarp poles, stakes, orange guy line, and some Figure 9 Caribiners completed the setup. If you haven’t used Figure 9 Caribiners, by Nite Ize, check them out. They make tensioning the guy lines a snap. No knots, ever.
After the Gathering broke up on Sunday, I towed the Lo-Liner up to Phoenix Oregon, to visit my friends Frank and Erika. The Siskiyou Summit is the highest point on I-5 and we crossed it in both directions with no trouble at all, much more comfortable than last year’s crossing in the overloaded Subaru Forester. The Lo-Liner tows well behind my 2009 Ford f150 pickup truck. The truck has enough torque to pull the trailer very comfortably with excellent gas mileage. I normally get about 16.5 MPG for my combined driving cycle around home. I got 13.5 MPG average for the entire trip, towing the Lo-Liner. Not too bad, in my opinion.
Now to get to work making those improvements for the summer trip. That will keep me busy for a while because I’m going to remove an existing cabinet and replace it with a shelf. The space where the cabinet, and the new shelf will have to be painted to match, and some rotted paneling removed and replaced. In addition to fabricating a seven-foot long shelf with a rounded-over lip. Woodworking seems hard to me, electricity seems easy. Somehow it should be the other way around sometimes ;-).