Current Location: Nashville KOA, Nashville, Tennessee

Sometimes it seems that Malcolm gets most of his exercise carrying tools back and forth between the inside of the trailer and the outside storage compartment. Unless you count frequent strolls around Home Depot. Things are actually tapering off in the modification department, but here are a few we’ve done in the last couple of days.

We had recently replaced the shower head in the main bathroom with one from Oxygenics. The old shower head had a flexible metal hose and the new one a flexible clear plastic hose. We found that the plastic hose was a little too stiff, especially when filled with water. We found a suitable replacement at Home Depot and Val installed it. Much more flexible and actually a bit longer, as well.

While the end of the new hose that rests in the shower head holder doesn’t fit as neatly as the original hose, it works.

The next project was to replace the cheapie drawer glides on Val’s cabinet with nicer cabinet grade self-closing glides. Malcolm built this cabinet a few years ago to hold two drawers left over from Val’s father’s desk. The simple glides were starting to stick. The new glides were actually about 1/4″ too long, but it works. Maybe a thicker piece of trim on the front of the cabinet?

Next up, installing AC/USB outlets on either side of our bed frame. There were already standard 110V AC outlets there, but we liked the one that we installed in the center of the theater seating unit so well, we bought two more. We bought a black one and another white one. After looking at the white one we put in the theater seat console compared to all the black switches and outlets already installed in the trailer, we decided to change that one out to black and put the two white ones on either side of the bed.

One final mod was another light switch relocation project. The lights over the couch in the rear of the trailer are controlled by a switch on the underside of the cabinets high above the couch, making it difficult to find and operate. We decided the switch really should be down at a typical wall switch level.

Malcolm suspected that the power going up to the lights and the two wall sconces on the back wall of the trailer probably ran up one side or the other of the back window. He was hoping it was the door side of the trailer (left end of the couch as you are facing it) since that is where Val likes to sit.

Malcolm pulled the AC outlet out on that end of the couch, fished around in the insulation and found a low voltage line running up towards the top. We figured it was powering either the inside lights or the outside clearance lights. Fortunately, it was the inside lights. Because there was little slack in the wire, Malcolm had to go ahead and cut out a hole for the switch and test the wire there. Fortunately, it was the correct one.

One of the two wires was cut, stripped back and connected inline with the switch. Once it tested fine, it was assembled in the wall and now operates the overhead lights. The wire fed not only the overhead lights, but also the two wall sconces on either end of the couch. Since we rarely use those, just having a switch at a more convenient location is what we needed.

Other than the two wiring-related tasks that were done today, the rest of the day was uneventful. We headed over to Camping World to have a propane tank filled. While there, we bought bug screens for our refrigerator vents, but found that they wouldn’t fit. They were listed as for Dometic brand refrigerator vents, which look almost identical to the vents behind our Norcold brand refrigerator, but were just different enough that they wouldn’t fit. Back to the store they went. Fortunately, Camping world is literally just a few hundred feet up the road from the campground entrance.

We also purchased a hose that would connect to our propane tank on one end and to our Coleman gas grill on the other. Unfortunately, Coleman makes the connection just different enough that the hose wouldn’t work. It went back to the store, as well.

We also headed out to Sonic to get some slushies this afternoon, since it was such a warm (90-ish) and sunny day. Once we were back, Malcolm got pulled into a nap by the bed as he walked by. We grilled dinner out and had a short bike ride afterwards.