Current Location: Nashville KOA, Nashville, Tennessee

On Sunday we went to church again at First Baptist. We met Malcolm’s co-worker and his family after the service and talked for a bit before finding a pretty nice little Mexican restaurant for Mother’s Day lunch. It wasn’t too busy but the food was really good. They were giving all the mothers there a free small dessert. We took care of a couple little things around the trailer and mainly just bummed around the rest of the day.

Malcolm took out the two fixed shelves in the top half of our kitchen pantry and added shelves via the side rails, clips and board method like we used in the tall half bathroom cabinet. Here are some pictures.

Hard at work

Scrap materials

Ready to start

Rails

Done. Double the number of shelves.

We also moved our dining table a few inches away from the theater seat. It wasn’t centered between the dining room chairs, but now it is. Malcolm also installed screens on the refrigerator vents. We used these that we bought from Amazon. They were actually too long (they have correct size ones, too, but we clicked the wrong link), so Malcolm cut them down to fit. Should keep the flying critters out of the refrigerator compartment.

On Wednesday, David drove up to visit us overnight. Wednesday was his birthday, so we took him out to eat at McNamara’s (the Irish place), then wandered around the mall. Malcolm bought his birthday present in the Lego store while we were there.

Today, David and Val rode downtown on the shuttle and wandered around the town for a while before heading up to Malcolm’s office. We walked around and introduced David around then headed down to eat lunch. After lunch, Val and David headed back downtown to catch the return shuttle since David needed to head down the road.

This evening we went out to eat at Pie Five pizza and stopped by the mall to exchange a mattress pad we had bought for the couch bed (wrong size – we accidentally bought a full size instead of a queen). The couch bed sleeps “OK” according to David. Malcolm laid down on it briefly and decided it wouldn’t be too bad of a place to sleep if needed.

Tomorrow is Malcolm’s last day of work here before we fly out next week to Seattle.

Current Location: Nashville KOA, Nashville, Tennessee

Back to work for Malcolm this week. He’s enjoying having found a better route into town (coming in from the north to avoid various construction projects and inevitable downtown road closures around the Broadway area for various events. Val has been busy doing various little organizational projects as well as working on some sewing and crochet projects.

Speaking of projects and organization, we’ve also done a few small organizational mods. Most of them are repeats of ones we had done to the previous trailer. One is using large paint stirring sticks and cup hooks to make hangers for the various measuring cups and measuring spoons. The sticks are cut down to size and mounted on the back side (inside) of the pantry or cabinet doors. Cup hooks are screwed in and now you have a place to hang these items within reach.

Measuring spoons in the pantry

Close-up

Another project Malcolm tackled was some way to organize the various stereo and computer components in the cabinet above the TV. Each time we travel, we find them all bunched up in disarray. Plus, most of these components generate heat and were stacked right on top of each other – not good for heat dissipation.

We looked and shopped around for some type of shelving or rack type system to mount items on where they weren’t stacked right on top of each other. We finally found a solution at The Container Store – wire type letter trays in the office department. Wiring is run out the open sides (the bottom and back have wire mesh). The computer (bottom shelf), Apple TV and Blu-Ray player (middle shelf) just sit on their respective shelves. We will evaluate if we need to secure them better after our next move.

The home theater component (top) was about 1/4″ too wide to fit inside one of the trays, but perfectly fit between the raised tabs on the sides that are used to interlock with a tray stacked on top. We used a couple pieces of velcro to hold it in place on top, then another piece to secure the wireless router on top of that.

Media cabinet looking more organized

Close-up of the rack

Not really a mod, but more of a necessity. We found birds flitting around the front of our trailer, flying in and out. We found that they had started a nest inside the pin box on the front of the trailer. After debating several methods of preventing the nests, we decided on a low tech solution for now since we’ll be stationary for about 4 more weeks. Some blue painters tape and a large lawn and leaf bag covered the whole assembly rather nicely.

Not the prettiest, but it works.