Camping

SOLD!

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That lovely hard to find Palomino pop up camper that I longed to have, we sold it down the road.

My camper/camping needs have evolved into something beyond my initial firm stance that camping should be done only in a tent, should be rustic, one with the Earth.  Although I still values these ideals behind our camping adventures, we have upgraded from tent, to pop-up camper, to a new to us “tin can” style camper (more on that later).

The initial purpose of trading the tent in for a camper was to get us off the ground and provide a little more safety from “wild” animals. (more on the reasons and original purchase here).

We did a little work on our Palomino, the water tank had not been properly winterized and so there was a spot where the tank burst, because these tanks are aluminum it was a little more of a challenge to find someone who could weld it for us.  Thankfully my uncle knew someone welded it for free!!!  Thank you!!!

Second, the water tank storage tank  had also not been properly treated so we had to clean that to remove mold and build up, mostly Clorox lots of water and patience.

So all in all we were not out much, and enjoyed 3 camping trips in this pop-up another bonus was that we were able to store it in the 3rd stall of our garage during the winter

It sold in less than a week after listing it on Craigslist.

I am so excited about our new camper and will post photos soon, but here are the last photos I took after some of the minor work we did on  the 1995 Palomino Hard Side pop up camper that a wonderful family of 7 is now hopefully enjoying!!!

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Rollin’ in a Palomino..

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Little Vanilla Ice lyrical redo lead in and … drum rolll….

Guess whose family will not be attacked by rabid raccoons or stuck  laying on our half deflated air mattresses looking at the tent ceiling this summer?

Mine!  That’s right we went all out and bought a pop up camper, but not just  any pop up camper, this one has hard sides, which is very cool.  Not sure if they are hard to find or not, but we went to a neighboring state to get this baby:

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As for rabid raccoons and rain storms, both are true.  Last year on our annual “gypsy trot” summer family vacation we encountered 2 days or torrential rain in Ludington, MI, which is an amazing beautiful quaint little town.  Imagine all 6 of  us in our 2 room “deluxe” tent laying on air mattresses, some that were really failing to hold their air, trying not to touch the walls for fear that water might leak in.

Now if we are caught in the rain I imagine that we can at least sit or stand *gasp* and play games and enjoy the storm.

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This camper has a King size bed on one end, and a queen size bed on the other end, the table folds down and becomes a bed as well.  plenty of room for all of us. We looked at quite a few campers on Craigslist before deciding on this one, and with Jon’s height 6’2″ and the size of our family we decided this platform was going to be the best for our family.  There are quite a few that are a little smaller with a queen on one side and a full on the other, most have the fold down table option.

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King

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Queen

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Table turned into bed.

this also has air-conditioning and heating, a shower, which I do not think we will use, and a potty!!!  No more late night running through th campground to pee.  This was not on our must have list but it is a nice option to have.  This is a hinged lid that lifts up and viola, potty.

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In all honesty I would LOVE…LOVE to find an old airstream, we almost bought one once 3-4 years ago, but it needed a lot of work.  there was also a pop up for sale while we were looking that had a that nice 70’s orange stove and sink, the vintage spoke to me, but it had the smaller bed platform.

So we have stainless which I really like as well.

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I am hoping to whip out my handy Singer machine and sew some new curtains and valance to retro this out a little bit.

I might even paint the cabinets, and definitely I have to replace the gold handles and hinges….not a fan of gold much.  Oooh and maybe a name?!?!

So there it is, the new camper on the block.  We are really excited to gypsy around in it!

This Cake is on Fi-yah!!

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Raiven just celebrated her 9th birthday.

We chose to have it at our house and she was allowed to invite up to 9 girls, including her self to spend the night.

All but one was able to spend the night, they all came and played, made a craft and had cake and ice cream.

We are big campers at our house so we set the tent up, since there was still 6 inches of snow outside, in the base ment, for the girls to sleep in.  In nice weather we would have set it up outside.

After seeing this cake:

Credit: Amam Cara…Cakedecorating website

Hubby and I decided to do our own take on a bonfire cake:

Here are the ingredients:

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Cake mix of your choice, along with ingredients needed to make cake, which may vary.

Pam or non stick spray.

Pirouette cookies.

Hard butterscotch and cinnamon candies, at least 25 of each

Here is how we did it, as always feel free to do what you like and works best for you.

Bake cake according to directions on the package.  We used a yellow cake it is a favorite, also I thought it would be neat to take some scoops of the cake mix before baking it and add red or yellow coloring and plop them in so when you cut the cake the inside had more of a fire look,…maybe next time.

We baked the cake in a 9 X 13, cut it in half and sacked it, you could do 2 round pants as well.

Let it cool, frost as you normally would, we used chocolate.

Then take the butterscotch and cinnamon hard candies, put them in a baggies and pound them until crushed, almost like a sugar.

Then put them on a sheet of tinfoil that has been sprayed with non stick spray and put in the oven at 350, here are the candies we melted:

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This does not take long 5 minutes or so, it will look a little liquidy and bubbly, also when you melt the candies you can choose how thick to make them which will change the time depending on the thickness.

Once cooled, break into pieces and put on your cake however you like, add pirouette cookies as the “loge for your fire.

We added fire to the edges, the candy stuck very well to the frosting.

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Ta-Da bonfire cake!

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Sing with me This cake is on Fi-yah!

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Happy 9th Birthday!!  This girl knows how to party 🙂

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