The car to camper conversion.

Well the long awaited first post is here!  I am working out the kinks and trying to figure out things with my tablet and phone and camera. Its frustrating, to say the least! (and I cant find the apostrophe key on this tiny keyboard!!)

New plan. I have given up with the tiny keyboard and the tablet and I'm back to my laptop. If I can't make things better with the "little" set up, I'm just taking my lap top with me. Anyways, let's move this along (did you notice I have an apostrophe again??!?)

If you are here and reading this, then you know that I am headed out for a two month road trip to the Arctic. Up through BC, Yukon, and Northwest Territories and then down through Alberta and across the bottom of BC to home. I am camping for the majority of the trip and I have a tent, but now....

I am the proud owner of a Honda Civic camper!! I can't tell you how excited I am about this. My friend, and very talented builder, Andrew, brought this project to life. Can we just all take a moment and give up three cheers for Andrew?? This man has FOUR BOYS (9 and under) and three of them "helped" us today 😂😶😬

So here's the run down...

You start with a very ordinary Honda Civic - it looks like this ⬇

Then you take out the seats. If you hide some loose change around the floor and tell the 6 yr old that he can keep whatever he finds, the average 6 yr old will jump right in to clean up mode and pick up all the disgusting french fry bits, lollipop sticks, pieces of kleenex and a bunch of random and very questionable refuse. (In fairness, it is quite likely that a portion of the gunk came from him anyways.)

Once things are cleaned out and vacuumed up, the frame building begins.

The design was tweaked along the way as we talked through scenarios including, but not limited to, being trapped in the car for long periods of time because of bothersome bears, or having car issues and needing to wait days for the next set of travelers to come my way, terribly inclement weather, forest fires, and the list can go on, but I'll stop.

The long piece across the back bench stays as is, but see the two piece with the circles cut in them? Well, those lids lift up to access firewood storage.

See? Cool, isn't it?

The thermarest fits in nicely and I can lie on it quite comfortably. I can't stretch straight out, but who sleeps like that anyways? Not me.

Now, see that long, black, pvc pipe that is attached to my roof racks? That is the anchor for my awning. Yes, you read that right. I HAVE AN AWNING!

Oh, did I mention I have a table as well? No? Well, I also have a table. It hooks in to an anchored piece in my trunk and has a leg that drops down. When it's not in use, I turn it sideways and it hooks right up along the top of the inside of my trunk. ANDREW IS A GENIUS!

At this point in the build Andrew was getting quite excited about things and was throwing out all kinds of crazy ideas. This is the one he was allowed to run with... (no, I don't need a roll cage or pvc running boards or a huge bumper with spot lights.) See that white tube? That is a giant piece of pvc pipe that will hold about 18L of water. It's not my drinking water, but it will be used for things like washing my hair, or clothes, or an over heated car, or putting out a campfire, or an impromptu water fight defense against unruly or drunk fellow campers. There will be a spout installed and have a small hose attachment. Again, three cheers for Andrew!

That's as far as we got today. And by we, I mean Andrew. I sat in a chair and answered technical questions and shared user friendly observations (for example... "hey if the platform pieces had a big hole drilled in them, I could sit my water cup in there." and "you know what else would be great? Some of the rubber meshy stuff to sit on the platform pieces so my phone and snacks don't go flying all around.")

I have about a million small things to finish in the next month or so. I still have to make another screen for a rear window, cut material and figure out a hanging system for my curtains, acquire a bunch of boring stuff like batteries, cords, memory cards, and make some kind of food plan. Figuring out the technology is making me crazy so I might just give up on that one and stick with what I know.

I'll leave you here for now. I don't want to overwhelm you with details you don't care about. I barely care about them, so I can't imagine it's interesting to you. If you want to keep up to date with blog posts, I believe you can subscribe right here from this page and that should send you an email alert whenever I post something OR you can just ask me nicely to put you on my email list and I will send an email out to let you know that there are new words and pictures on here. (My guess is that you will all just tell me to put your name on my email list, because most of you reading this are here because you are not on Facebook or Instagram and this is about as technological as you get. Yes, I'm looking at you Auntie Mary.)

Ciao for now.

ps - I just checked and yes, you can subscribe right from this page. Look up at the very top and you will see the word SUBSCRIBE. Click that and it should be self explanatory from there...