Monday, August 15, 2011

Our First Trailer?

The talk around the circle this summer has often been of redoing an airstream. Every time we start drinking the idea keeps coming up and getting kicked around. After checking on the towing capacity of the element, unfortunately all airstreams were out of the picture. Here and there we started looking at ultra-lightweight trailers that were originally designed to by pulled by cars. The good part is that in the 60's there were lots of little trailers to load up the family and head west on vacation. The bad part is that they were cheap and not treated very well. Most have been modified or have just rotted away.

Well because we don't have anything better to do (insert sarcasm), we ended up finding a project. It is pretty rough and needs a complete redo and will be good motivation to finish up those nagging house projects this fall.




It's a 1965 Shasta compact, 12 feet from the tongue to the bumper and originally listed at 1125 lbs. It is all original and prime for restoration. It has aluminum louvre windows with screens. There is a little kitchen, icebox, closet, benches around a table, little pull out bunkbed for for little kids. There has been leakage around the back window and the seat supports are shot.
The plan is to restore it for a home base for vacations and for races.

Tuesday, August 9, 2011

Mid-Summer Slump

Luckily last week we got to escape the heat of Kansas City for the mountains. I had a conference in Golden and Sam came out for the weekend. The weather was perfect, sunny, cooler, low humidity, just perfect.

What to do in Golden, Coors' tour of course.

The Coors brewery in Golden is the largest single-site brewery in the US.

It was a self-guided tour and we quickly guided ourselves to the tasting room. Coors has a "short" tour for the School of Mines students who refer to it as Coors lab. We each got three real sized beers in glass glasses.

Overall a very nice tour with lots of memorabilia.


From one tour


to the next.


After carb loading we managed to do some running in the mountains. From our hotel all trails headed up.


It sure was a bright sun. The run up was pretty slow, but the run down that was fun.


After Sam left I managed to get in a couple other runs. I headed up South Table Top Mountain which overlooks the town and






the brewery.

I also made it up to Buffalo Bill's grave site, or at least on of them. He and his wife got divided up between a few towns.

Back at home it is hot and humid. I can't get any good pictures because the camera fogs up. Yes, that is a giant sunflower.

The poor fall starts. My beans all died and only a couple broccoli made it. At this point I am looking forward to next year.

One splash of color, the red belgiums are getting close. So funny that they grow upside down.

I found that cucumber in the gutter. The peppers are plugging along and that's about it.


We have been needing some motivation to get a few house projects finished. Nothing like a new big project to move the little ones along. Stay tuned for something cool.