The Most Epicist of All Road Trips 2014

2014 road trip was fantastic. We went 7,152.6 Miles.  We drove for 147:40:24 hours.

We visited 16 states in 24 days.  We hit MANY landmarks on "must see" lists.

We bonded.  We grew stronger.  We grew as a family.  We loved it.  We're doing it again.  15 days till our next adventure begins.
I wasn't sure I would be able to do it this year, as Alia moved to California in January to live with her grandparents, and opted to not come this year.
Fortunately, working at a high school this past year, I was honored to be introduced to Ms. Kayleigh! She comes very highly recommended.
I will be very excited to introduce her in a later post.
I'd love to hear suggestions/questions for this years trip!  Comment below, and subscribe :)

Day 2: NOLA

New Orleans.  The Big Easy. NOLA.  The City the Care Forgot.  We started bright and early in our Wal-Mart parking lot.  With a dead battery.  No joke.  No problem, as we got a jump very quickly and were able to enjoy some Wal-Mart doughnuts while we waited for help!  We drove to the French Quarter and parked.  We putzed around Jackson Square and the French Quarter, just taking in the sites.

Unfortunately, we didn't have a great experience with The Crescent City.  Just crossing Bourbon Street, we were greeted by the smell of vomit and stale alcohol.  The entire city reminded me of peopleofwalmart.com.  There was voodoo practice, palm readers, and tarot card readers on every corner.  We were briefly chased by a transvestite.  Wearing fishnet stockings.  At 10:00 on a Sunday.  This momma was NOT impressed.  

We trekked to St. Louis Cemetery #1.  There, we saw Nicholas Cage's future final resting place, as well as a menagerie of historical grave sites.  It was an "interesting" place to visit.

Thankfully, it started raining!  A beautiful, torrential, cleansing rain.  

We left New Orleans.  I doubt we'll return, but we had fun none the less.

Swamp.....cooler that is

As we previously established in The Jolly Camper Makes Contact, The JC's are taking a 24 day 14 state road trip.  We've got quite the setup for van camping, as we have a diverse age span of campers (32, 16, 8, 5, and 1).  We'll be experiencing a plethora of climate and altitude changes and needed to address the climate control inside a closed unit van.  So I build a swamp cooler.

Step 1: Gather your supplies.  I used a rubber storage container, a styrofoam cooler, packing filler, 1 1/4" PVC, silicone calk, a sharpie, some kitchen scissors, a saws-all, and a car fan

Step 2: Use the sharpie to trace the holes the diameter of the PVC pipe.  I did three, and you'll see why space wise later.  You can spread them out for your set up.

Step 3:  I used a drill bit almost like a router to carve out the holes.  It took about 10 minutes.

 Step 4:  Cut the PVC to your desired length and make sure it fits in the holes, not too loose, but easy enough to slide in and out.

 Step 5:  Because of the disparity of size between the cooler and the tub, I used packing filler to help insulate and stabilize the cooler so the PVC wouldn't be bumped or knocked out.  I ribbon folded it and put it on the sides and back of the cooler.

 Step 6:  Get your fan and the lid of the cooler.  Mark on the TOP of the lid the circumference of the outer most part of the fan cage.  Mine was a little square on one side, but I rounded it out after one fitting.

Step 7:  Calk.  I got silicone easy bead fast dry.  It was maybe $5.00 at Lowes.  I calked the outside of the rubber tub and the inside of the styrofoam cooler.  This provides stabilization and a little more insulation.

Step 8:  Put the whole darn thing together!  Mine is going between the front two seats.  The fan plugs into the front and we pre-tested by running it overnight to make sure the battery didn't drain.  It didn't.  So we have air flow when the van is off, and for colder air we can add water or ice!  

There is your completed swamp cooler.  This was SUPER easy and cost around $35.00 total including the fan.   I'm so excited to show you our camping set up tomorrow!  I'll show you how to mount a hammock, a cot, and a queen sized air mattress inside a mini-van.  If you aren't impressed, I don't even know.