The Camping Thing will eventually be a cluster of five boxes with hinged lids and a flat bridge piece that will double as a table, but right now it’s just one box and I’m still trying to figure out how to fit it into the back of the van. It’s forty-eight inches wide, as wide as it could possibly be and still fit across the width of the space inside the back of the van between the wheels. The battery and electrical system which powers the fridge, lights, and charging outlets fits in half of this box. The other half will hold, um, I’m not sure yet. But there’s plenty of room left over.

I want to anchor this box (and all the rest of the boxes) to the steel bars bolted to the floor because I don’t want all that plywood flying around inside the van in the unfortunate event it should come to a sudden stop, as it would if it were to suddenly meet a tree or an oncoming truck. The sudden stop would be bad enough. So the problem to figure out today (there’s always a problem to figure out; nothing is ever simple) was how to make the box sit level. It leaned back about seven degrees after anchoring it, because the floor is not a flat surface, there’s a heating vent under the carpet, and two edges of the carpet overlap right under the front edge of the box.

I had to cut about a dozen shims to glue to the two by four to make the box lean forward so the top of it would line up with the rest of the boxes I plan to build in the next six to eight weeks. Hopefully six.

We had some good weather today, so I spent some time outside trying to get The Camping Thing ready for the season. “Do you know how long you were out there?” My Darling B asked me, after I finally came in later in the afternoon. “Long enough for me to finish the last 15% of a Stephen King novel!” Wow, that is a long time. (She does not recommend the novel.)

In it’s newest iteration, the bunk for The Camping Thing will be up front, and a chuck box will be in the back next to the fridge. The back end is where I’ve been storing all the kitchen stuff anyway, because the screened-in tent I pull over the open back end makes that the easiest place to get in and out of the van when I want to grab food or the camp stove. With that in mind, I’ve re-oriented the fridge to face the rear, as I originally had it. It worked a lot better that way, even though it was harder to get to from inside the van. I’ll have to work around that if I’m ever stuck inside due to rain or a zombie attack.

Re-orienting the fridge amounted to no more than rebuilding the plywood platform the fridge stands on. I built a platform mostly so it will be more or less level when I drop it into the well at the very back of the van. The well is slightly deeper in the front than in the back. I’m not sure it makes a difference to the fridge whether it’s level or not, but I wanted it to be level. Easier to work around that way.

After re-orienting the fridge I the sun came out and it got even warmer, so I cut some plywood and started to build the box that will span the width of the van in front of the fridge. This box will house the battery, the fuse box, and the electronics that keep the battery charged. It’s a very simple system that doesn’t need a lot of room, so I’ll have room left over to store other items, like maybe the tent for the back end.

I got most of the plywood cut and started to shape it and dry fit it but started to make stupid mistakes, the first sign that I was getting too tired to go on with the work, so I quit for the day, went inside and stretched out on the sofa with a glass of wine to relax for a bit before showering off.