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Gualala Point Campground

Armed with warm clothing and our new Carsule, Dennis and I were ready for another adventure. Dennis’s coworker, Cheryl, recommended  Gualala Point Campground  (part of Sonoma County Regional Parks). Dennis found a spot available for Friday and Saturday night. Gualala Point is next to Sea Ranch on the Pacific Coast off of Hwy 1. Figuring it will be about a 3.5 hour drive, we scooted out the driveway about 1pm.  Sunset is about 4:30pm and we are trying not to setup in complete darkness. We stopped at a bakery on the way up for some cookies and then continued to our spot. The campground is located right before you cross the bridge into Gualala. It is tucked back in the redwoods next to the Gualala River. The sites are close together but situated in a way that you don’t feel you are on top of your neighbor. A ranger came over shortly after our arrival to give us the lowdown on the facilities...the host is on vacay, firewood is self serve and our campground pass gives us free access to all
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The Carsule

One of the things that was apparent after our first trip besides our need of warm clothing, was we were going to need some kind of structure for sun or rain. We were thinking a pop-up canopy but then I came across something on Pinterest. It is called a Carsule. I was a little concerned that I didn’t see it on very many websites but I took a chance.  When I ordered it from  SocialStack  (with a 20% off coupon), the site said to expect delivery in 2 months but a week later it showed up.  The Carsule is a pop up square room that is supported by the back hatch of the van.  It can stand on it’s own as well which is nice when we want to go on a day adventure from the campsite. It has solid and screen sides as well as a rain fly. Here is the  YouTube video  about it. 
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Joseph Grant Park Camping Trip

As I mentioned in the previous post, our maiden voyage was to Grant Park near Morgan Hill (Lick Observatory sits about the park). A one night trip to test out the equipment, we picked a place close to home that also had availability.  The drive up Mount Hamilton was steep, narrow and curved. As you reach the top, you drop in the valley behind and you find golden rolling hills spotted with oaks. We arrived before the 3pm check in and took a nice stroll in the valley bottom because there is no early check in.  Our walk was flat and easy. The woodpeckers were very busy storing acorns in the giant oaks.   The van and our build worked great but where we lacked in “equipment” was in warm clothing. It was cold and windy and we did not bring the right clothing. The rechargeable hand warmers that Dennis bought were a warm blessing. The park and campground itself was very nice. We had a great spot with no immediate neighbors. The bathroom was a quick walk down the hill and was very clean with fl
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First Trip with Video Tour

I will give more equipment details later but I think it is time for a video tour. We took the van out on it’s maiden voyage the first Saturday of November, 2 months after taking delivery of our WonderVan. We headed to  Joseph Grant Park  in San Jose. I will do a review on the campground in the next post.  Here is a video of our van in progress plus a bonus video of our Blackstone in action. Here’s a quick video of Dennis cooking in action...
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Let’s make some drawers

As I wrote in the previous post, there are two “drawers”. One is an actual drawer and the other is a access hatch/counter extension.  Dennis is a pro with the pocket hole jig. Not sure what we would do with out it.  In addition to building the drawers, he also built the side cabinet for the back. We are using narrow cabinet pullouts for organization and ease for retrieving things from the back. Here he is in action.  This day the smoke was pretty bad in the air so we are all wearing masks. Before installing any more items, we are screwing the structure down to the metal floor. The vacuum serves as a way to prevent metal shavings from going everywhere. This structure is going no where. The drawer works and locks in place.  Here is the back of the van so far. Cooler on the left, drawer (pulled out) in the middle and cabinet on the right. It’s coming together.
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Let’s build an internal structure

So it is time to start building. There as been a lot of discussing and planning and at some point you just got to build and problem solve along the way. This is our official pandemic project and Dennis definitely needs a project. He has pretty much finished every home improvement project we had. Dennis is a really good woodworker and with a a chop saw, our neighbor’s table saw and a pocket hole jig we are ready to start.  We started with the outside structure.  Each framing side has to take into account the 4.5 degree angle of the floor.  The two sides are braced together near the front seats. With these three sides in place it is time to scrape off all of the contact paper.  Now we have a very shiny floor!  Next the framing for the pull out elements needed to be built.  There are two pullouts.  The first pullout is on a 48” full extension. This is part serves two purposes.  The first it is a hatch to access the storage area below. The second will be a counter that extends outward.   T
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Final design and the packages start to arrive....

We finalized the design. Our original plan was to install a built in fridge drawer but we found an electric cooler the will just fit in our tight space. We ordered a  36L KUPPET portable cooler.  Because we need the mattress to be as long as possible, the cooler can’t be too deep.  This model doesn’t have handles that extend from the sides and that makes it fit in a tighter space. It is capable of freezing temperatures but does not have zones so ice cubes are likely not in our future.  The cooler will be run off of an battery power bank/generator called the  Eco Flow Delta 1300 Portable Power Station.  Because of the size of our van and the fact that the main accessory we are running is the cooler, we felt we did not need a larger more complicated power system.  The size is small but it packs a lot of power. Living in Northern California, rolling power outages during fire season has become common. It’s nice to know we could use it in a pinch to power the hot water heater or recharge ou
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