A Weekend at Hillsdale Lake

This was actually two weekends ago, I have been so busy I am just now getting around to putting this post together. We packed a few goodies into the camper and made the 30 minute drive down to the marina at Hillsdale Lake. We found a place right in front to back into and proceeded to stealth camp for three days. Off the grid baby, yep, boondocked. We had heat, running water, cold beer and hot food in-between rain showers, boat rides and fish catching. You can see the dock where our boat is parked through the trees behind our truck camper.

The first night we had an awesome sunset that Debbie captured for us.

The next morning I made breakfast after a bit of morning fishing.

The fishing was not spectacular, the rain and storm system kept them spooked the whole weekend. I did end up catching a few, two White Bass, two Drum, one Walleye and one Crappie.

This was the first weekend we really got to get the boat out and it ran great. We had some work done to it in the fall and are glad we did.

Sunday we stopped at K&M BBQ in Spring Hill, KS on the way home from the lake. The Deluxe Dinner with ribs, brisket and sausage filled the bill for me.

Parkville Microbrew Fest

I belong to a microbrewers club. We call ourselves the Johnson County Brewing Society. The majority of us live in southern greater Kansas City. We are home brewers who get together and share ideas and recipes. April 25th we participated in the annual Parkville Microbrew Fest. The event was located at English Landing Park situated on the Missouri River in downtown Parkville, Missouri. Our club provided and served 9 kegs of beer at the event. The event invited almost 100 brewers, commercial and individuals to showcase their wares for the general community.

 Over 1000 people bought $35 tickets to sample beers for four hours on a Saturday afternoon. The event was a wonderful success. We had a couple spits of rain as the gates opened but for three hours the sun shined and fun was had by all. I provided the club hauling services for the Jockey boxes (mobile tap units), supplies and kegs. We decided to take the truck camper as well as it provided a "no line" clean restroom facility for us to use. We had about 12 members show up and help pour our special offerings.

Check out the video of our fun and camaraderie.

A fine crew put on a highly successful event for us. Thanks to all those who participated!

Wasp Prevention

I was out puttering around the camper the other day and saw a wasp hanging around the vent on the water heater. I thought to myself "that guy is looking for a place to build a nest". A couple days later I found him and a small nest started in the corner of the opening.

 He had helped himself by squeezing in these tiny louvers in the door.

    My solution was a piece of cheap aluminum screen. I bought a roll of screen from Home Depot for about $6, it was the smallest repair screen they offered.

 

I used RED high temperature RTV because this door will get very hot and any other silicon will break down and fail.

 I made and outline with tape, then make the inside box. I cut the screen down to fit inside the white line. I then took the inside masking tape box off in one piece and centered it on the screen. I held the screen in place with one hand and applied the RTV with the other until I had a nice glob all the way around.

I timed a one hour wait before I pulled the tape off. In retrospect I might only wait 30 minutes next time. The RTV had dried too much and wanted to come off on the tape. Razor cutting the edges did help get the tape off. The wasps will not be making next in our water heater any longer and no holes in the door to look at.