The Clampetts of Buchanan

Once we got done roofing I launched into building that contraption on the back of the fifth wheel.  The barbeque and camp stove are in the big plastic box.  The bikes are obvious. The spare tire lies on the curb side and the outdoor rug stores on top of the tire.  With any luck my weld will hold for at least a couple of weeks.  As long as they don’t fail completely I can patch the weak spots whenever we get back to Buchanan.

I hope the structure is adequate to the task.  There’s not much frame to work with on the 5th wheel.  The frame is 2” x 6” box beam but its paper thin – maybe 10 gauge.  There’s a more substantial c-section frame around the axles and then the main frame sits on top of that.  I ran 2” x .188 angle irons along that box beam for about 4 feet and stitch welded it but I had a lot of trouble with blowing through the box beam.  I put some tabs right at the back of the frame that run up from the angle iron along the side of the box beam and then plug welded them to the box beam.  That should help where the maximum weight transfer occurs.  Time will tell I guess.

Tomorrow we’re off on a 10+ day road trip.  Marilyn has a couple of appointments in Saskatoon this week.  I’ve got a meeting there and we’ve both got Dr’s appointments.  So we’ll hang out in the city until the end of the week and then we’re going up to Waskesiu.  We haven’t been there for several years so we’re both really looking forward to getting back there.  Our favourite thing to do there is ride our bikes into town in the evening, buy tea at the store and sit on the big chairs in front of the store.  We’ll sit there watching the lake until someone we know comes by.  Most nights we can wait it out until we have a visit with somebody before it gets dark.  By next weekend a lot of the seasonal crowd should be back at the lake but it won’t be stupid busy because the kids are still in school.

There’s some kids in town that run a bear camp.  They get a pretty steady stream of Americans up here this time of year.  I talked to one of the fathers this morning – he says they have 14 more hunters to go this season.  They take them up into the hills south of Hudson Bay and it appears they are pretty successful. 


They take the “dead bear” photos just across the back alley, up against the Murray’s row of spruce trees.  Whenever I notice them over there I go across and take some pictures of my own.  The crew this morning was from Wisconsin.