Making Headway!

We are camped in the drive at the condo, both MinnieMee and Phaeton Place are in the drive. The purpose of this arrangement is to get PP ready to store for the summer and MinnieMee ready to roll to Alaska.

We can see light at the end of the tunnel. First off, all the extra doctors I had to see because of my "dry eyes/dry mouth" complaint have decided my problem stems from the medication I started taking for acid reflux and the natural course of aging, which is what I said all along. All the blood work I had done returned negative reports for things like lupus, RA, etc. The only finding was arthritis in my hip and that is not new. That has been a problem for years and the rheumatologist injected my hip making our trip to Alaska much more pleasurable for me. The last item to take care of is our final dental appointment next Tuesday. Whew. Will be glad to get all that behind us.

A few days ago we washed Phaeton Place thoroughly and fought to keep the birds from building nests again in the closed slide toppers. While we were washing one side, they were rebuilding in the other. Grrrr. We had bought some "pool noodles" and cut pieces from them and stuffed in the ends. That seemed to stop it. Never had a problem with this before. Normally they build in the engine compartment. Wednesday night while we were unloading stuff we might need from PP, we heard a really loud guttural sound. It's the sound we normally hear from the occasional sandhill crane flying overhead, but this sounded like it was coming from the garage. We searched and searched and even though the sound would occasionally appear, we could not find the source. We looked on the roof of the motorhome and house, I searched around back, etc., but never found it. We were about ready to stop for the night when we heard it again and determined it was coming from underneath the motorhome. The belly of PP is enclosed, but the engine compartment is exposed and something could conceivably crawl up on top of the engine. We really didn't want a bird up there, but the crane is a very large bird and we could see no evidence of it anywhere. I was laying on the pavement with a flashlight trying to see underneath when the noise returned and I quickly caught my eye on the perpetrator. Can you believe it was a "TOAD?" What a hoot. This little guy was backed up against one of the motorhome's rear tires and was apparently content there. He was blended in nicely with the pavement. I could hardly make out his shape. Actually I couldn't from the other side of the motorhome. Once I showed him to Terry, I went inside for the camera and took his picture. He apparently didn't like that flash, as he shortly made his way out from under the coach and into the grass. A better place for him anyway. No doubt!

Yesterday brought the promise of rain, so we wanted to get PP into storage before the rain ruined her freshly washed exterior, so we went back through, pulling out stuff we knew we needed. We piled it all in the spare room in the house and will go through it as we can, but we succeeded in getting it all out of the motorhome. We then closed her up and drove her over to the storage warehouse. She will sleep in air conditioning all summer while we are gone to Alaska. Back at the house, we continued to work on MinnieMee all day, arranging and re-arranging items in the compartments. We don't have much inside storage for "outside items" so Terry bought a trunk while we were in Texas. Earlier this week we went to Elkhart Hitch and the guys there fashioned us a drawbar and rack on which to bolt down the aluminum box. It really fits nicely on there and give us secure, dry outside storage for things like the sewer hoses, water hoses, grill and levelors, etc. And it frees up some space for me on the inside. We are probably taking way too much. I have a lot of extra food, but hate to leave food I know we would use. So I am finding a spot for it, but won't replace it to the extent I have it packed now. I did remove half our dishes. I had a service for 4 packed away. Reduced that to two to make room for more food. So if you plan to visit our camp at dinner anytime, you must bring your own dishes! Hah. We are still getting items in we ordered. Terry installed a new bug deflector on the front of MinnieMee and it looks very nice. The trunk is all done and Terry really did a nice job getting that all configured. He wanted it to sit up so as not to hang up on anything we drive over. He has put extra hooks up for our casual jackets and we are trying to fashion a curtain on the inside for privacy. Once he gets the hardware installed, I will make a curtain to fit it. We continue to work, although now we don't have to work quite as hard, since we only have MinnieMee with us now.

The little truck is still in the shop. It went in Monday for front end work and will probably be ready Monday. Had to order a lot of parts, i.e., front hub, wheel bearings, upper and lower ball joints, steering column bushings, etc. Oh, and we met a neighbor over in the other subdivision the other day. When we bought MinnieMee, we only had one set of coach door keys. Ignition keys would get us into the front and thus into the coach, but that was cumbersome. We knew there was a locksmith a few streets over and we went looking. His garage door was up and his "locksmith" van was in the garage so we stopped. He made all the keys we wanted (8 total) and wanted to charge us only $5. We insisted on $10 because we had not been able to get the locks made anywhere. All 8 work beautifully and now we have extras. It's time for me to get busy now and get something done.

Till next time. . .

Dale