On the road to preparing for the road

The past week has been full of little improvements that will make our road trips more enjoyable. We got new license plates with the Michigan State Parks pass and have done some deeper cleaning.

Pat re-plumbed the LP gas connections and tested the water heater. I thought our water heater at home was hot, but this one is more like our instant-hot! Wow! While this would be a simple couple-of-hours task under ordinary circumstances, there was a lot of, er, uh, "creative engineering" that had to be corrected  modified. I just don't think a small propane leak is something I want to live with. I'm crazy paranoid that way. All of this was much more fun that it should have been because the LP tank is a regular gas grill tank located in the travel box on the bumper, NOT the original tank that lies sweetly in its own little compartment with its own little door. We wondered why this modification had been made and the original tank hadn't been replaced until we priced the new tank. 

A generator would make life on the road much easier. There was much weighing the advantages of a portable generator or an installed RV generator. We settled on finding the generator that would fit in the generator compartment behind the driver and get fuel from the gas tank. Yes, there is only one generator that will do that and it is bloody expensive. We'd been calling around to various Craigslist ads for generators and finally early Sunday evening we made arrangements to buy a gently used generator - a Onan Mircolite 2800 - on the east side of Cleveland! So the boys and I jumped in the minivan and took off.

By the time we got back home on Monday afternoon from the generator mission the new shocks were on the doorstep. It's always something.

We found it!

 1989 Toyota Dolphin

There she was waiting for us to come pick her up just outside of Chattanooga, TN.

We drove down on Friday right after school. Of course we had to stop for Chic-fil-A on the way. We stopped at what we later called the Skank mall. Seems we were the only folks in the mall that Friday evening that weren't heavily tattooed or pierced. And didn't have unnaturally colored hair extentions. And were dressed like civilized folk instead of streetwalkers and skater-pimps. We enjoyed our lemonade and nuggets in the van on the road.

We met Glenn, a sweet single father, at a fireworks store near the interstate Saturday morning. We walked around the Dolphin. We turned all the knobs. We flipped switches. We kicked the tires. And we bought a motorhome.

Men build fires.

We started home Saturday afternoon. We spent the night in Bowling Green, KY at the KOA campground (or is it Kampground?) After some confusion about which spot was ours, we set up camp, figured out how to get shore power and hooked up the water. The boys started a camp fire. And roasted marshmallows.

Sleeping

Liam slept on the dinnette bed. Gray slept on the foldout sofa and Pat and I perched in the upper bunk over the truck cab. Things were going well until 4:30 AM when a heavy thunderstorm blew through Bowling Green. Thunder and heavy rain are bad under normal conditions, but in a small box, it's LOUD! The budding teenager didn't wake up - he remained totally motionless through the entire storm.

Eating

The next morning, I perked coffee on the tiniest stove and the boys ate chocolate cheerios for breakfast. Pat ran up to the campground (kampground) office to ask for pointers for emptying the black water tank. Ewwww. His best father's day ever began with dumping liquid waste.

We hit the road afer breakfast and drove and drove and stopped for gas and stopped for gas again and again and again. The Dolphin has a teeny fuel tank and boys wanted to take turns riding with dad in the motorhome. I got to listen to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory twice on this trip.

And still looking

We saw a few more Toyotas this weekend - a nice '91 Dolphin and an empty shell from the '80s. Neither one was "ours." The searching process is constant and while often disappointing, we've learned a lot from the folks we've met. Folks LOVE their Toyota mini-motorhomes. Every person selling a Toy has great tips and hints and stories. Just learning and looking. And looking.

Still looking

We saw some really interesting motorhomes yesterday. A fright pig of a 1989 Toyota Sea Breeze that had been a habitrail for a herd of mice, a really cool refurbished 1976 GMC that was a blast to drive, and a 1986 Toyota Grandville that was in great shape, but was a 4 speed. Sigh. I really don't like shifting gears that much.

In the beginning

We decided that we want a motorhome. A mobile Manworld.

It has to be small, get decent milage, and sleep 4 adults. It must have a toilet and air conditioning. It has to be a motorhome, not a trailer that I have to pull with some huge SUV, not a pop-up-- just something you can stop and crawl through to the back and crash.

We read. We looked at floor plans. We priced new models. We priced older models. We did a long gas vs. diesel comparison. Finally, we settled on what we wanted - a Toyota motorhome. Unfortunately, Toyota stopped making them in the early 90s and the folks that have them are cult-like in their love for them so the are hard to find. I joined every internet-based group I can find that is Toyota camper related. Perhaps we'll get a solid lead on an automatic post '89 version. Fingers crossed.