It's not one thing...

It's another. And another. And another.

Manworld Mobile (MM) went to Steve and his guys for its mechanical inspection and repair. They treated our baby as if she were a member of their car family. I'm sure they sang sweet songs to her and stroked her lovingly when they weren't muttering and swearing under their breaths at her. She's an older girl, but now that we've caught up on 20-odd years of regular maintenance, she's mostly ready to go. Under the hood, that it.

Pat still has a few things to do before he declares her ready for adventure, but they are weekend projects-- installing a vent for the generator, replacing something called a bushing, installing our new LP tank in its designated compartment.

We need to call in one of those complete makeover teams to dress our girl. She needs some updating. She got dressed in 1989 and has been wearing the same tired outfit ever since. We'll take pictures when we are ready to send our Phin/Cinderella to the ball.

nasty door

Hmmm, is that a warped spot on the door? It is. We should open it up for inspection. Oops. We shouldn't have done that. There has been a leak in the door and the bottom third has some water damage. At least that is what we'll tell people when we are being polite. The hard truth is that the bottom third of the door was packed full of wet mulch and Styrofoam. Oh, yeah, there was some water damage. Pat's breaking out all of his wood shop skills and making a new door.

secure temporary door

The plan is to leave home in three weeks.

Internal affairs

The generator is in, the old iron rack is gone and Manworld Mobile is going to the shop for his annual exam on Tuesday. "Turn your wheels to the left and cough."

The boys have spring break this week so we might be able to get some foam cut and some interior decorating done. Or we could just sit at home and read The Hunger Games. Not that anyone here has been doing that or fighting over the one copy we managed to get our hands on.

Gray and Dixie reading The Hunger Games

Our 'campsite occupied' sign arrived this week.

Slowly, we are getting closer to adventure.

It's beginning to feel a lot like ... summer?

This has been a crazy "winter" here in Michigan. We've hardly seen our snowplow guy and we've been wearing shorts for several days. Here on the first day of spring our thoughts are all about summer. At least until we get spring snow and I have to dig the snow boots back out.

The warm weather has stepped up our Manworld Mobile preparations for summer. The generator guy has been called and a plan for refurbishing is in the works.

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.