I had intended to keep more of an ongoing blog of our repair activities this last month+, but we were just so busy! So here's just one big wrap-up post.
We spent about six weeks parked at our lovely parking spot at the family farm in West Virginia. My dad had prepared some old plywood siding boards for our backing-in so we could avoid tearing up the front lawn, and they worked quite well.
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Moving the boards into place |
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Parked! I had to help Aaron with backing up so I didn't get and 'in-progress' photo, but you get the idea. |
Unfortunately, when Aaron went to plug in, we encountered an unexpected repair need...somehow over the winter one of the old wires running through the pasture went bad. So our first project (and by 'our' I mean Aaron's and my dad's...) became re-fixing the electricity to the parking spot. They did this in short order and had us up and running within a few days.
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Diagnosing the problem |
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Setting up the tractor to lay another new wire under the ground in the pasture |
Everything was freshly in bloom in West Virginia, quite a nice setting for our work!
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Apple trees in bloom |
With the electricity out of the way....this repair session our main focus was on making the RV easier to drive - the stress of the driving experience is getting to Aaron a bit. So we replaced the rear shock absorbers (we did the front last time) and the front air bags (tried to do the back as well but - thanks COVID - we couldn't find the part in stock anywhere), tweaked the steering adjustment to make the steering 'tighter', fixed the wiring for the rear view camera, and cleaned the interior of the driver side window (between the glass) so Aaron can actually see the mirrors.
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Aaron had to contort himself in all sorts of ways to get the air springs out |
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The new air springs |
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Cleaning the window with distilled water and ethanol through a hole drilled in the rubber seal |
In other repairs, Aaron took off the basement door that we dented at the gas station in Texas, fixed the dent, and repainted the door. It looks great! You'd never know that we damaged it.
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Hammering the bent frame piece straight |
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Fitting the fixed frame piece back in place |
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Sanding in preparation for paint |
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All done! |
While we were painting, we also repainted two areas whose paint didn't look so great from last time - one other basement door and the black part of our bedroom slide. I didn't think to take a picture, but after repainting the bedroom slide, the clearcoat and top layer of black paint peeled off like vinyl when we tried to polish it...so we'll have to do that AGAIN.
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Painting the basement door |
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Makeshift painting booth |
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Painting the bedroom slide |
Aaron built a little shield for our tow hitch to help protect it from scraping bottom as we went in and out of the steep driveway at the farm.
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Testing the fit |
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Close up of the shield |
We tried to straighten our front door, which catches in the wind on the highway and vibrates a lot and makes lots of noise. We couldn't do much to straighten the frame without breaking the glass, but Aaron did tighten up all the hinges and whatnot and as a happy side effect the door is a lot easier to open and close now!
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Somewhat futile attempt to straighten the frame |
And just for fun...Aaron finished my little doorside shelf that he started on last time we were here. I love it!
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Installing the shelf |
On a personal note, we had a few adventures. My Uncle John's ash spreading was right after we arrived - a small outdoor affair.
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The small gathering included mostly Uncle John's descendants and my parents' descendants. Aunt Jane is in white in the center; we are gathered around Uncle John's memorial bench. |
We managed to get both doses of our Moderna vaccine, which makes me feel MUCH better about continuing our travels!
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Goofy selfie station at the vaccination clinic |
We went up to my sister's place (for the last time before they move to Florida!) to help out for a week while my brother-in-law was out of town on business. We celebrated Star Wars day in style!
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Fruit lightsabers! Photo courtesy of my 6-year-old nephew Luke! |
Finally, I started the long process of getting my loose and painful baby tooth replaced with an implant. For those who don't know, I'm missing 6 permanent teeth (and all 4 wisdom teeth!). Four of my baby teeth survived to adulthood, but one started wiggling around 6 years ago and I replaced it back then with an implant; this past December, another one started hurting and eventually wiggling, so it's time for it to go as well. We ultimately decided to go back to my all-time favorite dentist (Dr. Eric Seitlin), who did my first implant, and I should be able to finish the process this summer while we're in and out of my hometown just 3 hours from Charlotte (where he's located). Seriously, this dentist is amazing, if you're near Charlotte and looking for someone... I have a photo of my extracted baby tooth that I thought about posting, but I don't want to disgust anyone, so I'll just post this photo of Latta Park where I ate lunch before my tooth extraction...
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Latta Park in Charlotte |
So that sums up our repair trip! We're heading to Tennessee for a month-long trip around the state, so we'll have some more exciting photos soon!