Our RV Adventures

When I got up this morning about 9 AM it was 63 degrees and sunny. But it went downhill pretty quick. By noon it was in the low 50’s and raining. And by the time I left for Katy, it was 45 degrees, and raining even more.

I had put Mister outside on his leash when it was nice and left the door open. But since I was busy working on the floor under the dash, I didn’t notice the weather deteriorating. But Mister quickly let me know by coming up to the screen door and voicing his displeasure at the misting rain falling on him. Poor Baby.

Brandi sent this pic over of Jan and Landon at the 9 AM showing of Frozen. Everyone seemed to think that the popcorn and candy were the best part of the movie.

Several readers asked how I handled the flooring under the slide.

The answer is that I didn’t do anything special.There are two different types of slide mechanisms.

1. One that rides on the floor as they are pulled in and have Teflon strips
to cushion and prevent wear.

2. One that’s held suspended above the floor as they are pulled in.

Ours was supposedly the second type. But that was the purpose of laying down
those first few test rows that I showed last week before we started.

After just laying them down there, I put a couple of pieces of newspaper down and pulled the slide in. The newspaper never moved.

And for the last several months the test strip has been down there with no
problems. Plus the original carpet came up much higher than the tile and was never touched either.

So this was one less thing I had to worry about.

I did come across one problem though. The transition strip that I bought to use is not going to work as is. It looks good when I set it in place but it was quickly obvious that the part resting on the kitchen tile was too high to clear the bottom of the kitchen cabinet above it. So at this point I’m not sure what I’m going to do. A metal strip would probably work, but I’m not sure how it would look.

So my temporary fall-back position is to hold it down with Velcro, and pick it up before we pull the slide in and then put it back down after we park. We’ll see how that works.

I headed up to Brandi’s in Katy about 3 PM and the closer I got, the worse the weather got. And the worse, and slower, the traffic got. But I finally made it about 4:15, packed Jan up, and we headed back home.

Our son Chris had invited us over for his Super Bowl Seafood Gumbo so we stopped by for a delicious meal, finished off with Linda’s Rum Bread Pudding. If I’d had a second serving I would have needed a designated driver.

Jan was delighted finally seeing the floor in person and really liked it. I’ll try to finish under the dashboard tomorrow if possible, and then Chris and I will reinstall the chairs on Tuesday.

Thought for the Day:

Change is not always progress.

asdfadsfa

or The Installing, as it were.

Well, I’m getting pretty sick of this. I’ve had to get up at 7 AM two days in a row. And even worse, when I came out into the living room this morning, the flooring elves had failed to appear once again. I’m not leaving out snacks for them ever again.

So it looks like my son Chris and I (mostly Chris) will have to finish up the floor today. And by ‘finish up’ I mean, finally start actually laying it down.

And yes, this project did start 4 long years ago. But it’s Home Depot’s fault. I originally ordered the flooring on 12/6/10. It was supposed to in by 12/15, leaving me two months to get it installed before we headed out for the year. But that was not to be.

The flooring finally came in on February 12th, three days before we were supposed to leave. So 2010 was out. 2011 has faded into the mists of time so I’m not sure what happened.

But 2012-2013 was going to be THE year. I was going to do the floor during all the spare time I had while we were gate guarding. But gate guarding consisted of guarding, sleeping, and eating, so that didn’t work out either.

So here it is, 2014, and today’s the day.

Here’s the first section laid out. When we’re finished, there will be a nice transition strip covering the joint between the tile and the flooring.

Since we have to start from the edge, but want to be sure that the flooring seam runs straight from front to back, we left some slack around the edges to allow us to adjust things when we had built out to the middle. But Chris did such a great job measuring, we didn’t need to adjust anything.

The Allure flooring we’re using glue strips on the each edge and one end that hold everything together. But the strips do make it kind of difficult to trial-fit pieces without them sticking together prematurely.

fgadfadsfad

Right before Chris laid each strip down, I lightly wet-mopped the area with a sponge mop to pick up any last debris that might get under the tile.

fgadfadsfad

I will come back later and fill in the area behind the pedals so the flooring will go all the way to the firewall.

fgadfadsfad

Here the front section is completely done. Yaaah!

fgadfadsfad

And here’s the finished product. We’ll set the two front chairs in place on Monday afternoon after I finish the area under the dashboard.

fgadfadsfad

And here’s a close-up of the floor.

Chris did a great job, especially getting it all laid in one day. And I want to compliment myself on my great job as supervisor, which consisted mainly of handing him things and otherwise staying out of his way.

The reason I supervised is that one, I knew he would probably do a better job, and two, since you have to lay the strips down in a certain order, only one person can really be working on it at a time.

At least that’ my story and I’m sticking with it.

It’s Official!

At the upcoming 54th Escapade in Goshen, IN this coming May I will be giving my seminar on Gate Guarding entitled “Gate Guarding for Fun? and Profit”.  Jan and I will be imparting much of the hard-won knowledge that we’ve accumulated gate guarding for 7 months the last two years. Hopefully we can tell you things we wish someone had told us before we started.

I don’t have the date and time yet, but I will let you know. Looking forward to seeing you there.

Brandi and Lowell are going to a 40th birthday party tonight for Brandi’s BFF, and the theme is The 70’s. Everyone is supposed to dress the part, and it looks like they’re ready to go.

Peace Out!

Thought for the Day:

Have you ever looked at someone and just knew the wheel was turning, but the hamster was dead?

fgadfadsfad