19 Days and counting ...

The truck and camper are almost ready for the first leg of the great road trip. So far, the truck has been readied by changing from regular to synthetic oil, and having a through mechanical check at the dealership. And the rear hitch has been upgraded to a Class 5, to better carry the bike rack. The front hitch has a new extension lift bar, so the front basket will be 10 inches higher. The front basket will carry the gas grill. The folding steps on the camper have been cleaned, lubricated and painted.

We're finishing cleaning and re-arranging the inside of the camper--sorting through everything in every cabinet, drawer and cubby so we only take what we need, and finding all kinds of things we've forgotten we put in the camper. Tincansailor converted one storage cabinet back to a wardrobe, for hanging clothes, then he built three drawers for the larger wardrobe in the cabover. Next came creating slide extensions at the dinette so that we have foot rests when we're watching TV. Now we can sit with our backs against the window and not have our feet hang over the seats. Sailorsmate has been working on a new bed quilt, larger and in brighter colors than the old one, and on a room-darkening curtain for one window of the cabover. Our camper came with light-filtering shades on all but one window; that one window in the cabover had a room darkening shade, but the second window needed a room darkening shade too, so, one was created to match the quilt.

We've got 19 days to finish all our projects, which doesn't leave much time for test drives!