I’ve had the health status post in draft for almost a month.  You would think it’s the easiest to write but for whatever reason it’s been the easiest to put off.  Maybe because I don’t feel the pressure of memory loss if I don’t write it?  I also wanted to get the details about the work we’ve had done on the Chief from Scott.  But Iowa and South Dakota were so long ago and that all seems like a distant memory.  I’ll do my best and not sweat the rest.

In general, we’re having a blast.  We’re loving this full-time thing.  Of course, right?!  This is like being retired before retirement age.  It’s not a surprise that it’s everything it’s cracked up to be.  Now we just have to figure out how to maintain an adequate income that pays the bills and allows us to continue to put something in savings.  Scott’s company isn’t there yet but we’re working on expansion.  I’m also going to look into what I can do.  This experience is just too good to not give prolonging it the old college try.

In terms of health, recently we’ve taken a hit.  We were all pretty much operating at 100%… until Jack picked up a bug somewhere in south central Utah.  The day before we went to Zion, Jack was sitting on my lap when he suddenly… surprisingly… got sick.  No one was more surprised than him.  Poor little guy.  He took a few days to fully recover.  Two days later, I was driving.  We were heading north.  I pulled into a gas station and asked Scott to take over.  An hour later I was praying to the porcelain god with everything I had – knees smashed against the walls, hanging on with white knuckles.  I even accidentally ripped the toilet paper dispenser off the wall (the screwed in part) and didn’t notice.  No one was more surprised than me.  Thankfully, by the next morning, I was on the mend.  The following afternoon (yesterday) Scott started to get the grumbles.  I think it might be worse knowing what’s coming and having to wait for it.  Last night he was on his hands and knees on a sand dune (literally).  Poor guy.  He’s more or less over it now.  We’re watching Evie closely.  She hasn’t felt well for a few days but she doesn’t seem to have the 8 hour flu (yet).  I would have thought it was food poisoning but it was too spread out.  I’ve Clorox’ed everything.  Hopefully we’re good to go.

The Chief is running really well.  The only quirky thing that’s happened occurred 2 days ago when we pulled off on the side of the road so that Scott could have a meeting.  (By the way, the side-of-the-road technique is not recommended.  At least give me a park or a restaurant to entertain the kids… a falling apart cow corral surrounded by barbed wire stretched my creativity.)  We were there for about 45 minutes.  We left the lights on by mistake.  I went to start it and there was zero turn over.  Nothing.  Scott tried some magic with the back-up battery.  Still nothing.  We waited a few minutes, and tried again.  She roared to life.  No idea what that was all about.  The batteries showed full charge.

Scott checks the oil, radiator fluid, and transmission fluid before we drive anywhere.  The oil needs to be topped off with a half a quart once every week, week and a half.  The solar system is still a mess.  We only get about 3 hours out of the batteries and we’re only using them to power some LED lights and the water pump (which we only turn on when we need water).  I think we jacked up the batteries and now they’re under performing. I also have a suspicion that the wiring wasn’t done correctly so sometimes it seems to work great and other times we get no juice after a full day of charge.

Scott switched out the old carburetor for the new one we picked up in Sturgis.  He had to so some modifications to it and now it works great.   Here is Scott doing some solid man work on a beach on Utah Lake:

Jack likes to climb on anything he can reach.  He’s not allowed to climb on tables.  He knows this and still tries to sneak it anyway.  Eventually, the 30+ year old dinette table made of particle board gave way.  This was not due to poor workmanship on the part of Winnebago, it was entirely due to excessive abuse from the kids.  We use it every day, multiple times a day.  We looked at buying a new one from a company that makes dinette tables but they’re all made to order and have to be shipped.  Since we have no steady place to receive mail (apart from our Texas address which does us absolutely no good) we decided to try to make it.  My major participation was holding the measuring tape, picking out the type of wood (Scott wanted to go cheap, I insisted on the pretty oak) and keeping the kids occupied in Lowes.  The final result looks really nice.

The big upcoming event we’re all looking forward to now is that Nate will be spending a long weekend with us soon.  Evie tells everyone (even strangers) that Nate is coming.  She’s beside herself.  In the meantime, we’ll be carving pumpkins and making Halloween costumes.  Note I said making not buying.  No judgement for anyone who prefers to buy – it’s 1000 times more convenient.  I’m get you.  I just remember making all of my costumes with my dad.  I want the kids to have that memory with Scott. Besides,  I think the homemade stuff looks better.  Anything that has a little elbow grease and personality always does.   I’m not even sure we can find a place to go trick or treating.  But that’s ok.  We’ll make it work.

.