Terry and I have been busy the last couple of days with some projects around the motorhome that we really wanted to get out of the way while we’re sitting still for a while.

One project was building a couple of kayak caddies to make moving our hard shell kayaks from the Explorer to the water’s edge easier. We got the idea from our friends Denny and Cindy Henderson, when we watched how easy it was for them to move their kayaks around.

We made the racks out of PVC, two threaded rods for axles, and some tires we bought at Harbor Freight. Putting them together was easy, and the entire project took about two hours over two days. We could have finished it in one step, except it was late in the day when we started on Thursday, and we had to run to Lowes for some nuts.

Here I am using a power tool! Everybody stand back! We have a couple of electric drills, a power saw, a miter saw, and some other neat goodies left over from our bus conversion days, but my Dremel tool is the only power tool Miss Terry lets me near. And there’s a very good reason for that! I’m the world’s biggest klutz.

Here are the caddies, all finished and ready to use. The upright sections go through the scupper holes in our Manta Ray kayaks, and make it easy to to move them around. Believe me, after a few hours of paddling, lugging a 65 pound kayak back to the truck is a lot of work! You can buy a kayak caddy for anywhere from $60 to $150, but these two cost us about $45 to build.

Of course, if it were up to me, we’d sell those heavy things and get Miss Terry a Sea Eagle inflatable kayak too. Don’t be too surprised if she comes around once she test paddles the model Tim from Inflatable Boats 4 Less has picked out for her!

While we were dragging tools out of the storage bays under our motorhome, we decided it would be a good time to get rid of some stuff we’ve been carrying around for way too long. We were ruthless, and by the time we were finished we had made a big dent in our load, and made a lot of free space in our bays.

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I put some stuff on eBay, mostly books on converting a bus, and there is a “yard sale” tomorrow morning here in the campground. Maybe I can sell some things there. If not, I’ll be listing more on eBay.

Speaking of selling things, the auxiliary brake I mentioned a couple of days ago has been sold and is on its way to the buyer in Oregon.

Somebody asked me how much the base plate connections show on the Explorer, and if it sticks out very far. Not far at all. Here are a couple of pictures of the front end of the Explorer. The guys at Camping Connection did an excellent job on the installation, and I would recommend them to anybody.

Hopefully, today at the yard sale I can unload some of the things I want to see go away, including a battery charger, a brand new electric buffer, two Malone rooftop kayak racks, and some other stuff. I’d much rather sell them, and carry around some nice folding money, than to have to spend time listing them on eBay.

Thought For The Day – It takes a long time to grow an old friend.

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It seems like we had more rain and cold weather this past summer than we did sunshine. October hasn’t changed that. While we were in Celina we had several rainy days, and though we got a break while we drove back to Elkhart Thursday, it started raining just about the time we finished getting set up in our site at Elkhart Campground. It poured all night long, and most of yesterday it continued to rain.

Somebody posted a thread on the Escapees forum yesterday saying it was raining where he was, and asking what fulltimers do with their time on days like that. I replied that we sleep in, make love, have a leisurely breakfast, sip hot chocolate, watch TV, surf the internet, read books, talk, take naps, and call friends and family. Then I added that I hope it rained again today!

Maybe it’s because of all those years I spent living on the Washington coast, where we averaged well over 120 inches of rain a year, but I like rainy days, as long as we don’t have to travel on them. Eventually I do get cabin fever, but a drizzly day now and then is very relaxing. 

I told Miss Terry once that I’d like to spend an entire winter on the Northwest coast sometime, when the pace is slower, and we could enjoy watching the storms rolling in over the Pacific Ocean. I wonder if we can put a fireplace in our motorhome?

Yesterday we did venture out in the afternoon to drop off some orders at the post office, then we met Bill Joyce and Diane Melde for dinner at Mancino’s, our favorite pizza place here in Elkhart. By the time we got back to the campground it had finally stopped raining, and the weatherman says we can expect clear skies for most of the next week, though it’s going to be chilly, with daytime temperatures in the 50s and nights in the mid-30s.

Once things dry out around here a little bit, we want to spend some time getting the bays in our Winnebago better organized. My buddy Ron Speidel taught a seminar at our Gypsy Gathering rally about how to organize your storage bays, and though I didn’t have time to sit in, I’ve taken a few tips from observing how Ron has things in his Winnebago Journey.

We were pretty ruthless in purging things as we moved from our bus conversion into the motorhome, and got rid of a lot of stuff. So our bays are not crammed full, but we still have a few things to discard, and then we want to rearrange things to make accessing them easier.

Yesterday we also stopped to check out our bus conversion. Now, I know it’s an inanimate object and incapable of emotions, but I swear, it looked real sad sitting there, when it was made to be out rolling down the highway. We are very pleased with our new RV, but we love that old girl. We put in every screw and strung every inch of wiring, and she carried us a lot of miles over the years.

A few days ago I wrote a blog post about solar power, and that we had decided not to transfer our solar panels from the bus to the Winnebago. But the solar setup we installed on the bus sure does a great job. The bus has been sitting for about three weeks and is not plugged in, but with just the solar panels supplying power, our house battery bank was fully charged. Someone asked if we ever had problems running our house style refrigerator off the inverter and battery bank when dry camping, but with this solar array, we never had to worry. It does the job.

Thought For The Day – They say wine improves with age. As I enter my golden years, I say age improves with wine!