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Saturday, January 21, 2017

MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS *C* and Three Dog Night

I am going to start off the new year with posting three of our motorhome modifications at a time. I will post repairs, modifications, or neato things we have found for RVing.  I have lots of pics in my files so I will do them in alphabetical order.

Underneath that stuff, I will post my regular daily stuff..... kinda sorta fun, eh?

So here it goes, we are up to the letter C now!

MOTORHOME MODIFICATIONS 
STARTING WITH THE LETTER C


Compass:
Compasses seem to have gone the way of the past, since GPS has come into our lives.  Older RVs do not have a GPS built in. A lot of people rely on the GPS on their cell phone. What if your cell phone battery goes dead, or your GPS unit in your rig keeps saying Rerouting... rerouting.... ???

Both Steve and I navigate and keep track better if we have a compass to glance at. In our car, one is built into the rear view mirror and I use it a lot to keep my bearings when I drive.  Same with Steve in our motorhome.  I found him this one years ago... and we keep it velcroed to the dash.


It is a digital one that runs on a few AAA batteries,
 and has a light to illuminate at night. 
I think I found it at an auto parts store. 

Containers:
When dealing with the smaller cabinets and lighter payloads in an RV, we try to find things that stack compactly and take up less space.  Instead of the full paper bag packages, I only take along partial amounts of flour, sugar, brown sugar etc. I put them into containers to seal out any critters when we travel in the south.  I used to have these round ones, but they took up a lot of room and wasted space with their cylindrical shapes.


Instead, I found these containers from our local Shopko chain of stores.  Here is a link and they are on sale right now.  Gourmet-Living-8-Piece-Square-Rectangle-Air-Tight-Canister-Set   You could google the brand Gourmet Living to find some online I am sure.  They are thick plastic and have a lever of top that vacuum seals the lids down tight.


The rectangular shapes help to stack them tight, 
and keep things from sliding around. 



Cover on Console Shifting Pad:
Our Cat Engine on our motorhome has an Allison Transmission with a push button keypad on the left side of the drivers seat for shifting.  With a simple push of the button, you can put our rig into gear!  Just imagine the horror of us being outside hooking up the Tracker Toad and having someone push a button... or a dog jump up on the seat to look out the window and push a paw onto the keypad?  Yes, we always try to pull the emergency brake when stopped... but things can happen.  I was always nervous about something or some pet pressing a key when we were doing the hookups.

Steve eased my fears by making this heavy plexiglass cover for our shifting pad.  We flip it up out of the way to lean against the wall when we are driving, and we always flip it down flat over the keypad anytime we leave the drivers seat.  Even if it's just for a minute at a wayside to grab a drink from the fridge, or pulled over to do a potty break. Better safe than sorry!



~~~~~~~~

I am sorry that I missed a couple days of blogging here.  Things have been a little up in the air.  Steve's dad, our wonderful Pa Pfundtner, leader of the clan, decided to have knee replacement surgery.  At 84 he is going strong, out and about and doing things, but his knee has been giving him grief.  So he scheduled a knee replacement for Friday.  He made arrangements to stay overnight at the hospital guest house the night before, because he was scheduled for the first surgery in the morning  and had to be there at 5:30 am.  We met up with him and big brother Mark on Thursday night for the great handoff of precious Millie... Dad's dog!  

She is his pride and joy and constant companion.  He adopted her from a rescue group and gave her a new lease on life. (and spoils her profoundly!) He has trained her for doing therapy dog visits to nursing homes and hospitals.  She is so well behaved and sweet.  Those eyes just melt into you....awwwwwwww


We took her back to our house, driving through horrible fog and rain that we have been having for days on end in Wisconsin.  Our snow is crusty and hard and melting fast....  It took us twice as long to get home as the fog was as thick as Sea Poop!  (pea soup?)

We got her to our house about 11 pm and although she has been here before she was so confused about not having her Daddy around.  She gets along well with Finney and Binney, and we made a little bed for her alongside of our bed on the floor.


We turned out the light.
ooooh 
the moans! 
the groans! 
the whines! 
the wimpers! 

She missed Paul so much.... and was miserable. 
After 20 minutes of listening to her little heart breaking, 
we let her up in our bed!   

Laying on top of my legs and sprawling out across the king sized bed suited her just fine. She konked out and slept peacefully for the rest of the night.  Each time we tried to move, she was a lump of doggie fur and not easy to roll over.

 Oh well, I guess it is a Three Dog Night! 


In the morning we popped up our two stinkers onto the bed. They had been sleeping nicely on their doggie beds on the floor.  I suppose for poor Millie who misses Paul so much, we can give her a bit of comfort for the time she is here.  Steve brought up coffee and we had a Three Dog Morning! 


We ran back to visit on Friday, and then again today to see how Pa is doing.  Therapy has started and they have him up and walking around multiple times a day. We will keep Millie with us until he is ready to go home and resume his spoiling of her. hahahha


Today Steve decided to teach these dogs about doing household tasks and projects.  As you can tell, they are not too impressed?   Since we put the new tv up on a wall bracket (see last blog)  I wanted to hide the coax antenna and the power cord in a trim strip.  Better than having those ugly wires hanging down loosely on the wall.



I painted the special metal trim strip the other day with the same color as the walls.  Then Steve measured for the brackets and spacing to put it on the wall alongside of the tv. We had to take the tv off the wall to re-route the two wires behind it, so they would come out on the far right side:


We tucked the coax and power cord into the trim strip and slid it down into place. A few taps of the hammer did the job.  It was just the right height to come out next to the tv and run down the wall to the baseboard.


As the dogs dozed on the bed, we worked around them, as they lost interest in our project.  The walls are a soft blue color. But on a dreary day, the colors do not show up so well.


And there it is.... 
all encased in the trim strip and I think it looks a lot better! 




Steve went downstairs to put away the tools and he shouted up for those three lazy dogs to get up and go outside.  ZOOOM they left the bed in a rush!

I was left alone to test out the tv and make sure it worked 
and that our connections did not come loose. 

Hmmmm I thought about taking a nap....
On a rainy icky afternoon,
 it seemed like just the thing to do. 

So I did. 



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