ODO: 307,180
What better way to follow up so much adventure than with a week in one spot, finishing all of our major unfinished projects? Right? Sounds amazing! We set up our home in the back of our friend, the Metal Wizard’s house, and started making plans.
We started with hooking up our solar panel. That’s right, up until this point, it was just for looks. By the time we finished everything and got the truck into position it was evening, which gave a pretty lackluster solar output. A little defeated, we decided to check again in the stronger mid day sun (and with the surfboard not blocking a third of it). Spoiler, those two things fixed the previous disappointing performance, and we are very excited to have functioning solar power. We also used our final strip of awning track to make a mounting spot for our kitchen tool roll so it no longer takes up precious table space.
Next up, the roof rack. Remember way back when we hit the sign? Well, that also bent one of our roof bars, and stretched all the roof basket mounts. We straightened the roof bar, and made new brackets for the basket. Since we were messing with the roof, we mounted the shovel! It has a new home on the side of the basket now, Berne is very happy. Even more exciting, we were able to empty our final “junk drawer/project” bag! I think that means we are officially, completely moved in. We followed this up with a giant dinner of hand made nigiri, sashimi, fried fish (the perks of staying with a fisherman), and tempura carrots (gotta have a vegetable!).
Next on the list? Reattach the front fenders. Both sides had broken mounts, and a broken core support wasn’t doing them any favors. While Berne fabricated new mounts and did some spot repair to the core support, KoKo tested out the sewing machine they brought. Yes, there is a full size sewing machine in the camper. In fact, one side of benches in the camper were designed around transporting it safely. She was able to make a padded bag for our rice cooker (yes, we also have a rice cooker in the camper), a storage bag for our shower floor, and patch the cover for our camping couch. This was also cleaning day, we washed our camping couch, shoes, garbage bag, and scrubbed the salt and dust off the outside of the tent.
Next item: a rear fender reinforced step. The current fender is fiberglass, and we want to keep it from getting damaged, since we use it to get to things on the roof. Since we were staying with a metal wizard, he helped us build a fancy aluminum step complete with speed holes. While all of this fabricating was happening, the truck interior also got a solid wipe down. All the surfaces are now ready to get dusty again!
And now, a rest day! We heard about a local race happening, so spent most of the day in the desert watching the cars. Afterwards we found a bar that only served the special, which happened to be shark fish and chips. The following day we went back for more racing, and watched the motorcycles and quads on a short course next to the Sea of Cortez. After the race we did some initial exploration to get organized for our final project: fixing the spare tire winch. We also adjusted our headlights, and reattached the bulb reflector-shield-thing (tiny hands for the win!) KoKo was able to fish them out and realign them so they are no longer rolling around on the bottom of the headlights.
Final project day! What a week, we got through so many projects, but this was our hardest one. We had moved the camper into the shop a few days earlier due to a massive dog symphony in the middle of the night that resulted in no one sleeping. This was a lucky move because it had been raining on and off the past few days, and projects are more fun when you’re not cold and wet. We had discovered out spare tire winch no longer worked. Do to the highly custom nature of the truck, the spare tire is bolted into the chassis, but still uses the stock winch to lower and raise it, and it was all locked up. We needed to cut the winch line, and make some sketchy moves to free the spare tire, but eventually we got it. Between removing the tire, and figuring out how to get it back in place, Berne spent the entire day under the truck. Now it was time to plan our next moves, luckily our Metal Wizard had some ideas.
