Yeah, this is happening

What do you do when you’re a full-time traveler and traveling isn’t all that safe, discouraged at best, and, in many places, difficult to impossible? (Everything closed)  Drop back 10 yards and punt, that’s what.  I’ve been doing my shelter-in-place time in Washington where I spent the holidays with my daughter and son-in-law – and then so much more.  Alaska, my trip plan for the year is dead in the water, what with those (rightfully) irked Canadians having no interest in any close encounters with Americans, and keeping the border closed up tight.  To be fair, you can’t blame them, we’ve managed to shoot ourselves in the foot at every stage and operation imaginable in a global pandemic.

With a closed border, no travel on the horizon, and the planning and prep for this year’s destination in the recycle bin, that’s left nothing but time for a tiny few solo and close family local photo excursions and a plethora of projects.  Projects on projects on projects.  On projects.

Small projects, big projects, and one multi-day beast, and there’s still an ongoing list that isn’t going to finish itself.  Most of the big boys and top priorities were front-loaded, but there’s still plenty to get to.  See, in case you hadn’t heard, it rains a bit here in the Pacific Northwest, (and tends to the chilly side) so qualified outdoor project days are not in steady supply, as they might be in a latitude a bit more to the south.  I can’t swear to it, but I’m pretty sure I didn’t see daytime sun until April.

Eventually, of course, the sun did start showing up, and my task completed list started to grow.  It’s up over 25 and growing, and that doesn’t even include the standard sort, toss and re-organize for inside closets, storage bins, cupboards, and pantries or the spring cleaning tornado.  (All of which happened on snow days… well okay, there was hardly any snow, but it felt like more)

So let’s look at my top 10 (+1) ‘rona exile outdoor project’s greatest hits list.

Fix a water leak in basement storage:  The very first thing on the list was to trace down and repair a pesky little water leak that had developed in the basement storage compartment.  I had to completely empty out the storage and pull all the side walls off on the side facing all the working parts.  (towards the back)  So a couple non-rainy days in a row were a must.  Once all that was handled, finding the leak was easy peasy.  Thankfully it was nothing more than a pex fitting needed tightening.  Been dry as a bone ever since, and it was never worse than some small puddling on the floor of the basement, (that has a nice, convenient protective covering) so no damage done.

New battery box for front power room compartment.  Two more lithium-ion batteries are on there way, so I need a battery box upgrade.  The old battery box wasn’t going to make the cut with four batteries. (a pretty tight fit front to back for two, in fact)  Not wanting to break the bank, it wasn’t a big deal to just build one.  Since lithium-ion’s don’t out-gas, they don’t need venting or to be airtight so it’s really just a box, and just needs to be sized right. If I wanted to spend twice as much on wood, I might have aimed for a great box, and a pretty finish, but it just sits in the front compartment rarely even being seen.  It just holds batteries.  I did what I did.

Two more lithium-ion batteries!:  With the bigger box, comes new battery day!  I can’t say enough about these batteries. Lightweight, faster charging, the last 20% doesn’t take all day topping up like the old 6v lead-acid’s did. You can use them down to almost drained without damaging them, (lead-acid has a recommended 50% of charge floor) so my four battery bank is a true 400Ah. (amp hours)   Installation was (almost) a snap.  A local battery shop duplicated my other battery cables, and they drop right in to the new, spacious and comfy box.  Now, it’s only a matter of getting away and using them.

Backup camera installation:  This was a biggie, and long overdue.  I guess the sticking point was finding one that I was confident would have the distance to be wireless the entire distance from the back of the rig to the front of the truck.  Going by reviews, many that I looked at seemed somewhat hinky to be very sure about.  The one I picked up had several reviews that mentioned success with longer distances than my situation.  So trigger pulled.  The camera is mounting high up on the back of the rig, right into one of the backup light spots, (more high ladder time) and wired into the 12v power there.  Much easier install than I anticipated, and the monitor was an easy mount to the dash as well.  (once I decided that’s where I wanted it)  Love it, love it!  Why did I wait?

Replace under awning LED light strip:  The long LED strip light under the awning started fritzing out a couple of years ago.  It’s been on the replace list for quite a while but, hasn’t been a high priority, and wiring it into the existing 12v of the old LED took a little figuring and some time at a location where I could get some high ladder time in.  As has been mentioned… time hasn’t been a problem, but rain and wind were issues.  (the awning needs to be most of the way out, so no or low wind is a plus)  Once in process, when together pretty quick.  I got a helping hand on a couple ladder runs, and it works great.  I may add a couple of feet to the end of the strip because it’s a little shorter than I wanted, but down the list a bit.

Wash, buff, wax, and restore RV gel coat:  What a beast.  It’s been 5 years on the road, and the last year saw a lot of miles and getting good wash time is getting harder and harder. More and more parks have water rationing restrictions, or are jumping on the no washing or waxing in the park bandwagon.  The gel coat was suffering, and getting quite dingy and dull.  So once some sunny days started happening this was a must.  It was a multi-day wash, buff out, polish and wax project involving 3 products. A stripper, a wax cleaner/polisher, and then a pure wax.  At 33’x9’x12′ it’s a lot of square footage to cover by hand and a power buffer.  Being honest, I cheated a little on this one.  I did the work up to about 9 feet or so, and then had a much younger, much more in shape guy come in and do the top 3 or so feet on the high ladder.  Totally worth it!  And it looks really good.  Maybe not perfect, because it really was looking sad, but so, so much better.

Replace built in stairs with storage box:  I added an aftermarket stair steps quite a while ago that make the built-in stairs both unusable, and superfluous.  They’re great, rest on the ground, and have shorter step distances than is typical.  The small doggy and I both appreciate that.  The same aftermarket company make a storage box that fits in the place of the old, folding built-in stairs, but that means removing the old ones, and that was not as easy as it seems.  One of the bolts was up high and deep enough, with so little space between the stair container wall and the RV body that no hand or wrench could get to it.  I had to drill and cold chisel it out, which was a knuckle busting, finger dinging, curse inducing process I would not want to repeat anytime soon.  Once the steps were out, the storage box went in like a snap.  Easy peasy.

Slide-out electricity fix:  Another one that was something of a headache.  Both 12v and 120v power are routed into the living room slider area.  Recently the 120v outlet there just stopped working.  No power from the outlet, and the outlet tester was giving me a neutral polarity error.  Trying to track down the origin point for this wiring issue was the headache.  Turns out there was a smallish wooden “box” in one of the lower corners of the slide out that was a “junction box” of sorts and both the 12v and 120v were routed into the slide-out from there.  The connector for the 120v was an odd one that I couldn’t find online to replace, so I wired it back together as a standard plug connector and it works.  Nice to have working electrical from all outlets again.

Install SnapPad Landing Feet for leveling jacks:  These are ingenious little gizmo’s that cushion the leveling jacks and distribute the weight out over a wider, softer landing area.  Protects against rust marks, electrical surges, and dampens vibrations.  Also saves on carrying random boards and such for cushioning and to serve similar functions.  I still carry some random boards for very uneven ground that the standard leveling jack heights can’t handle, but rarely have to use them now.

Install Victron gauge and run line to front power compartment:  The new lithium-ion batteries came with a very nice, Bluetooth and app capable gauge, but I needed to run a line for it from the battery shunt up through the front power/storage compartment, through the basement storage and up the wall to mount on my “power monitor wall.”  Again, emptying out the basement compartment, running the line through and cable tying in all the right spots, drilling a new place into the monitor wall, fishing the line up the wall and bingo!  It’s a working battery gauge that I can check from my phone or iPad.  Sweet.

12v power box addition to kingpin:   This was a little DIY project of my own devising.  On nice, warm, good weather days it’s fun to sit out under the kingpin overhang, put your feet up, relax, and watch the world some.  But, there’s no power near there, so no device charging, or appliances can be plugged in. (fans, lights, air compressors, etc.._)  So I mounted a little junction box there with a 12v power strip and an on/off switch.  Easy peasy.  Now there’s a little shady nook with all the comforts right there for the good times.

Honorable mention projects – steps above standard maintenance:

Replaced the driver’s side master window and door lock control panel of the truck. It’s only been broken for 6 or 7 years.  But to be fair, I didn’t realize that was reason the passenger side window switch wasn’t working was the drivers side control until I got in a google deep dive on things I wanted to fix.

Replaced both the passenger side front AND rear door lock actuators. Weird that only on warm days those locks were hinky, but google tells me it’s a thing, and those control rods are not made for large hands to maneuver inside the door panels.

Installed a dashboard cover as my 16-year-old dashboard was starting to show some age with a little cracking and sun damage.  At least the cover gets it out of direct sun.

New LED’s for scare lights – time to replace the old tungstens with LED’s

Add under floor mounting clips for accessories to basement storage – what to do with all the extension poles, umbrellas, brooms, long squeegees, and the baseball bat/snake/aggression discourager?  Mount them to the ceiling of the storage compartment in between the studs.

Add new D-rings to carabiner clip hang extension cord(s) water hoses and 50A generator adapter in basement storage

Repaired a broken storage hatch hinge  – toothpicks, wood glue, and gorilla glue

Replaced both 40amp breakers in the solar panel wiring array – one was wanky, so did both, just in case.

Add a main battery shutoff switch immediately outside battery box

The to-do’s and projects continue, of course.  Until general travel is more reliable, and shut-downs and shelter-in place orders are not being revisited and re-instituted so often, it’s just not wise to be out in the world without absolutely needing to.  I will be taking a few local, in state trips, as the year progresses, as long as I can continue social distancing and avoiding large crowds/tourist groups I think that much will be fine.

The journey is the destination…