Hubby just reported "the ol' thermometer says 106, and that's not a radio station", so I guess it's a good time to kick back in the house, enjoy the A/C and do a bit of updating.

We're trying to get ready for departure, which will be sometime early in July if things go as planned. The weather lately makes it hard to get the outside tasks done, so we're progressing rather slowly (that's our story and we're sticking to it!).

A friend commented one time that she just assumed it took us a couple of days to get things ready and packed when we hit the road for the summer. I wish! Heck, I can't pack that quickly for a three day plane trip! We've always got things to repair, or improve, kitchen staples to refill, groceries to buy and load in, and then there's always the unnecessary crafty project of some kind that I'm determined to do, even though it isn't strictly necessary.

This year the essential repair was the forward spring that broke just as we were leaving Balmorhea State Park back in mid May. We had moved the short distance from our site over to the dump station when, in his customary walk-around, Steve noticed some unusual wear on the trailer's front tire sidewall.  Upon inspection he discovered the front spring had broken two leaves, allowing the fender well to drop. It was rubbing on the side of the tire and had done noticeable damage in only a few feet of travel.  It's a little unnerving to think about what the results might have been if that had happened at a high speed.

As a temporary fix to get us home Steve put a wooden block between the axle and the trailer. We certainly couldn't rely on that solution forever, so he found these heavy rubber axle bumpers that mount on the axle and will hopefully serve the same purpose should we ever break another spring.

The parts arrived the other day and after completing the installation Steve said the project went better than he'd expected, so in consideration of the wear and tear all the springs have had over the years, he ordered another spring for the other side and replaced that one too.

He did most of the work lying on his back in the gravel, under a metal roof, in a thunderstorm, with Shiner either breathing in his ear or laying on his tools - does he know how to have fun or what!

He's also done some general reorganization for the cargo spaces, and some repairs to the cargo box on the back so he's almost done with his to-do list.

My crafty project for this season was targeted at getting rid of the peeling wallpaper border. When we bought our Arctic Fox 30U, back in 2003, it had a wallpaper border all the way around the main living area. It's pressure sensitive sticky back promptly curled up and let go of the wall in the Nevada heat on that 4th of July trip. So, I put up a regular paper border, one that's attached with a water based paste. That survived pretty well, but now, nine years later, it was beginning to curl up at the corners and was driving me crazy.

The vinyl surface walls in an RV do present a particular challenge as not much wants to stick to them. My current solution is a stenciled design. Using a couple of purchased stencils and craft paints I applied a subtle leafy vine along the long side of the slideout, and two birds (colored to resemble the Texas scissor-tailed flycatcher) near the windows on each side of the slide. I dare this wall treatment to fall off!


I also remodeled a couple of foil window shades to fit our living space windows. These are the same kind you buy for autos, cut down to fit exactly so they can be tucked behind the shade during hot sunny days.
We find it makes a huge difference in being able to keep the inside cool when it's over 95 outside. The shades are already accordion folded, so are easy to tuck beside the sofa out of the way when we don't need them. We now have a foil blind to fit every window, so we're ready for that southwest desert sun!

Housekeeping is pretty much the same in an RV as at home. In spite of routine cleaning sometimes you need to dismantle an area and start over with everything clean and new. This year I talked myself into tackling the spice collection.

We like to cook, and we like spicy foods, so we carry a lot of spices for both baking and BBQ. Between road dust and humidity, the RV life is kind of hard on them. So, completely cleaning out and starting over seemed like a good plan. It only took most of a day (but I was able to stay inside where it's cool!)

We keep most of the spices in a nifty hanging rack that holds 12 different spices without taking up any shelf space. (You can find one like this by doing a web search on "select a spice carousel" - there are several, at varying prices.) I think this is one of the best inventions I've seen for organizing a small RV kitchen. It's taken all these years of bouncing down the road with no ill effects, too!

Remaining to-do's: reattaching our plexiglass storm window on the front door, steam cleaning the carpet, and installing the new sound system. So that my friends is why it takes us so long to get ready to travel.

After all that is completed we can start with the basic food and clothes packing! Yes, it's work, and maybe it would be easier if we did it full-time and didn't have the house to worry about too, but we do enjoy both. It's no more work than playing tennis as far as I'm concerned!
[Reminder: you can click on any of the photos for a larger version]