Back on the road again!

Bill and I found this Christmas Tree in our cardiologist's office.  Fairly bizarre theme, especially for a cardiologist.   -Race around the plastic tree?  Follow the orange brick road?  What -- all captions welcome in the comments.

 Nonetheless in a fairly bizarre turn of mind we found this an apt representation of our life style.  We wander (not much racing going on) around and then come home to the MesaTop to get both our and Baby Beluga's internal workings spiffed and polished, and then we leave again.    Bill and I are on Version O.8.  That's old and hopeful -- we've got medical clearances from all those folks we now see and all meds are resupplied, so we will be off again to do some more wandering.   

 Baby Beluga, our big white Sprinter that reminds us so much of "a little white whale on the go", is also spiffed and polished and ready to follow those roads.

 All our updates are fairly typical for folks as old as we are, but Baby is pretty new --here's her versions.

 BB 1.0 was just an empty cargo van.  Noisy, bumpy, immature.

BB 2.0 was entirely functional -- windows, insulation, sink, stove top, water tank, solar panels, a back seat, and a composting toilet. She was a teenager

BB 3.0 wasn't much of a change -- Michael built a wall for her; Matt built a fancy combat shower.  She got a water heater in this revision, and washing dishes became so much easier.   BB was continuing to mature.

BB 4.0:   In a very lopsided collaboration Matthew (Son #2 and the lion's share worker) and Bill have created walls over the insulation (all Matt), and drawers (Bill), drawer slides  and cupboards, with fancy latches and struts so the action of the road won't open them (Matt).  Matt added two new windows, one on each side of the bed -- air will flow and light will shine!  Matt added lighting, and worked wiring magic, did all the trim work (metal and wood) and made BB fancy.     

Matthew also  installed a fancy air conditioner.   I'm opposed to it -- I never want to be one of those RVers  (or any RVer-- we consider ourselves road trippers, or van lifers, or .....) who stays inside-- that's not the point of the travel.   Rain, shine, heat , cold or wind -- We want to experience it!  However, at this writing from the MesaTop, where just now it is cold and crazy windy  I can tell you that I would definitely eat the words I just wrote.  And we're heading to Florida on our next trip among warnings of humidity and heat even during January!  May enjoy that air conditioning.  

Bill constructed a new countertop and covered it in epoxy -- which you'll see.  I only made a mattress cover, and it isn't anywhere near the quality -- still some raw edges, which I hope you don't see. 

We have a new little fan that circulates air throughout the 'garage' and 'house' to equalize temperature and we have a layer of special 'stuff' the creates airflow under the mattress so no condensation, mold, etc, can form on either side.    

And, as a Christmas Gift, Matt and Katy gave us a door screen so that we can keep the side door open in buggy places, and we've been in a few of them.  That also will keep us inside. 

BB 4.0 is all grown up and just in time:    Tomorrow she gets packed and we are off on the next part of our road trip year.  First stop, of course, is Grandson William and his family, and we'll keep you posted from there.

Here's our current map: 

 

Stay tuned!  

Retirement Lessons Learned:  It takes a LOT of time and treasure, work and wonder, love and laughter (sometimes missing), help and most of all, gratitude (never missing)  to manifest the blessings we have.

Voyaya!