T minus 62 hours and counting.......No holds on this launch!

Well in 2.5 days, we will be departing for our Celestial Rendezvous with the moon's shadow as it screams across the United States at 1500 MPH.    Going to be a week of vacation in front of the main event, but I'm knocking two bucket list items off in this trip.   Going to Mammoth Cave National Park, and seeing a Total Solar Eclipse.  Not sure which one I'm more excited about.....

Anyway since getting the coach back last week, it has been a mad thrash getting things ready for this trip.  Ideally, we would have had the coach back a month ago to full shake down the new motor and prep the coach.  So many things on the punch list that will have to wait though.  She does look good back here at Casa De Sprocket:

This is our first long outing in the coach (more than 2 nights), so lots of together time with the family in a tight space.

Well one of the big things is a fridge.  The dual power unit (propane and electric) that came with the coach had died before we ever got a hold of it.  A direct plug and play replacement is about $1200 for a 5 cu ft fridge which is out of our budget.  I had been looking for a used one, but all the ones that popped up were too big or too small, no Goldilocks fridge for us.  Anyway awhile back while looking I found a guy, Crazy Johnny up in Melbourne.  He buys lots from various retailers and blows the stuff out very inexpensively.  I found him looking for fridges.   I got a brand new Magic Chef dorm fridge (4.3 cu ft) for $75!   has a dent in the door, but works perfect.  Not designed for RV use, but for that money, it lasts a couple of years we are happy.

So after it being in my kitchen as a beer fridge for the past year, Sunday we pulled out the dead Dometic and found out that during previous ownership, it had been a rat condo.

The middle pic is the nest I shop vac'ed up.  It filled the 5 gal shop vack with bits of foam from the fridge, insulation, and assorted other crap and rat poop.  Fun times!

Here is the fridge space cleaned out, and the new fridge getting installed

Had to do a little gluing of broken wood, added the wood strips to tilt it level and help hold it in place....As the fridge is shorter and narrower than the last one, I added wood to the sides and top to finish it out.  This is a temporary solution as there is enough space to build additional storage drawer or cubby, just not before this trip.

As Mickey the rat tore up all the old fiberglass insulation, I went with a 2 in thick sheet of styrofoam that we cut to fit in to help insulate the fridge compartment (notice how thick the RV fridge's insulation was in the rat photos above).

Also found out that my instrument center that tells me levels in sewer, water, propane, etc.  It's all disconnected!  No wonder the switches don't work...Will be looking at that later, but for the time being used tie wraps and got all the wires out of the way.

I thought this would be a 3-4 swap, but nooooo. I have over 20 hours in it, but the end result is good for now.  You can see the plywood above that's how much space we have to make a drawer in (although it will be under the fridge.

Needs more beer!   Well with that project done, on to the next bit that has been discussed previously.

When we bought the coach and got it home it rained for a week straight.  The window leaked and the 40 year old pressborad counter took the brunt of it.  We originally tried to save the formica top as it is no longer in production, but after a week of painstaking work by Lucy, it broke around the 90% mark.....  I had cut a new top our of 3/4" plywood for a new base, and that has been bare in the coach for almost 2 years now.

We I invested $12.50 into some wood look peel and stick flooring this evening and our daughter helped me out putting it in.  We got about 90% done and the girls will finish it up tomorrow.
Looks heaps better until we get a solid butcher block counter in the near future.

Tomorrow is a wash with my afterwork class, and then Friday it's load up for  departure....BUSY BUSY BUSY!

Also bought a new transforce tire for a spare.  $175 for piece of mind on a good spare, I hope I have to throw away in 6 years....