Friday, December 6, 2013

Oh the weather outside is frightful, but the fire is so delightful……

Our first snow of the season, and first snow in our new home has arrived!

View out our bedroom window this morning, after toweling the condensation off ;)

IMAG0626

We got roughly two inches of powder snow overnight, which will hang around for a while as the next few days they’re forecasting extremely low temperatures for the area and wind chills in the 10 to 0 degree range, Brrrr! 

 

IMAG0627 IMAG0628 IMAG0629 IMAG0630 IMAG0631 IMAG0632

Dawn’s happy, I’m happy, the cat is not happy, he hates snow, but he loves our electric heater :), with it near the register vent it’s kitty warming heaven, as it tends to either lay completely over the register vent, wrapped around the heater, or half on the register laying next to it. 

 

1477443_1433762210173364_2000103328_n

Our new Home, or, Why the Redneck hasn't been keeping his blog up to date

Well, since I broke my silence with the Camper tattoo, I might as well continue on, continuing on. 

So, in that vein, I will share with you our new home, the reason why I haven't spent much time lately posting on my blog (Well besides work and not wanting to sit in front of a laptop after spending 8-10 hours a day staring at several computer screens). 

Here's our new home, a 2006 Heartland Bighorn 3400 RL.   Dawn and I moved out of our old space in #3, and into our new fenced in space in #19.   

Since then, almost all of my time has been dedicated to fixing up space #19 and moving stuff out of #3 (Still need to remove my garden beds and plants). 

 

Trailer first Delivered

It took a massive amount of work to get that site ready to accept that giant Fifth wheel.  Originally, there was an old pink (salmon pink) Holiday rambler in the site, which we had to get out.  

This involved disassembling the decks and moving them out of the way, tearing down part of the fence out front and the rear gate, and doing alot of trimming to the birch tree so that I could pull old pink out, which ironically was later sold to an unsuspecting college kid for $2000 by the park owner (not the manager, different people) and is now our neighbor in site #17. 

 

IMAG0568 IMAG0569 IMAG0570 IMAG0571

Moving the decks into place and moving the fence

Yeah, not going to lie to you, that was a royal pain in the arse.   Even with five neighbors, moving the deck sitting next to the trailer now was a royal nightmare.   The middle deck section was easier, my Dad and I simply slid it up onto the lower deck and then slid it over into place, the decks were slimy from being under the fir tree’s boughs (cut back now), so it moved fairly easily. 

IMAG0590 IMAG0591 IMAG0592

Raising the grade on the hill to level out the new driveway somewhat and relocating the lower gate

Cut the fence down on the lower end of the site and dug out a spot for a new fence post so that the old lower gate could be put back in place.  

Then I removed the original arched gate boards and went with a square fence line. 

More work has actually been done on the site, but I haven’t taken any new pictures in a while.  

The irony was my dad I did the earth moving by hand in the middle of a major wind storm.  Nothing quite like shoveling two cubic yards of mud ;). 

 

 IMAG0599 IMAG0601 IMAG0602 IMAG0603

 

Inside tour from when we bought it

Sadly, the little end table you see by the recliners disappeared out of the rig when it was at the dealers having the PDI list done (which never got done fully), however, Johnson RV paid for a new table and I picked up a nice hardwood end table with a drawer to stick between the recliners in its place. 

We also replaced the factory RV King mattress with a Sealy Posturepedic Welland California King Pillow top (biggest thing I could wedge into the bed slide out). 

 

IMAG0526 IMAG0527 IMAG0528 IMAG0529 IMAG0530 IMAG0531 IMAG0532 IMAG0533 IMAG0534 IMAG0535 IMAG0536 IMAG0537 IMAG0538 IMAG0539 IMAG0540 IMAG0541 IMAG0542 IMAG0543 IMAG0544 IMAG0545 IMAG0546 IMAG0547

 

So, there you have it, our new home :). 

Monday, November 4, 2013

The Redneck Express, preserved in "ink"!

Sorry for the fry spell, I've been busy lately with work and our new trailer home, so I've been lazy in continuing the story of my longest adventure with the Express.

Wanted to let you know that I do plan to resume work on it soon, now that things are finally settling down again, though, it has been a year (Where did 2013 go?  It went by so fast!)

Normally, I like to keep my updates in sequence to the time when the event occurred, but I couldn't pass this one up.

On RV.net today, a thread started when someone discovered a picture of my rig, slightly embellished as a tattoo on someone's shoulder over on http://www.ugliestattooes.com.

Link to the original entry ---> http://cheezburger.com/4406063360


h3754F432


Ya know, I guess you could say that mimicry is the best compliment to your work, but someone out there in the world loved my camper so much that they decided to make it a permanent part of themselves and for that, I salute you.

I don't think even Ms. Tioga and George had someone tattoo their rig on their own body :p.

It took me a bit to remember where I had posted this picture, as it's from a back logged trip called the "Eastern Oregon Ramblin' Journey", but I eventually found it over in the Introduction section of the blog.



The picture was taken at a lower loop campsite in August of 2009 at the Ainsworth State Park at the eastern end of the Columbia River Gorge, I had stopped there to rest before continuing on to visit the Stonehenge War Memorial in Maryhill, WA before turning south down US 97 through Oregon. 

So, my hats off to you, whoever you are, the Redneck Express and I salute you, because, you have shown a love for my camper that is little greater than my own.  :)