Ok ok, I freely admit that I'm addicted to buying pop-ups. Is it a true addiction if it makes me money though? lol

Sounds like you have quite the project on the drains and valves, are you replacing because they're sticking or leaking? I've never had issues with my piping (knock on vinyl rv wood) but I imagine that would be a real pain if it started acting up.

As for mouse traps, this is the first year I haven't bothered. We have also set a mouse trap with fresh peanut butter every year and have never had a mouse (or a single mouse poop) in the camper. Our is even stored outside under cover, which blows my mind that mice wouldn't even bother with ours.

Just watch though, we'll probably have a whole family of rodents moved in come April :

 

Starting today we're going to book our 2020 camping weekends on recreation.gov's website. They let you book 6 months in advance so we figure we'll just book every summer weekend during the winter months to easy some of the cost and hassles of dealing with booked sites in the summer. If we have something come up we'll get our money back (minus $10) so not a huge deal if we want to do something else.

 

Nice! We never know when/where we are going to camp, so we can't make that commitment. If I plan something out too far, something else (work or personal) will pop up and I will have that to contend with. I like that it makes you money, maybe some day I will have to pick your brain on this money venture, as I can always use the extra income as well.

Last night I finally got to see Maddie's new to her car at home. Our schedules don't align much. I had the motor mounts for it, so asked her at about 8:30 PM last night if she wanted to replace the one that was causing all of the noise in the car. (Silly motor mount was metal on metal, and the whole car sounded like it was falling apart when it idled, because the body acted like a huge speaker, and vibrated because the vibration of the motor was directly on the frame.) It took us about 30 minutes, and made a huge improvement. I also replaced the windshield spray nozzle because the part that hooks to the hose broke off. It was really brittle. We took it for a drive last night. I really think its going to be a great little car for her. Previous owner seemed to really take great care of it. Its like brand new, but has a fairly large group of numbers on the Odometer. However you can't expect a lot for a $4200 dollar car these days. I think this one should get her through college fine, then she can purchase a nicer one, or at least one with fewer miles.

 

What did she get?

 

2009 Ford Focus SES. Its a clean little car, and drives out very nice. I hope its as nice of a car as it appears to be.

 

A few days ago my wife was getting ready to leave in her Acadia to take Sophia somewhere, and it wouldn't start. She was in a hurry, and couldn't describe the problem to me, so just asked me to look it over. I went home to find the battery mostly dead. It had been fine the night before. I put it on the charger, and after a few hours it started right back up. I checked for lights left on, and anything else, but I didn't find anything. The next morning I went out to try the car again, and it was completely dead. I had Julie pick up a new battery while she was out and about, and I went to install it. Well.. fun fact. battery is under the passenger seat, which is electric so.. moving the electric seat forward was a bit of a trick. I mashed my fingers a few times trying to wiggle the old battery out, and a couple of times trying to get the new one in, but its done. The original battery was dated 12-13, so I guess we got all we could out of it. Looks like brand new still.

 

Hauled off a bunch of scrap metal yesterday to clean up around the sheds. Got twice as much for 4 aluminum wheels as we did for 800 pounds of steel.

 

"helped" the wifey get the door trim up in the bathroom. That is the last peice of the bathroom and it will be done!!! :-)

 

I finished putting the other two motor mounts in Maddie's car. It was really easy. That car seems to be super easy to work on so far. I just hope I don't have to often.

 

You picked a fine time to leave me loose wheel-- Had a trailer bearing seize up and lost a wheel-- guess i will be handling that over the next couple days.

 

Its a shame you couldn't find your wheel, but its hard to tell how far it rolled after it left the trailer. Also, someone could have stopped and picked it up. For as dry as the shaft was on that axle, I wonder if it ever had grease in it, after they serviced it.

 

His wheel is with his drive shaft in the land of missing

 

Somewhere, someone is following Chad around picking up parts and selling them on the black market.

 

They're really good at it too. I doubt I could steal a drive shaft or trailer tire while it's driving down the highway.

 

I am still practicing guitar about 5 minutes to an hour each day. I haven't gotten any of them down perfect, but I have learned about 5 short songs. They are single string pick songs, and I have been told I need to start learning chords by my cousin. He says if you learn about 5 of the chords, you can fake the rest and make people believe you know how to play guitar.