Daley Travels

As of this date, we have around 2 and 2/3  months until we move out of our rented stick house and into a 31 foot motor home to live in for a year. (longer?)  As fast as we are checking off things that must be done, new things keep cropping up on the list. Still, I feel good at the progress. Mundane things like converting files to digital so I can access them on the road if I need to selling off things that we will not need on the road, or as we really need to admit, beyond.

Last week's blog mentioned some modifications I wanted to do on motor home. Some on finished.

This drawer was probably designed for the week-ender. It simply did not open up enough to be very useful on an ongoing basis. (Not to mention it was cheaper to build)

What I did was strip out the old runners and install new, (Ok,recycled, remember the house salvage project I was helping with last month) steel drawer runners that now allow the drawer to hyper extend so that the entire drawer is usable.

The drawer above this one actually had clearance in the back that was not there for the lower one, so I not only added the new runners, I rebuilt the entire drawer so that it is about five inches deeper. Now it allows for a full size utensil tray to fit.

As I alluded to in the start of this post, there are new things that seem to crop up. After using the motor home over the holidays, I didn't get everything correctly winterized, or at least not well enough for a week of temps hanging out around the zero mark. There was a small, (but apparently vulnerable) water valve on the toilet that snapped apart when the little bit of water left in it froze.

Next, well, now we are headed into projects that need to be patented if they work.  For instance, a 12 volt heated terrarium for RVs. Maybe not a huge market,  but hey, with the demand for solar energy, there could be a need for more 12 volt appliances.

It started with Sarah, our daughter. At one time we convinced her that in place of the traditional pets that kids have in stick built homes, (think dogs, cats, goats, etc) she would have to choose a pet that could travel well. Something small, portable, low maintenance and has a short life span (what! You think I want to take care of a tortoise for a hundred years). She found some that fit those requirements.

Hermit Crabs.

They have already passed some sort of test in surviving a trip across country in a U-haul truck, and a year in Colorado. But what they do need extra, (and I forgot to add this to the original pet spec) is some mild heating.  Currently this is supplied by a small heating pad under the cage that is plugged into the house current.  What  I am thinking of, is creating a small cave they can crawl into that will be heated with a 12 volt heat source.

Sure, I'm up to the challenge. See you next week.