Hello Everyone! Today I’m going to try out something new! At the top of the blog I’m going to try and include a quick down and dirty audio recording that reads it to you. It might not be feasible once we hit the road, but I’m going to try and do it as often as possible. So feel free to hit the audio play button and scroll as you look at the pictures. Just know if you hit the video play buttons it will interrupt the audio, so you might want to get to the end and then go back and watch those.
So here we are! It has almost been a solid 4 months since we have updated on the blog. With spring finally warming up enough and withholding its never-ending onslaught of rain and snow, we are finally able to start working on The Ohana again! 🤙
And man what a long winter it was… 😒 Though it attempted to snow again today it didn’t stick though.
So ha! Take that Winter! 👊☃️
Before jumping back into Ohana news, I’d figure I’d share a little bit about what we accomplished this winter; lots of housework! The biggest project though was definitely our new floor.
On top of a ton of other small projects throughout the house, we started some fun ones too.
Here is a fan made adaption of a “dead” board game we started last year. We dove back into the project and it was a lot of fun- and the game has turned out to be a blast! Love to see this little fan project shine!
But also we got to spend some great time with our daughter Lia and her boyfriend Simon! This is the best picture I had- even though I look like a complete dork in it with my eyes closed. 😄😉
Alright Alright! I’ll quit digressing and get back to The Ohana stuff. So to start with, we were finally able to start loading back our items into the RV that we didn’t want left out in the extreme cold. So I hauled a few boxes of goodies out and stashed them back into their respective places. As I went to load the new microwave in for its first time I noticed the power cord for it was bright white. Since all of our power outlets are in the bottom of the upper cabinets, that meant that we would have a bright white cord hanging down above the microwave all of the time. I decided I wanted to try and paint it brown.
Long story short- painting it was not the way to go! So I settled for giving it a tight wrap with electrical tape. It turned out looking pretty good. 😊
Over the course of the winter I had been trying to brain storm the best way to mount our new microwave. 🤔
Laura had cast her vote that she would rather not have to take it in and out of a cabinet- so I scratched my head about the best way to mount it to keep it from bouncing around on the road. Just a few weeks ago the idea finally hit me! So I ordered the necessary pieces, and I would have to await their arrival in the mail.
But let’s get to the real big problem from last season. While driving around the Ohana all winter, doing our best to keep her dry inside, and evaluating where the problem could be coming from I had deduced where the issue was originating. And on this particular day- the weather was nice enough for me to confirm and address it.
It was the fantastic fan in the middle of the RV again. I found openings in our sealing back around the hinge of the lid cover- so I proceeded to clean up the area and seal those up as best as possible.
While I was up there I had a few other things I wanted to tackle too. During the winter, while Laura was sweeping off the RV roof- she had knocked loose one side of the water diverter above the front-most skylight. I sealed it back down into place.
I also bought some high temp black silicone gasket maker and coated the top of where the Gaco attached to the stove pipe. The extreme heat of the fireplace had caused a separation at the top.
With all our sealing repairs in place- I would just have to wait and evaluate to make sure it all did the trick. So for the time being I would wait to install the trim and curtain on the front window until I could confirm we were dry.
Another discovery we made as we opened her back up for the season was that the LED light strip we had installed around the perimeter of the cabin wasn’t working anymore. 😥 I assumed when I had reached up in trying to trace the water source I had disconnected something inside.
After opening it up I found out I was right! I took the opportunity to fix another problem I had found last season; that having to tie wire the control box that wasn’t meant to go into an electrical box it tended to try and turn on the wires. Well, I used some large backer-rod and stuffed the sides. All problems fixed!
Since it felt as though Spring was in the air- I pulled out Laura’s Garden Pod out of the shed and re-mounted it to the roof rack! 😊🌻
Last but not least- I did some small touch up on the Gaco where it had gotten scratched from snow removal and repaired 2 of the front running lights. Due to all of the expansion and contraction of winter a few ground connections had been shaken loose. An easy fix to get ’em back in action!
Now for another little story. A few months back Laura had discovered one our favorite bands were going to be playing in Anchorge; Balyhoo!
She quickly ordered tickets and the next day realized she would be traveling out of town during the concert. After attempts to cancel the tickets with no confirmation, we started brainstorming what to do with her extra ticket. Recently I had started spending time with my brother Michael again, and he happened to tell me at random he had never been to a concert. Well, I put two and two together and figured I should take him to his first concert!
The details all worked out and we decided we would take the 5 hour drive to Anchorage. So shortly after Laura flew South, we were headed North for a show.
As we got further North and headed through The Pass we were greeted with lots of snow and rain. I figured if The Ohana’s leak was going to get a good testing this would be it.
That night we arrived at Chilikoot Charlies; a pretty crazy establishment that seems to have been pieced together over many years and containing seven different bar areas. Here is the outside area in back:
Since Laura had sprung for the VIP tickets to the show we got to attend an awesome early acoustic event with Ballyhoo!’s lead singer; Howie Spangler! He came across as a super nice and talented individual who really loved his music.
After the opening act had finished we were treated to an almost 3 hour epic show where the band passionately rocked the house! The performance was driving and amazingly cleanly executed. The venue was quite small for such a big sounding band with crazy showmanship; but it was also nice to be right there in the show.
Here is the live version of the song Howie performed acoustically earlier for us:
Another perk of those VIP tickets is that after the show we got to meet the band! They were all super friendly and in love with the music they play. They were stoked to hear that we had driven the 5 hours to see them- and I promised them I would see them again somewhere and someday down South! What a perfect day!
That night Michael and I headed back to The Ohana and hung out for a bit. We discovered that on our way up something had gotten disconnected in the wiring above the kitchen, which had disabled the porch and kitchen lighting as well as the vent hood. Sounds like I had another project due when I arrived home.
We fired up Kalcifer and stayed toasty for a good part of the night as we “hit the hay”.
The next day we got and up went out to do what most Alaskans do when in the big city; got some necessary shopping in for goods we couldn’t get at home and grabbed a meal we couldn’t get at home. Then we decided to take the 5 hour drive back South to Homer.
The following morning I was out to find my wiring disconnect. After removing all of the paneling in the bottom of the interior of the cabinets I discovered it was where I had feared; in the vent space above the refrigerator. I had wired it a few years back when I had all of the panels open from the outside and I needed to find another way to access the space. I also had a visitor walk right up while I was working on it.
Fortunately I was able to open the metal side of the boxing I had built around the vent cavity and found the issue right away. Years ago (before I knew better) I had used the clip together wire connectors to hook everything up. It made since that since the vent is right there, and we had been traveling around 65 mph through wind, rain, and snow that a connection could have been shaken loose. I decided to do it right this time and use some heat shrink butt connectors to replace them.
Today my “parts” for mounting the microwave arrived in the mail. I had ordered a pack of neodymium magnets and the plan was simple; stick them to the bottom of the microwave and magnetize it to the metal countertop. So far I’m definitely not regretting surfacing the countertops with metal; it tends to come in handy when you need things to stay attached to them while traveling!
Once it was complete the microwave seemed to be firmly in place. Now it would just take some road testing to see if it was the right solution. 🧐
Speaking of roads, I have one more thing to tell all of you about that came out of our winter time idling. Here is a shot of the first half of our journey we carefully plotted out on Google Maps!
If everything went right- we would be at the end of our first half of our journey Mid-August. Then we would slow down our travels for the South to take more time to find out where we might want to live.
In case you hadn’t noticed from all of my previous writings; this has been a life-long dream of mine. While we were packing things away this winter to get ready for our eventual big move I found this little doodle from my high school self:
So yes- this has been in the works for a long time! The dream vehicle I planned on escaping in might have changed, but it is amazing to finally see it all so close. As I write this we just under 2 months until our big launch.
And as always- winter is still trying to trying to remind me of why I am sooooo ready!
Geoff Murphy – 4/4/2022
I am so glad you got see and meet and sing along with Ballyhoo! 🙂