Breathing A Little Easier

As April pushed forward we anxiously, and patiently, waited for the snow to finish clearing off of our world. Here is a picture from the second week of April.

I made the decision that we wouldn’t start working outside this year until all of the ice had completely melted off of our driveway.

Bit by bit the ice continued to melt away…

… ever…

… so…

… slowly. 😰

Until Alaskan spring was officially upon us. The sounds of morning birds singing began to finally fill the air. We had some last work done at Redline Automotive; including getting the newly functioning parking brake adjusted to hold our heavy girl in place. When I went to pick our Ohana up from the shop, I was worried the parking brake was stuck!

After inspecting all the elements in the situation ; it turned out that with the weather finally changing the parking spot had become a partial mud hole.

So for the first time in a while I had to put her into 4 Low and creep her out.

Once again soooo glad that we have 4 wheel drive as an option! 😁 Early the next week we were headed to Soldotna. We brought up The Ohana and our Tundra so we could spend the day up there because…

…The Ohana was getting a new exhaust system! Remember the tale from last summer where we were driving our 2000 mile trip around the state and our exhaust fell apart? Well, that happened! I ended up having to patch it back together and tied it back into place until we could get it fixed. Which was finally now. 😊

Robert at Sunny’s Automotive had highly recommended this business in Soldotna; C&M Muffler & Transmission.

So I spent a few minutes chatting with the man who would be in charge of creating our new exhaust; he was a friendly and knowledgeable fellow who seemed to be very experienced in his field. Perfect!

They tried to put her on a lift in the shop; but it was a no go due to height restrictions.

So they cruised her on down to our mechanics personal fabrication shop where he would have to do the job from the ground. 😬 Fortunately, we had waited a lot longer than we originally planned so the parking lot was all clear of ice. 🙄

Either way our guy was positive and ready to go! We asked him if he might be able to raise up the exhaust at all without it hurting anything- and he said he would try his best. I also let him know that if it worked better for him he did not have to have the exhaust outlet at the same position; in which he seemed excited and said that worked well. He would rather go in front of the back tire instead of behind it. So with a good plans full of high hopes in place we left Our Ohana in their very capable hands.

Hours later she was ready for pickup! We made our way back from Kenai (a neighboring city) and happily found our new and shiny exhaust system in place. 🤩

He had actually utilized a previous exhaust hanger that was already there- which lead us to speculate the exhaust had vented from up in front of the tire before. He did this really cool job of going up and over the frame!

Either way we were excited to get to try out driving her home with the new system.

After a quick trip to fuel up and have our tires checked and topped off with Nitrogen- we were headed back down to Homer.

It turned out to be a warm and beautiful day- in which I was hoping this weather trend would continue so that our driveway could now dry out so I could work on it! 😄

It may have just been the wind and road conditions, but we made way better time on the way home than on the way up- and used less fuel! I noticed traffic was not tailing me as badly- so I must have been keeping up alright! 😆

I hope to start working on Our Ohana myself here in the next week- so I will be posting updates. We have a ton our house projects to finish up and begin as well, so I will be bouncing back and forth between the RV and those.

Speaking of house projects that need finished- look at this mess I got myself into. Decided to “experiment” and build a mural on our wall out of drywall mud…

I’ve been working on it for weeks now and still don’t have it done. 😕

Hopefully I can put it to rest in the next few days, but every step has taken way longer than expected. I’ll try to at least share a picture when it is totally finished. With spring here the updates should be coming out a lot quicker. 😉

Hope you all are getting to enjoy some warmth, fresh air, and freedom in your lives out there!

Geoff Murphy 4/22/2021