Little Steps Come Before Big Leaps 🏃🏃‍♀️

Well, I was back to figuring out my dipstick issue… 🙄

The dipstick was still not reading properly, so the dipstick out of the 3.0 liter engine was not the correct depth for my engine. 😑

I went by Sunny Services to talk to Robert and see if he might have any advice. He said just go find one at the scrap yard that would fit and read correctly. He also encouraged me to take another shot at trying to extract the pieces from the old dipsticks out of the oil pan.

Before I took another drive out to Anchor Point to scrounge the junk yard, I decided to swing by O’Reillys and see if I could find a match with the extra length we had calculated we needed.

There I found one that I believed would fit the ticket, and they let me go out to the parking lot to test it. It worked great! Even the low and high oil level holes matched up just right. It was a hair long overall, but with a quick snip off the end of it we were in business.

Afterwards I once again drained the oil pan and attempted to use the tools Robert had let me borrow to fish out the dipstick pieces. When I had no luck with those I even made my own magnet tool with neodymium magnets and wire but still came out empty handed. After a quick call to Robert he re-assured me it would be okay, but it was good I had tried again. I poured the barely used oil back into the Ohana and topped it off.

Another task Laura had requested I take on was to try and re-fill the AC in the vehicle before we headed South. After researching and making sure all the parts for the system were actually there and operating, I went ahead and took a stab at re-filling it. It turned out it was unsuccessful. ☹️ We had a leak somewhere in our system.

Being from Alaska and not knowing, or having ever required knowing, about AC, I called Robert to ask him his opinion. The options were expensive, few, and far between. The best idea we came up with was to wait until we hit the Lower 48 and find a shop that would be more affordable and knowledgeable in the field of Air Conditioning. It felt strange to leave something for later, but it seemed like the best decision for now.

Before we left Alaska, I had been making a point to hang out with my brother Michael and my niece Isis. Here is a picture of her all seat belted in after we went and played at the park.

The next task was to de-winterize The Ohana for the season. We had also scheduled with RJ to meet up to do some Gaco touch up on The Ohana and The Ithaca.

We emptied out the non-toxic RV coolant from the lines and grey tank and proceeded to re-fill it with water and a little bleach.

Once that was done we tested all the appliances associated with water. Though we had properly winterized everything, a cold winter can still wreak havoc on appliances. Everything turned on and worked perfectly! Now we would just let the bleach sit in the tanks and lines and do its work.

Next was a good round of Gaco touch up, which both rigs were needing a little bit of. 🖌️

After that was done Laura gave our tires a good cleaning and RJ did hers. I did some touch up on the rear bumper with anti-corrosion paint and once again our rigs were looing shiny!

Afterwards RJ took The Ithaca off towards their home. It had been nice to see the rigs lined up together again!

A few days later we were feeling the “itch” hard…

Yes there was lots to do before we left on our big journey, inside ourselves we were so ready to make the leap. With the house feeling a little claustrophobic we decided to park out at the end of the spit and dream a bit.

Though it was a gorgeous day it was still windy and cold. So we spent most of our time there playing around inside and positively projecting our future.

On another note, with spring finally here our sandhill crane couple had arrived! If we are lucky we might get to see them have another colt or two- but only time will tell if that happens before we launch… 🤷

In the mean time we had dropped the awning room back off at Mickey’s Custom Sewing and Upholstery.

Mickey had been on it! She made the modification beautifully we had requested, and the back flap on the RV side of the room could now zip up nicely up to the camper door, making it feel much more sealed up and cozy inside.

Once again I cannot praise Mickey’s company enough- if you need any work done on your boat, car, furniture, or any other upholstery job make sure and check them out. Also the pricing is insanely good compared to other local options we have researched!

https://www.mickeyscustomsewing.com/

Luckily my dad was going for a day cruise towards Soldotna in his 66 Mercury Montclair and asked me to join along, so we swung by and picked up the awning room.

The next day Laura and I took the RV back over to the middle school parking lot to test out the room. I had also cut a piece of pipe insulation to help keep the top of the camper door from rubbing on the bottom of the awning.

Everything went together quickly and it was just what we had been hoping for!!! We now had an extra 64 square feet of room for when we were parked! 💖

Next was a project we had debated on for awhile and decided it would be smart to do before we hit the road. Laura and I had been back and forth on whether or not we should install a security camera on The Ohana at the camper door. We already had the option to set the front and back cameras to recording if the vehicle felt any movement, but we did not have a way to track if someone was trying to get into the camper when we weren’t there.

Well… weeks later after research on many levels; from proper camera, how to connect a system that could alert us remotely to a problem, and how to even mount it on The Ohana our camera arrived and it was time to test it.

We had chosen the Argus 3 Pro by Reolink.

The Argus even came with a solar panel to help charge it when the weather was sunny out- so that would help keep it running and using its own power!

Yesterday we built the mounting system for it and last night we took a drive to the local Safeway parking lot to test it in the field.

It worked wonderfully; from remote viewing while we were in the store, sending us movement notifications, remoted hearing, and talk through our camera was going to be a perfect fit! 🎥

The list of Our Ohana chores were now getting short to none.

As I write this it is May 2nd, which puts us in our launch month! All that was left to do now was to start efficiently loading The Ohana for our travels.

Though our time is short it feels like it has slowed down dramatically. Don’t worry though- we have PLENTY to do before we go so we will be busy. I will update again soon. Until then- I hope you all have a wonderful May out there!

Geoff Murphy 5/2/2022