Versatility

This is why I love the center aisle floor plan of my van.  I needed to get some molding for my house and some of the pieces were best gotten at 16 feet and others at 12 feet.  The 16 footers came up into the cab aisle but fit just fine on the floor of the van.  Easy peasy.  Even a pickup truck wouldn't be able to haul the long pieces without a lot of difficulty.  Nice that my mobile house can so easily carry parts for my stationary house.  The van felt really smooth driving into town today for some reason.

T-Shirt Dog

I feel like I have a new calling -  a dog nurse.  Sit with her and hold ice on her elbows, give her pills, guide her when she gets a bit stuck from the cone head.  Walk her outside on a tight heel to go to the bathroom.  Can't get much else done this way except work on her heel.

Back Home

Really?  As if naked legs are not embarrassing enough, I have to wear this thing?

Got my dog back home today.  The vet clinic was really thorough.  Fully written instructions and they even gave me a DVD of the arthroscopy.  I have a little movie of my dog's elbow on the inside.  It's going to be a long 8 weeks.  A couple weeks of drugs, icing, then warm compresses, no running, no jumping, nothing but very sedate short leash walking, and an Elizabethan collar.  Then we get the stitches out and start rehab physical therapy every week for 6 weeks.  She thinks the collar is a punishment.  She isn't supposed to go up and down stairs.  I thought about moving into the van but there is a bit of a height for her to put to much pressure on those elbows going in and out.  So I made a bed downstairs and moved her bed down too.  It will get harder when she feels better.  That's when keeping a good dog down will be really hard.

Dog Surgery Day

Today is the day my collie, Dirona, gets her arthroscopic surgery to remove the bone chip in her elbow and fix the joints.  The VOSM clinic is very good about keeping me apprised of her status.   They called me at 9 am to tell me she was scheduled for early afternoon.  Then again at about 1p to tell me they were prepping her for the anesthesia and surgery.  They said they would call me again after she wakes and the doctor would call at the end of the day.

Dog Woes

Best Buddies

The day after my dog was limping so badly at the SprinterFest, we went to my vet and discovered she has a bone chip in her elbow.  At least there's a reason for it.  But that means surgery.  And an expensive surgery at that.  My vet (who I love) recommended arthroscopic surgery and a specialist in orthopedic surguery.  She would not want to do the elbow because it takes a lot of specialized experience and she doesn't have the equipment to do it the way she thinks it should be done.  So this week we were off to the specialist an hour away for the consultation.  A couple hours later, he came to the same conclusion as my vet but with the added diagnosis of some sensitivity in her other elbow.  He did a very thorough exam.

Pure Water

Water.  Such a basic thing but vital for life and hygiene.  RV makers usually supply potable water to the cabin with a plastic tank and a water pump that supplies water to a spigot.  It is common for RV'ers to put a filter on a campground's water faucet before it gets to their system.  This is because one simply does not know what the water quality is at any place.  If it's been tested and those tests are published, one might be able to find out with some effort, but largely, we simply trust and hope that water spigots deliver safe water.  And sometimes, they don't.

Refrigerator and Batteries

It looks like I can go for 2 days on my batteries with the new refrigerator before having to recharge at 50% discharge (i.e., about 100AH out of my 200AH batteries).  I only used my LED lights but I used the furnace in the morning, water heater and pump for a shower.  It was cool to cold during the weekend and the refrigerator was hard to keep from being too cold.  I kept bumping down the dial because the interior thermometer said 35-36F degrees.  Some of my water froze. In more moderate temps it will probably keep at better temps.  My amp hour usage varied from a low of 1.56AH/hr to 2.68AH/hr, the higher usage corresponding with furnace usage.

SprinterFest!

Over the weekend, I went up to the SprinterFest East hosted by Sun Motors in Mechanicsburg, PA.  It was a fun and interesting weekend.  There were a lot of innovative people there with tons of interesting ideas.  One guy heated his van with underfloor hot water from his diesel water heater.  While many were commercially built Class B vans like mine, there were several self-built ones.  One was particularly beautiful with custom curved cherry wood cabinets and tile bath and galley counter.