The trailer, that is.

We started working on it on Saturday, doing an excessive amount of demo work in a few short hours.

First stop was to pull off that stupid nose piece. It cracked when I hit the mountain, but man, was that thing a pain in the ass anyway. The cover never opened up all the way, so every time I wanted to change propane tanks, I’d end up hunched up under the thing, holding it up with my back while working at an impossible angle. Since I’m notorious for running out of propane for my grill in the middle of cooking dinner, it seemed like I was always running out front to snatch one of those to keep cooking, and then I’d have to get it back on there too. Besides, it’s not smart to have it covered like that, right adjacent to the living quarters. It’s a perfect place to trap leaky gases and accumulate them enough to be explosive, or to leak into my bedroom and asphyxiate me in the night. No, that had to go.

We pulled that off and cut off the brackets for the tanks and the batteries. We’re going to swap them out and put the tanks on the front of the tongue and the batteries in back, and just wall the front straight down. 

The it was on to removing siding so we could see what the structural damage was. It wasn’t quite as overwhelming as I’d thought; a little framing on the side, and all will be well. The front, however, had been leaking from above the window, and has some major dry rot problems. We’ll be reframing all of that.

I pulled off the compartment cover and the door. If I can find a used compartment, I’ll replace it, but I’m not shelling out extra money to have a new one custom made. I can always get into that storage through the inside of the trailer.

And that was about it, really. I was supposed to go back and work on it on Sunday, but I was nursing a slight hangover and a slightly more dented heart, and felt like crap warmed over, so I begged off. We’ll do a little more this week, taking out the front window and the cabinets on the inside, but it’s almost time to shop. Saturday will be a trip to the RV salvage yard in Sacramento; aren’t you excited?