Blood, sweat, and teardrops

Well we did it!  After looking at the weather forecast for Columbus Day weekend we decided Friday night was the best bet for an overnight, so after work we hooked up to the Jeep and towed the Peapod across town to a little known campsite also known as my back yard.  We still had to cut the bevel in the front of the memory foam mattress so we made quick work of that and then got down to setting up for the night. Laura and Kerry were in town for the weekend and joined us for a campfire. Retiring to bed we were cozy as two peas in a pod. Can't wait to finish up and make plans for trips next Spring.  Saturday and Sunday was spent with Kim working on finishing gluing the top rail on the galley decorative rail,  mixing and applying more epoxy on the hatch  and then we fitted the aluminum hurricane hinge to the back of the roof. We had to notch for the side walls and cut reliefs for where the wiring passes through from the roof into the hatch....

This week is a little bit of melancholy as we progress toward the end of building and head into the very real possibility of actually spending a night or two camping in this project next weekend. We're running out of good warm weather to work and it won't be 100 percent done before we'll have to tuck it in for the winter but it won't take much in the Spring to finish the last details.  We have enjoyed figuring out each step and the challenges of making everything fit together. The need to think many steps ahead and avoid doing something at one point that messes up something else days or weeks later has kept my feeble brain from getting more feebler. There's no instruction manual for our specific camper, but there is plenty of good information out there on "the interwebs" and we've learned that this teardrop community is bigger than we knew going in. We look forward to the end of Covid and maybe taking a journey to a group meet somewhere.  ...