Progress and Practice

My carpenter/handyman friend, Eric, has been terribly ill, so progress has been delayed on rebuilding the interior of my gutted Toyota Dolphin. He's getting better, though, and is back on the project. We're meeting tomorrow morning to go over the drawings before he begins actually building. Then, as soon as the reglazed windows are installed, he can put down the floor and build my dinette, counter with storage, and ladder/bedrail.

I've had to come to grips with the fact that this is not happening on my schedule. I had hoped to have the motorhome back by now, so I could start getting it packed up and ready to go. It may be that the end of the month will roll around and I'll still be dealing with things that need to happen before I can leave. This would be disappointing, but it's not the end of the world. There are things I could do...put my stuff in storage and couchsurf for a little while, for instance. Go up to Seattle and get my remaining dental work done by my old dentist. Head out to the Coast and camp in a rental yurt for a few nights. Lots of choices. None of them is as good as heading south in my refurbished RV, but, then again, none is the end of the world, either.

In the meantime, I continue to get rid of stuff. I have a few more things to list on eBay today. A friend is coming tomorrow to pick up a couple of bookcases from me. A second-hand furniture shop is coming later in the week to take my big queen bed and a few other pieces off my hands. My antique dealer friend is coming later in the month to take whatever is left at that time. By month end, even if I'm not able to live in my Dolphin yet, I will be down to just the stuff that I'll be taking with me when I travel.

Also, in the meantime, I am practicing a few things that I'll be doing once I live in my motorhome. I'm not planning to have a fancy phone with Internet access--I'll be using wifi wherever I can find it along the way, at coffee shops, rest areas, libraries, whatever. So last week, I took my laptop to McDonald's and got my 75 cent Senior Coffee and went online there for a couple of hours. It worked great!

I've also been simplifying my cooking in the past few days, now that my kid has moved out and I'm just cooking for myself. One hot item for dinner is enough--no need to keep doing the traditional protein and two veg meal. Last night I cooked a delicious pork chop (something my kid would never eat!) and had some good olive bread and a blood orange. Wonderful meal!

Today I'm going to work on electronics. I gave my kid my big laser printer and bought a much smaller portable printer, so I'll try that out. I'm also debating whether to replace my old pre-digital TV (which requires a converter box and rabbit ears) and ancient DVD player with a tiny 15" Toshiba flatscreen with a built-in DVD player. It would take up a lot less space. On the other hand, how much TV will I actually watch while I'm on the road? I'm not sure about that at all. If I'm boondocking out in the middle of nowhere, it won't matter which TV I have, because I won't be able to pick up any reception, anyway. If I'm stealth camping in a city or hooked up at a regular campground, then I'd probably really enjoy a little TV. So hard to say, since I'm not yet on the road.