Not leaving, but definitely moving forward

A long awaited hello questies!

Sorry we've been so absent on the blog! We have been working pretty full tilt on the camper and also seem to have a ton of friends who suddenly wanted to hang out with us and make it as difficult to leave as possible (in all the best ways). 

In the past while (almost a month, geeze), we have accomplished so much! We have also been frustrated repeatedly, despairing of ever getting on the road, snappy with each other and distracted with Saint Louis stuff. Here's the cliff notes version:

• We scrubbed down the roof and cleaned all the outside walls using bleach spray to encourage the fungal blooms to clear off.

• We stripped, and resealed all of the seams on the roof! So far so good and we've had a lot of rain to test it out (SO MUCH RAIN, UGGGH!!!). Please see Tristan's note at the end of this list.
• We have stripped and resealed the port side windows and the nose window and all the seams up there. Next we have to move on to fixing up the seams everywhere else, but luckily we can also work on them on the road.

• The awning has been tested, admired, damaged, repaired, and reinstalled. Hopefully the repair holds and we don't have to jettison it somewhere in Utah.
   
• The wall the awning demolished as it fell off the camper has been repaired!! We dug out the rotten stuff, and Dad did a great patch and even managed to find complimentary hideous 90's pastel wallpaper, our third different pattern! Remember the 90's? It was certainly the zenith of vinyl wallpaper design.
   
• We tried our first water test...The freshwater tank passed (sound, holds water, did not fall off the camper). The drainage valve (petcock *snicker) did not. Tristan whittled down a cork and stuck it in there with a bit of wire to hold it in place. It seems to be how it will have to be since we cannot figure out how to detach the old one to replace it (it had to be the ONE thing in the entire camper that isn't easily accessible/deconstructable. Seriously one of the previous owners screwed in and sealed a board over the access panel that was underneath). 
   
• Found out that the water pump works too and so do the cold water sides of the bathroom and kitchen sinks. We still haven't fired up the water heater though we forgot to put its plug in to great leaky hilarity. The shower is working too (weakly). Outside shower TBD.
   
• We failed to unwinterize properly so missed the fact that one of the pipes under the sink wasn’t fitted and that was a splattery panic. Hopefully it's all good now. Tris tightened everything up and fingers crossed it will work properly for the next test.
   
• We discovered further rotten bits of the camper we're just going to have to hope stay together. *sigh*. When we finally manage to dig out and reseal all of the seams on the sides and corners of the camper we should be entirely water tight. Then we can do some much needed patching en route. By the time our journey is over we will have dried her out!

• We now have a set of completely functional tail lights!!!!! WE ARE STREET LEGAL!!! Tom from Neibling's came over with tester kits and spludge and knowledge and Dad had replacement bulbs and suddenly everything is working!! Tristan also got under the truck and replaced her damaged plug.
   

• Yesterday's major milestone was rigging up our 12 volt power supply and ground directly from the truck battery. This has been a long time getting sorted, from ordering the part from Lance (they have to be different from everyone else), to working out where things are going to run, where to mount a 40 amp fuse, to drilling a hole in the wall of the truck bed, running the wires along the frame, deciding where to mount the ground. It might not sound like much but installing it all and actually having it work is a great feeling. At last our batteries will all be getting charged as we drive and our fridge will stay cold! Tris was very happy (in a screamy jumping around gleeful way, don't let him tell you otherwise).
   
• We have also started deep cleaning the inside of the truck cab. THERE WAS SO MUCH MUNG*! The steering wheel and handles were producing this black, cruddy combination of hand sweat and skin cells. It was nasty. We are only halfway through the clean, so plenty more mung to get, but the driver's side is looking nice. Next major clean will be on the seat belts. Such glamorous work!
   
• We stripped all the upholstery from the cushions and mattress in the camper and took it to the laundromat. It now smells a bit less musty. I think we are going to throw out the carpet squares on the floor and embrace the "beautiful" (again, 90s style), easily cleaned linoleum.
   
• Michael scraped and primed the rear bumper for painting, but we didn't get further than that yet (did we mention it's been either raining or cold nonstop?), we kind of want a nice deep red color to match the strip down the side. What do you think?

Now "all" that's left is to purify and recheck the water system, install the rat cage securing system (they'd be very upset if we forgot to mention them here, they are very particular about staying in the limelight, however they are way more popular on instagram than we are, so I don't know what their problem is), and continue the endless cleaning. I swear both the truck and camper looked very well maintained and clean when we bought them, but as soon as you dig down and start taking close looks at all the places the eyes usually skip over, you've got a lot of work to do. Definitely not a judgment against the previous owners, just a fact (I'm sure our previous landlords would say the same about us). And we still have to load the whole thing up with our growing pile of stuff in the living room (sorry Dad!) and see if it will fit as well as Zora predicts (but she is the tetris master).

We were hoping to get out on the shakedown cruise today, but alas it will be tomorrow (hopefully in a bit of sunshine, however weak and feeble). Still aiming to be getting on the road full time on April 2! 

Tristan's Note: I want to talk to you all about silicone, and how it has absolutely no place being used on the outside of a camper. If you are thinking about using it because it is a nice, solid, permanent solution to a problem that you don't want to deal with every few years, DON'T! The bloody stuff goes rock solid, and when it does that it can't expand and contract with changes in temperature, which means that it ends up pulling away from one side of the seam that it is sealing, which allows water in but not out, which is bad. Plus when the next poor sap that you sell the camper to tries to remove it they have to spend days, DAYS, using stone age tools to pry and scrape and gouge the stuff away. After that they have to use industrial solvents to melt all the remaining crud, mop up the resulting glue snot with an acre of rags and kitchen towels and all the old toothbrushes in the house, wash it down again and then dry it out before even thinking of replacing it with a suitable product! And all before the rain comes back and prevents the new sealant from setting properly.

Luckily it is very satisfying to have finished up there, but curse you previous owner (not you Brian, I know you didn't do it)!

*Mung: A term used on the ships of SEA (and others?) to describe the slurry of skin cells, dirt, dust, food particles, engine grease, shoe rubber, lint, and other detritus that collects absolutely everywhere, but especially in the sneaky places. A vessel owner (which I think our rig qualifies as) is in constant warfare with the mung. Not only because it is disgusting but because it is corrosive AF and will eat through just about everything if given enough time (seriously, I've seen it eat through stainless steel, it's potent). 

It hasn't all been hard work

Our home is home!!!

Hi Questies,

Well, it has been a day! After weeks of thinking, planning, cursing, worrying about finances, dragging each other out of minor panic attacks, buying parts, listening to advice, arguing, and questioning our decision to ever leave Hawaii we have finally achieved a seemingly impossible milestone. The truck we own and the camper we own are connected together with equipment we own, outside a house that we (very briefly) live in. It was not easy, but we have made it!

At last! Isn't it beautiful?

We started out down to House Springs earlyish this morning, with the hope that we could just pull up, reverse under the camper, buckle it down and be out in an hour. Sadly that didn't happen. Brian had of course gotten everything ready for us and was enthusiastic about helping us to do the job, which started out fine. The new battery went in and the electric jacks worked perfectly to hoist the camper up off the more substantial jacks that were supporting most of the camper's weight. Even with the swing out brackets on the front legs it was incredibly tight trying to squeeze the dually between them, but it mostly went well, and after a bit of maneuvering we got the truck lined up good enough under the camper.

We have been worried this whole time about the clearance over the lights attached to the top of the truck cab, and sure enough we didn't have enough space. If I had not spent so much time yesterday banging my head against a brick wall trying to figure out how to wire up the camper's trail lights/signals then I would have gotten to the hardware store for some wood to put in the bed and give us a bit more height. The solution was a two by four at the front end of the truck bed so the section over the truck cab was elevated. Easy fix (though it's currently a bit unstable and temporary)!

The next problem was that our turnbuckles did not reach all the way between the tie down brackets and the connectors on the camper! So we all loaded into the car and drove into town to get a soda and visit the hardware store for chain and shackles. There was a bit of humming and hawing about what we should get to make the extra connectors, they didn't have any shackles in stock, but eventually we figured on some chain hooks with small shackles on the end. Great. We got them back to the camper.... and the small shackles wouldn't fit around the eye bolt. Ugh. So Brian got the angle grinder out and set to increasing the opening a bit. It was all a bit of a headache. Luckily however he remembered that he had some extra shackles in his garage (a proper man-cave of mechanical wonders) so we did a quick switch over and boom, ready to go. Then we had to figure out how the turnbuckles worked, which isn't complicated but does require you to understand what is supposed to happen when you put them on (if you notice in the photos the one on the front left is upside down).

The long and boring story is that Zora and I, after faffing for four hours, and being very well taken care of by Brian, set off on our first real life truck camper drive together, and brought our toys back in one piece. The ride was a bit more boat like with the added weight and I was nervy about how the rig would all hold together, but the engine barely noticed that the load was on the back. I really think we bought a great truck for everything that we need it to do! We have to say a massive thank you once again to Brian, he has been totally patient with us, it's been three weeks since we bought the camper and it has sat on his driveway the whole time waiting for us. He was the person to find the advert for the truck we bought, he has researched various things and sent us through suggestions on what else we could be doing and other things to consider. He has even done extra work on replacing light covers and building little supports for the rear step since we bought it! So thanks Brian, you have been excellent.

It is quite remarkable how nice people have been with helping us out even before we have started the quest. I think folks must really like the idea of what we are doing. Billie, from Niebling's auto just across the way, gave us a fantastic little travel washing machine from her days doing pretty much the same thing that we are. Thank you very much, it will save us a ton of money being able to skip the laundrette!

It's so cute and useful! And so easy to store! Billie says believe it or not, it will wash up to three pairs of jeans at once! We'll only have to brave a laundromat (or occupy our friend's laundry room) when we have to do the really big stuff. 

We are just so happy. Today was exactly what we both needed. Thanks everyone for following our progress, and supporting us. I promise we will leave before too long and start doing some cooler stuff for you to look at. Please keep the quests and suggestions coming in, our journey map looks so much better now that we are getting more. And if you know anyone who may be interested in what we are doing, feel free to let them know about it. Keep a look out for more updates as we begin the process of prepping the camper for departure.

-T 

Scraping and Painting and Drilling

Hey Questies,

Quite unusually for us we have had a couple of days progress in a row! I (Tris) have been giving our truck some love and attention, and generally making headway with getting her ready for the task we are asking her to perform.

I'd like to thank my father in law Michael. Doing these kind of jobs is so much easier when you have access to every tool you could ever want, and a brain that has done them before and can point you in the right direction without the need to spend hours on end watching youtube videos to work it out. Don't get me wrong, youtube has helped me often in the past, I couldn't tie my own shoelaces without watching a 'how to' video, but having someone answer questions and give advice is much better.

Also whilst I was having fun playing with the truck Zora was doing taxes and laundry and a hundred other things that I would prefer not to have to do, so thanks Mush.

The previous owners used it to tow a fifth wheel, so they had this big old bracket mounted in the bed, and it must have done some pretty bad damage to the paintwork over the years. You can kind of see the shape of where it was mounted from the rust spots. When we first bought her the bed had a mat over the top and a load of leaves and crud built up in the grooves of the bed. But a good scrub and a sweep and it came up nice. Fortunately most of the rust hadn't penetrated too deeply and the bed is fairly heavy duty metal. So as you can see the process was pretty simple; scrape the excess off with a wire brush and flat knife, take a drill with a wire brush head to get into all the cracks and make the metal shine a bit, use paint thinner to remove any rust dust and stain from around the worked areas, prime with an oil based paint, then finish with some white that Michael managed to find in his basement. Easy!

The other major job was mounting the Happijac tie down brackets. The bracket at the front had to be secured through the front wall of the bed and bolted through the bed onto the frame.

I've never drilled metal before, and man was it tough trying to get through the cross beams under the bed. In hindsight it may have been better to invest in some new bits. But get there we did, and for a pretty complicated installation it all went very smoothly. It's now ready to cinch our camper down! 

I do have more to do. One nice thing about the truck is that it has nice big running boards, which makes getting in and out easy. However the coating which the struts supporting the boards are made from has obviously aged worse than the rest of the truck because it is all rusted to hell. I think that it is structurally ok but I'm going to have to strip and reseal what I can. If it falls off it doesn't really matter, it's just an luxury, but where some of the bolt holes are drilled into the frame of the truck rust has set in as well, and those beams support the weight of the bed! It's a good lesson for working on metal, make sure you seal around any holes you drill. I'm going to have to get into those and do what I can to stop the damage getting any further, especially close to the wheel arches where road spray keeps the metal wet. But that's a job for another day.

Oh and we also got new tyres (tires (the endless anglo-centric argument about spelling)) fitted! We are making progress!

Big wheels keep on turnin...

We are ticking off the challenges one by one!

1. We are fully insured!! A last ditch call to Geico worked out well for us in the end.

2. Unfortunately the tires we ordered and the tires Costco thought we ordered were not the same thing and it took the tire shop getting at least some of the old ones off before they realized the error. So an afternoon wasted but they are waiving the install costs and we should get the correct tires put on tomorrow. 

3. Today we went down to Brian's to visit the camper for the second time and to put the swing out brackets on it (which we got on a great "scratch and dent" sale online, and they are basically new!). We managed to get it all rigged up in an hour! Other than a few electrical pluggy bits I think we're almost (I HOPE) done buying parts. 

A successfully installed swing out bracket, and no one even killed each other in the process of 4 brains working on the same small problem! Tristan's looking a lot older after the ordeal...

4. I (Zora) drove the truck for the first time!!! I was pretty scared about it (she really is huge), but as soon as I got it out of the parking space it was actually a pretty natural fit. I learned to drive in Condo the Great White Whale (the affectionate name for my Dad's giant suburban), and this truck really isn't all that much different. I've always liked being high up on the road (it felt strange when I finally started driving normal cars), so a lot of muscle memory came back. Having the second set of back tires will definitely take a bit of adjusting to, but not so bad. We took her down some winding back roads on the way to Brian's so I could get used to non-highway maneuvers. Now to see how we both adjust to having a monster camper on the back with us...

Me driving the truck and eating jerky like a true red blooded 'Murican. The playlist at the moment is Greatful Dead's Truckin. 

In other news I think we're officially pushing back our leaving date til after St. Patrick's Day. There are a lot of social reasons we want to stay (Six Nations rugby, the parade, still people we haven't seen) and still a lot of work/cleaning to do on the camper. I think we're going to get the truck bed scraped and painted (there's a bit of lingering rust) tomorrow if the weather holds, and put all the holes in it (nervy) and install all the camper mounting bits (there's several). If that all goes to plan, hopefully the camper will be coming home on Friday!! 

Really nice to have a day of things getting accomplished! 

Paying the piper, and everyone else!

Hi Questies,

Well, we have hit a rather frustrating amount of difficulty trying to get our beautiful new truck (name pending, we are open to suggestions) registered. To do that we need insurance, and to actually get insurance we have to communicate with someone who wants to take our money, and that is surprisingly hard to find! It has now been 2 days of playing phone tag with agents from State Farm and Farmers, trying to give them the mountains of details they need, fielding their confused questions about what exactly a truck camper is, and repeatedly telling them that no, we will not be at a fixed location.

Anyway, we bought four new tires on Monday, that was another day long process of calling different stores for quotes, I didn't realise that there was so much to learn about them, but I'm now feeling significantly better informed! They are already waiting for us so when we are legally able to drive we will head to Costco and have them installed. Other expensive and complicated things are that we bought are: A new tie down system for the camper, so when the weather warms up ever so slightly I'll go and drill a few holes into the frame of the truck, and hope one or two of those line up as needed. A new battery to run all the electrics off of. Swing out brackets for the jacks on the front of the camper. These should provide just enough width so that the truck's big ole hips can squeeze between them. We would love to have the cash available to install a solar panel on the roof. But at this stage it's just not doable. Mind you I'd also quite like to haul around a hot tub and a fully stocked mini bar, but that might spoil the pioneering spirit of the quest.

Every step recently has taken more time and money than expected. Every stage involves more taxes and paperwork. We just have to keep reminding ourselves that it will be worth the headache in the end. And of course all the stress now is going to make being out and on the road even more uplifting!

Other than dealing with logistics, life is very enjoyable. We are regularly sleeping in. Michael is being an excellent host, and getting to make use of his kitchen is a real treat after cooking in our tiny Hawaiian home (an experience which will serve both of us well when we are adapting to the camper). On top of that it is six nations season, the winter Olympics has been pretty great, Nova rat is still alive, and my little sister just shared some wonderful news. So yeah, I'm a happy guy, and extremely lucky to be able to live this life. I can't wait to share some photos of the rig all loaded up!

Keep on Questing!

Tris 

WE HAVE A TRUCK!!!!

That's right Questees, The Giving Quest finally has a trusty steed. How trusty it is remains to be seen but we have got a good feeling about it!

So 2 days ago we went for yet another jaunt into Illinois. Seriously we have almost spent more time driving around those highways than we have sitting in St. Louis. We had 3 trucks lined up to view; one that was far too cheap, one that was far too expensive, and one that was just right... but 3 hours away and still more expensive than we wanted.

First stop was Highland, about an hour away from home. Such a cool little town! Lots of independent stores set around a well kept town square. It had a Gilmore Girls vibe to the place. Unfortunately that didn't stop the truck we were going to see from being a rust bucket. It looked so good online but one glance at the support beams under the truck bed and this was a no no, didn't even take it for a test drive. Annoying but it did give us a chance to wander around.

A gift shop with an oddly similar name...

We love old theaters, and Tris matched the sign!

After scoffing a pretty baller chocolate dipped strawberry since Zora stuck her bottom lip out about not getting one on Valentine's day, we headed next to Collinsville. This truck was way way better. A 1997 Dodge Ram 6.4l, 24 valve, V8 Cummins. It was nice! I'd like to think that I've learnt a bit over the past few weeks about what to look for in a diesel engine, that and the fact that a website had specifically said that this was one of the best engines ever made helped impress us both. It wasn't very clean, but there was not a speck of rust on the whole thing. Travis took us out for a good test drive and the truck really performed extremely well. However the price tag was $13,500. It was probably worth it but that is just too much for us. The trip wasn't wasted however, because we saw another middle America tradition... a novelty water tower!

This one's for you Tom.

The final stop of the day was a convenient two and a half hour cruise up to Peoria. Ugh. If this one was a bust then our day would have been totally wasted and I would have driven for 7 hours for nothing. Fortunately this was the one! Zora had been talking to Phil, who seemed like a really nice guy and was selling the vehicle for his father in law, and he managed to change his plans at short notice to come and show us the truck. It is a beauty. A 2001 Ford F-350 Super Duty V8 Diesel with only 143k on the clock! It drives great, it pulls like a black hole, it has been kept super clean and tidy, AND it has a tape deck (bring on the audiobooks!).

Also it is reassuring to meet someone who will go out of their way to help you out, and is not so cynical that they wont trust a stranger. We didn't have cash on hand for the purchase, and the bank wouldn't wire the money through that evening, but Phil didn't want us to have to travel the extra 5-6 hour round trip again to pick it up, so instead he gave us the title and let us drive home with the truck that night. We left a check and photos of our licenses with our address. The deal was that we would wire the money from the bank first thing, then he would send a photo of the check torn up and delete the license photos. And wouldn't you know it that's what we actually did?  So thanks Phil, you are the best!

Our ride back was of course harrowing, because Zora was behind the wheel of the van as I drove the truck. Every time she has to drive for more than 20 minutes it is invariably dark and raining and treacherous! This was no exception. Plus we were on mostly unfamiliar roads and I was driving a strange and very large vehicle. But we got here, AND NOW WE HAVE A TRUCK! It needs 4 new tires, and we need to purchase some brackets so that the front jack stands on the camper will be wide enough to fit around the dually wheel arches, but after that we are good to go! This is extremely exciting and very real and totally wonderful!

Oh, and by the time we got back to St. Louis my new axe had arrived!!!!! That was just the icing on a big, fat layer cake of a day.

It snowed. What do we do with this stuff? I think this is the first time we've seen in properly snow in years. Can't wait to dump the rats out and see what they make of it!

Eagerly awaiting a 3000 lb camper to balance it out.

Can you believe that this thing is 17 years old? Most teenagers are disgusting!

Zora is very excited about the truck and the snow.  But not enough to actually come out into it. It's too cold!!

Convening and such

Today was the day! The day when we were going to finally find the camper of our dreams. It was the day that we would visit the RV convention in downtown St. Louis. And visit it we did. It was incredible. Acres and acres of shining chrome accented license plate holders and majestically lofted motorized awnings, entire streets and communities of carefully ushered machines to pamper, comfort, and envelope their fragile, pasty white occupants, a mountain of the finest American made aluminum and plastic all engineered so that rich mid-western retirees can sit in air-conditioned luxury and look out of a bloody window. There was not a single truck camper in sight.

However it was a fine day tromping around and looking at the shinies. It was fun to play in the money. And we did find out some interesting things by talking to the staff of some of the dealerships. First off, truck campers are not popular in the midwest! One of the reasons given was that there are more trees here than out west... I know, I didn't really understand that one either, but we have it on good authority that if we want to find a truck camper then we have to go to either Utah, Colorado, or Montana. Hey, it's probably true. Most people were nice enough and seemed to agree that a truck camper was a good option, but also that we are naive to be looking in an RV convention for them (despite them being advertised for the show...). 

This trailer was marked down because there was a strange Canadian in it...

We found one local company that stocked a truck camper, a Camplite model, and would offer us a convention discount. It was in their lot rather than the show room so after 2 hours of wandering around we decided to rescue our car from the looming shadow of a meter maid and make the drive back across town to where they were based. This thing was crap! It was supposedly brand new but bits of trim were coming off it, other bits were splitting. There was needless space taken up with bad design, very little storage, and it was generally awful. The camper we went to see which was made in 1992 was a far better bit of kit. 

This one was marked up because there was a charismatic Welshman on it...

So here we are, back to the old plan I guess. We are going to see a camper on Sunday morning (hopefully before the Superbowl) in Illinois, potentially seeing another in the same area at the same time, but no confirmation yet. Both are super cheap. If we can get something light with a semi-watertight roof then we are going to go to work fixing it up. If not, then perhaps we will be trekking over to Colorado to find something half decent. Goodness this is a challenge.

Other things today; Zora and Michael completed the NYT crossword first thing in the morning, which is extremely impressive and a testament to the benefits of not going to work, we visited Aldi's on the way back home, which is a testament to the value of German based supermarket chains (Hawaii, you don't know what you are missing), and I cooked a lovely bit of Salmon and some damn fine roasties for dinner. A good, frustrating, day!

-T

We have reached base camp!

Hey Questies,

Well after months of planning, weeks of selling, shifting, lifting, pulling our hair out and tying ourselves in knots, days of recuperating after the madness, and now minutes of wolfing down good St. Louis Chinese food, we can finally say that we have officially completed our move! It has been a stress tornado but the storm has passed without too much damage to our mental health and it is almost entirely thanks to the amazing help we received from our fantastic friends. You know who you are, and how much you helped us, and we are eternally grateful!

So, as reluctant as we are to put Hawaii in the rear view mirror, we did move back for a reason and there is, as usual, precious little time to prepare for the road ahead. So far we have been concentrating on the truck camper, and not just what we are going to call it (obviously we have to meet it first, but Tristan has been working on a couple of puns). Today we went to see the second truck camper on our list, out in the county to the west around O'Fallon. It was a beautiful spot nestled in some open farmland, and the people were very nice, but unfortunately the camper itself did not suit us properly. It was a little too small and a little short on bells and whistles. We like the idea of travelling light, but we would at least like an oven and space to take a few steps. There is definitely a compromise to be made between price, age and weight. The camper we saw yesterday was a great old thing, but with 26 years of perishing on the plastic components will our head spring a leak in the middle of the desert? Also it weighs a bloody ton, so we will have to get a bigger truck, and that is going to increase our costs on gas. There is definitely a sweet spot, and it seems to be around the late 90's age wise, the high 1900's lbs wise, and the cheap as we can get it price wise.

We have put out some feelers to sellers in Indiana and Illinois, so hopefully the search can continue in the next week. If any of you guys know of a lead that we can follow please put it in the comments!

Other things that we have been extremely happy about are the weather, which has not been reminiscent of a scene from The Day After Tomorrow much to Zora's relief, and the massive surge in website views! Thanks everyone for checking out our project, following along on Instagram and Facebook, and submitting quests and suggestions! We have had some seriously good quests set in the past couple of days, and we will get around to updating them on the challenges page and map very soon. Also we got our first quest aimed specifically at helping a charity. Thanks to Bromogida for their creativity and for absolutely nailing the spirit of TGQ. If anyone can think of some quests or charities to help in Arkansas or Louisiana then hit us up! We need to get some in for the start of the journey.

As always it seems like life is going too quickly to keep up, but the ride is fun, and there are adventures out there!