Is That Light I See At The End Of The Tunnel?

Is it possible?  Are we almost done?  After eighteen days of going without an estimate of when they would be finished with our repairs, and thinking we were going to be stuck until early January, suddenly they say we'll be ready to go in a day or two.  The slow and unsure work of the ceiling repair really picked up pace once all the new panels had spent their requisite 24 hours under pressure (one at a time) to let the adhesive cure.  

Taking pressure.
Custom built frame and jacks to apply upward pressure 
on the new 'Soft-Touch' ceiling panels.

But that is a bit of oversimplification, there were a lot of steps to do both before and after the affixing of the ceiling "soft-touch" panels.  Mold abatement was done and then a coating of Kilz was applied to fend off any future spore growth.  Every panel had to be custom cut to fit the space as well as accommodate every air conditioner duct and ceiling puck light, of which there are many.

And because of the way an RV is built it was not possible to duplicate how the ceiling panel finished where it intersected the wall (too tedious to explain).  So to hide what is now an unsightly seam there will be crown molding installed in the entire living/galley area.  We already had a lot of woodwork, the crown molding is really going to put us over the top in that department. 

Crown molding above crown molding.
That's a lot of woodwork in a small space.

Upon our departure from Georgia back in October we had a new maintenance need show itself.  When we went to stow the TV, it is on a lift that retracts into a cabinet for travel, it refused to retract.  The lift motor was dead as a hammer.  We ended up traversing the 1,500 miles to get to Kansas with the TV in its fully extended position.  By the time we got to the maintenance facility the lift frame was bent to hell.  Oh well, the motor couldn't have been fixed by itself anyway.  We were getting a whole new lift regardless.  Which actually worked out well because back in the summer we had bought a new TV in anticipation of being at New Horizons and having them do the modifications necessary to mount it.  It will be a better install with an all new mechanism instead of modifying a ten year old one.  The new TV is the same manufacturer, larger screen but a smaller assembly.  The advancement in TV technology has been significant in the past ten years.  Our new TV has no frame, it is all image edge to edge.  The old TV had a frame around the screen that added about four inches to the width and three inches to the height.  I can now put a larger screen in a smaller space.  Isn't that something?  The new TV is also thinner and weighs about one third of the old TV.  Maybe the new lift will last longer with this lighter load.

Cabinet had to be partially disassembled to access
 "secret" door to TV lift.

The upgrades in the TV didn't end with screen size and weight reduction.  We also went from HD to 4K resolution and added a bunch of  'smart' features.  Many of the popular streaming apps are built in to the TV and for the ones that are not I can now just cast them from my iPad or computer to the TV via my WiFi network.  Coupling this new TV with our existing DirecTV and new Starlink should significantly expand our information/entertainment/communications capabilities.

Exterior work has been coming along too.  All of the slide seals have been replaced.  One guy has been working on those off-and-on for 10 days but it is finally factory-new again.  The fresh water system's accumulator tank with a ruptured bladder has been replace and the front A/C's condensate pump has been replaced.  The big job of repairing the cracks in the front endcap is well underway.  The cracks have been ground out, fiberglass cloth and resin have been applied, lots of sanding and shaping is complete and finishing up with paint and clearcoat is underway.

Large cracks have opened up on each of the five
front clearance lights.  These three center markers
and two outboard markers (not shown).

Cracks patched and smoothing and shaping being done.

Taped off and a coat of fresh paint applied.  Buffing to come.

Paint cured and buffed, clearcoat applied.  Ready to roll.

Another exterior job was the addition of an awning.  When we had the rig built in 2012 we only specified one awning.  We got one that was 16' long, from just above the entry door and ran almost all the way to the front of the camper, effectively providing cover over the entry door and the full length of the bedroom.  We always thought that having a little cover to get in and out of the door in inclement weather would be important and that all the extra length would be nice for sitting in shade on sunny days.  Even with our previous years of RV camping we did not realize just how crucial awning shade would be.  When we are camped and our passenger side is facing south, which oddly is a great deal of the time, we find that solar heating is a huge deal.  With the summer sun bearing down on us we have found that we can extend our awning and change the skin temperature of our rig by 40 degrees!  That's great for the sixteen feet our awning covers of our 37 ft length.  Unfortunately that leaves 21 feet fully exposed, the bulk of which is our living room slide.  In four of our first six years of fulltiming the problem was not too acute.  We were at high elevation and amongst woods so direct sunlight was intermittent at best and ambient temps were mild.  But our last four years found us almost constantly in full sun with our broadside facing south.  A full eight months of the year it was unbearable to sit in our chairs that are in the living room slide during the day.  We had to do something.  An additional awning was about the only option we had.  But because of how awnings extend and retract we could not get one that would be over the slide-out.  The most we could do was a 12.5' long one mounted on the slide-out itself.  That will shield 91 of 168 sq ft of exposed surface.  We'll take it, every little bit counts.

We have awning!

There's just one thing left and it is not going to get done.  Our entry steps are starting to show their age and paint and lubrication aren't really going to do the trick.  So back in July when we made our appointment new steps were on the list of parts to be replaced.  However, six months on and the steps are still listed as on backorder.  It would seem that it is a rare day that an RV is built with our old-school style steps nowadays.  The one factory that still makes them only does it when they have enough orders to make it worth setting up their production line for a run.  Evidently they don't have however many orders that is and won't even hazard a guess as to when they will make a run.  With all the things we had going on this little nuance kind of slipped away and we missed our opportunity to pivot and acquire and do the work to modify the entry for the new design steps (they are radically different).

The Christmas Holiday is rapidly approaching and thoughts are occupied with things that need to be done; to the detriment of ones day job.  It's Thursday and New Horizons is having their employee Christmas party on Friday at 1:00pm.  These folks are making a hard push to get us and other customers here to pick up new rigs out of their hair before then.  They all know that by noon on Friday productivity is going to go to near zero and that it will be very low all the next week in the run-up to Christmas.

We're not complaining.  Quite the contrary, we are highly motivated to leave.  A severe winter storm is bearing down from the north and temperatures are expected to go negative early next week.  Traveling in those temperatures is a no-go for us.  We either have to get out of here before the storm or find a place to hold up until a warm front passes through, which may be weeks.  We're shooting for beating the storm.

Friday has come and things are looking good.  The service folks at New Horizons have pulled it together and got us finished up.  But it is too late and too cold to depart so we were invited to join them for their Christmas party and enjoy a plethora of smoked meats and hearty mid-west side dishes.

But before the chowing down begins I was directed to get my truck and back it into the shop for the night so that I could do all the departure prep work and hitching up in a warm building instead of outside in the 17 degree morning we're supposed to have tomorrow.  Thanks guys, nice touch.

Going to spend our last cold night in a warm building.

We're off in the morning.