Day 2 Diggin' In

Workday 2 started slow, every muscle in my body ached from the activities of the day before. Who knew you could get such a great workout from demolishing a soda can with wheels? I didn't sleep much that night because all I did was lie in bed thinking about the big plans we had in store for our girl. One thing I did accomplish in my late night planning season was a name. I kept trying to think up some name that would go with the fact that Shasta trailers have wings. I kept thinking of Angel names but nothing seemed to fit quite right. Dennis and I had finally agreed on a color (I let him pick) the day before, she was going to be white on top and lime green on the bottom. So with that in mind I went back to naming her. At some point I thought of other things that had wings... oh, fairies have wings...green fairy... Tinker Bell! Cute, little, has wings, is green and has a little attitude just like our trailer! It is perfect! Whew! Dennis kept saying he was going to name it "Red Bull" cuz it "gives you wings!" Now you know why I let him pick the color, so I could let him have a "win" and I could keep holding the trump card for the next thing he cooked up.

Most of this day Dennis used up by taking out windows and pulling out rotten wood. He pulled out the water tank so he could work more easily on the side wall. By the end of the day our Shasta closet was full of aluminum parts and pieces. He took down all the globes so they wouldn't get broke. We think only one is original. The electrician in him decided to rewire the whole trailer, he wanted to make sure everything was safe and new. Since he was wanting to add more plugs anyway he might as well start from scratch. I'll sleep better knowing it's his wires running from point A to point B anyway. After poking and prodding around in our trailer and getting to know her real well, we were still puzzled by some of the vents and a metal panel on the front of our trailer that seemed to lead to nowhere. We had seen two vents on another 61 Shasta Compact online, so we figured that it must be factory. (I know all you renovation vets reading this already see where this is going) Okay, grab the screw gun let's see where this goes. Will it help us get this icebox out from it's wooden tomb? Surprise, surprise! One vent covers a small dent on the driver's side the other is there for visual balance. Now that big metal panel...oh...it covers a HUGE dent. I later read online about the other Shasta I had seen with the vents on the front of his trailer...come to find out, his was covering a dent too! Funny. Dennis and I are thinking at this point, we are going to pull the big dent out as best we can and then put some diamond plating on the lower third to cover it up. We don't want to go too high because it will compete with our Z stripe. As for the two vents, they are cute enough so I think they will get painted and stay.

Dennis took the wings off of Tinker Bell so he could start working on all that rotting wood on the side. No sooner did he take them down than I had my polishing cream out and ready to go. I sat in the back of my Tahoe in the church parking lot for 2 hours, while my son's youth group met, polishing away at them. Below is a before and after. I want to work on them a little more. I think there is still room for improvement.