December 13th
2003
We decided to go ahead and sleep on the bus so we could have a little
fun and find out how well everything is coming together.
I worked on getting the gas hooked back up so that we would have hot
water and could try out the stove top and oven.
My friend Alan stopped by for a visit while Becky and I finished up
the last of the connections under the bus. It was getting too cold
and dark to work outside, so I didn't get everything hooked up
permanently and just ran the line to the tanks sitting next to the bus
for now
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We finally got to try out the stove and oven to see if they
were going to work. I was able to get the pilot on the
oven lit and about 10 seconds or so after turning the oven
thermostat up the main burner lit.
We didn't leave it on for very long because the vent to the
outside has not been cut out yet, so I don't know if the
thermostat is accurate or not. We'll check that out once
it's vented.
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The stove top burners all work fine. The
pilot for them does not seem to work though. I'm not sure
why.
Alan guessed that the pilot feed tube might be clogged with
something... Judging from the condition of things under
the stovetop, I wouldn't doubt it at all. Becky spent
quite a bit of time scraping, vacuuming and scrubbing to get rid
of all of the "gunk" under there before I hooked up
the gas.
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The girls spent most of the day watching some movies that Becky had
rented from the video store for the night.
Becky spent some time relaxing and talking with me about what steps
we need to take to get the bus road worthy and if we can get them done
in time to make it to Quartzite in January. At the moment, we both
kind of doubt that we'll be able to make it. There are just too
many things left to finish and get checked out before we would feel
comfortable hauling the bus several thousand miles.
I'll have some additional money to dedicate to the bus toward the end
of December. That will hopefully help cover paying a mechanic to
do some maintenance on the engine and suspension. We also have
several leaks that need to be sealed up in the back of the bus, the
front (and some of the side windows) need to be re-sealed and we still
have no way to secure the fresh water tank or propane tanks under the
bus. Getting under there to build supports for those items is very
difficult where the bus is currently located.
There is still a lot of work ahead of us and we're beginning to run
out of energy...
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