All roads lead to roam: Poppy!

I finally hauled Poppy out of her muddy parking spot-maybe by next fall we will have some rock down to park on. Got her hooked to the van and van the systems check to make sure all the lights and signals work, then checked the tires and popped her up. I spent most of the first day letting her air out, I swept and changed out the little dry...thing that pulls moisture from the air.

Today I went out and wiped out the whole thing, all the cabinets and wiped the hard walls and ceiling, fridge, floors, microwave and sprayed the vinyl with mildew cleaner made for pop-up campers (which worked so well, it looks better than ever in there-the constellations of stains we inherited with the camper are GONE) then gave the outside a good wipe-down. Then I put in the new heater, replaced the reference library and games that stay in there in the summer, bought a new rug for inside the door and left her open to air out more after all that cleaner being sprayed around. *hack*

Last fall I bought a new set of party lights for her when they went on clearance. Then I bought a new set this winter when they first went on sale for spring (dur). So, I will have the camper with the lantern lights as well as the color-changing ghosts (double the awesome!). I put up a few new hooks inside because those things come in handy. I hang the fly flapper and the car keys, the upload cords, the charger cords, the bag of toothbrushes, the go-potty-at-2-a.m. flashlight...all that stuff I don't want shuffled into the fray. Shot at a cat with the fire extinguisher and declared it in working order and put that back in the rack. Checked the fuse thing and the carbon monoxide tester, replaced the AC vent filter. Painted a set of folding shelves I was not using inside any more and put those in there. You can't have too much storage like that because the cabinets are not easy to get to once there's anything else in there, like a pair of shoes. The floor space is minimal at most.

The only other purchase for the camper we have made were 2 new tiny turquoise candle lanterns that had been marked down at Pier One. I went in looking for more wall-sticker art, after 4 years, several of the rub-on phrases I had applied are getting scratched. It's like 'Seize the ...' and 'hit...road' and so on. Last fall I put several of our 'we made a donation' Shakespeare stickers on the door from the festival we attended and after the months of storage, Will is looking a little faded. I don't know what to do about that. I mean the general degradation of my hinky dinks, not just Will...I.am. (boom boom doth pow)

I kicked around painting the wood, but I think what would happen is it would get knocked into and there would be nicks and chips and it would look awful PDQ. What I want to do is cover the floor in big sheets of silver duct tape and redo the privacy drapes in red and turquoise and bright yellow, put down a couple throw rugs and recover my little camper pillows to match. And just leave the wood. What I will probably end up doing is going out tomorrow or Tuesday and hemming the 2 damaged drapes and leaving it at that. Maybe just safety-pinning them. I can't figure out how to actually take them down...

At any rate, she's just about ready to go, I need to put the step ladder back in and restock the towels, sheets and put in a couple snuggle blankets and the sleeping bags...which I think are in the attic. I still need to go through what's in the storage bins and make sure I have what we need. Not like last year when I brought 7 huge trash bags and ended up using Zephyr's poop bags because I could not find any of them. Last year, when Zeppie was still here. I miss that dog, good Lord, it never stops hurting.

Okay, time to do a little homage to ZZ and all the fun we had with her on camping trips.
I hope we have just as much fun with Nia.