Next, we needed to find our Casita. I’ll save that story for another post, but at least now we had a vehicle with the power to pull a trailer with some authority. Luckily, we did not have to wait long to find a trailer: a Casita popped up in the Denver area just two days after we got Big Red. We were the first people to check her out, and the Dove came home with us that day!
Big Red’s previous owner had generously applied a terrible smelling deodorant to the carpet. We tried to air out the vehicle, but the smell clung, especially on warm days. Speaking of the carpet, its original mauve color had transformed into a grayish green, and showed the wear of two decades of use. After a month or so, we decided that on top of downsizing our belongings and moving out of our house and into a trailer, we needed another project, so we started to convert our conversion van. Out came the carpet, out came the seats, out came the upholstery on the doors. We took off the running boards. We stripped the inside down to the metal, and then we built her into a true road warrior.
She’s got a new wood floor, homemade storage bins, a boss new paint job, and hooks and hooks and hooks galore. A little later, we gave her new tires, a thorough tune-up, and some new bumper stickers. We love this big girl. Annie loves the back seat. Big Red is a pleasure to drive, and she pulls the Casita like a kid’s toy. She is impossible to lose in a crowded parking lot.
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Stay tuned for a post that details how we built out the floor.
Kenny is the chief fire builder and camp cook for a rag-tag team of dreamers. He holds a BA in English and has worked as a cook in a variety of different food service establishments. As an entrepreneur, he co-founded a short lived, but delicious, fried hand pie company. He loves wandering around flea markets and hiking through the woods. He has a passion for pizza and good beer. |