Stained Glass Window Project

Ever since we have owned the Bus, Patsy has not been real happy with the venetian blind over the sink in the kitchen area.  All of the other windows has an MCD shade on it, but this window has a venetian blind that rattles when we travel down the road.  She always had to lean over the counter and put it down for privacy at night, and raise it up when we drove to keep it from rattling.  Here’s the “before” picture":

We had discussed putting a piece of stained glass over the window, but we never found a design that she likes.  Then this past January while in Quartzsite, we found it in a vendor’s booth at the big tent.  After we got home, we started working to figure out the “how” part of this project.  The final decision included making a ‘box’, having it hinged so we could still get to the window to clean it, and to put a light in it so we could see the stained glass design at night.  

Here’s the finished installation:

Now, we need to take a trip and see if we are happy with it!!!

RV Visitors at Home

 

As I said in an earlier post, Patsy and I, along with our RV travel friends, Connie and Manuel Esparza are the hosts for a Lone Star Allegro Rally being held here in Victoria at the Lazy Longhorn RV Park.  Our traveling RV friends, Sue and Mark Didelot are also attending as guest, and showed up here last Sunday to visit for a while.  Here is a picture of their rig parked in our driveway.................... and since it looks kinda like our Bus, I think most of our neighbors think it is ours!!

On Monday, Mark and I did a lot of little jobs on his motorhome.  I showed him where to buy all the parts and did the supervision, while he did the manual labor!  The last job was to make some boards for Sue to paint signs on.   She has been making custom signs for RV’ers windshields while they are parked that have their names and pictures of their rigs on it.  Here is a file picture of one for me that she worked on……

We started with a 4x8 sheet of birch plywood that Sue approved at Lowe’s, and we had them rip it down the middle so it would fit in my CRV.  We took it home and used my table saw to the rest of the boards into 12” x 24” rectangles.  We then traced the pattern from my sign, and Mark cut out and sanded the ‘sign stock’!  Here are some pictures of him working:

and here are some of the finished stock……

While we were working, Patsy and Sue were visiting.  Patsy was soaking her foot on which she tore off the nail on her big toe at the Healthplex the other night while exercising, and Sue was cooking.

The Esparza’s will show up on Wednesday. 

 

More later……….

Repairs & Recalls at Cummins in Houston

 

It’s been a while since my last posting.  We got home, spend some time with the grandkids, and then attended a rally of the Lone Star Allegro’s RV Club in Conroe, TX.  We had a good time, and ended up joining this group. 

We attended with friends, Connie and Manuel Esparza & Sue and Mark Didelot.  The Esparza’s and Patsy and I ended up joining the group.  We also volunteered to host the March rally, which is being held at the Lazy Longhorn RV Park in Victoria, TX.  To view happenings at the Conroe Rally, refer to the Esparza’s Blog.

After hearing about recalls on the Cummins engine in our Bus, and a hitch recall on it’s Spartan Chassis, I emailed the companies, and found that there were, in deed, recalls that needed to be completed.  Before the rally, I made arrangements to get the repairs done at the Cummins Service Center in East Houston on the following Monday. 

When we departed the rally on Sunday, Patsy and I went to the Cummins Service Center, and found a place to park ‘outside’ the gate.  We spent the night there to wait for the Monday morning opening.

 

Since we had time to kill on Sunday, we did some shopping.  I found some ‘brushed nickel’ hinges for the stained glass window that I am making for the Bus.  We also visited an IKEA store…… the first that we had been in since our trip to Alaska in 2005 in Canada.  They have some neat items, and we found a few for the Bus!

On Monday morning, we checked in with the Cummins Service Center, and found out that they had received the new hitch for our chassis recall.  I had also talked to a Spartan representative about our speedometer reading about 5mph fast since day one!  I confirmed this when we purchased a GPS last Christmas.  The recalls were fixed during the morning, but the speedometer fix required that the Bus be “parked” for a while to allow the dash computer to be sent to the factory, and returned. 

The Service Center provided us a place to park with a 50amp hookup with water and a dump facility nearby.  The computer was expected to be returned on Wednesday, but it came in on Tuesday.  That was good service.   Here is our parking space “inside” the gate:

 

This gave us Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning to do some more shopping in Houston.  We visited a local Camping World store to buy a new sewer hose system to fit in 4” PCV storage tube that is a project for the Bus.

We left on Tuesday afternoon with our Cummins recall done, a new ‘heavy duty’ tow hitch, and a speedometer that is now ‘dead-on’.

We have been home for close to a week now, and have been catching up on chores around the house, and working on repairs and projects on the Bus. 

 

More later!!