May, 2019.

It’s amazing what a perspective shift will do, isn’t it? Thing is… there I was in The Great Dismal Swamp, walking on a boardwalk, shooting photos and thinking about what I’d tell you… The next second, my eyes landed on a snake in a tree at my shoulder, about 10″ away. Kazam! I was out of my head and into that very moment. That second. That breath.

In the following days, as we continued down the road, I pondered the traveling perspective I occupied as writer of this blog. The realization that I’d been observing and cataloging rather than Being… hum, maybe that’s the wrong word… I’d not been completely present in and to the places and experiences I was sharing here. It gave me a disturbing sensation since I love writing, photography and sharing about our travels.

Much thought and conversation with other writers, artists and travelers later… I believe that with a perspective shift I can write about thoughts, travels and experiences and only if I breathe into and stay in the moment.

Style changes, timing changes… who knows what will emerge from the shift. In this case, SHIFT HAPPENS!

We spent some time at home. Had a huge yard sale… interestingly, the “tidying up” craze has changed the whole landscape of garage sales and thrift stores. Our sale was successful but we had lots of things left over. Habitat Restore couldn’t come pick up for several weeks – they were so booked up. Goodwill could come by in a week though.  Both businesses remarked that since the whole Tidying Up and Death Cleaning crazes (fads?) started they have been overwhelmed with folks’ stuff. Speaking of yard sales – we’ve spent hours on the yard and it is back to its former glory (I almost hate to leave it in its cloak of spring blooms) (not).

Somewhere in there, Barb and I decided to build a new cabinet to replace the useless 5″ deep magazine rack – cabinet across from the couch. After attempting to measure for it, we discovered we’d have to remove all the window valences around the cabinet to get accurate measurements.

Of course, we also had to remove the ones over the couch – so they would match.  The valences were tightly fit around HappiJacks that raise and lower the bed from the ceiling to sleeping height.  The cabinet fits between the valences. Upon closer inspection, we discovered the valences were terribly worn out. Backtracking to valence-landia.

If you RV, you know how overwrought some of the decorating inside can be… Ours was very colorful (dark greens, tans, blue and some pink in the upholstery fabrics). It seemed to shrink the sides inward – even though the windows are enormous. In the photo, you can see the jacks sandwiched between the valences.

Despite some misgivings about adding weight to the carriage of the Trek, we used 1/2″ Baltic Birch – a no gaps kind of plywood – with really pretty 5 layer edges. Barb made all the exposed edges soft half-rounds with the router. After sanding all the parts, we primed for staining and stained the wood with Simply White MinWax Stain. The soft glow of the wood comes through so the color is a soft tan shade of white.

As you can see above, everything has had to be custom cut and fit to each little area. It’s been a fiddly job. Luckily, Barb is super at building fine cabinetry and is, by nature, very detail oriented. I design and assist Barb with execution – tasks that fit for me.

Now that the project is finished, our RV seems so much wider, bigger and fresher. The cabinet parts are all ready for installation. Looks like we’ll have the project finished in the next few days.

New cabinet! And yes. That is a cat box cabinet to the left. The baskets are wire with woven webbing in two neutral colors. We got one set of three from Michaels and the others from Amazon.

We are delighted with how wide and open the RV seems. It’s really nice to look toward the front and not see the opening of the cat box! Can’t wait to see how the new storage baskets work out! We sure needed the space.

One of the things we’ll do when we eventually get to Arizona is get the RV weighed. We did reorganize the basement storage areas to remove unneeded items. With hope the added weight of the wood won’t make a huge difference.

Barb and I are both exhausted by the renovation, the yard, preparing the RV to go, packing – well, you know the drill. I need a vacation!

We’ll be on the road in the next few days, thankfully. Traveling to Montana and from there… well, I guess you’ll have to check back. We have a whole new focus to our RVing and I can’t wait to share it with you!

Breathe from your belly, and laugh from it too!