Awesome retro vans & RVs

I found an awesome page featuring photos of some pretty awesome vintage vans and RVs. Some on the road, some in museums!

Here is a sample of what you'll find there:

Doing laundry

Some people out there try to devise ways of doing laundry by hand by various methods. I truely wonder if they have ever tried to do so. I have... and it's NOT easy! The easy part is dropping the clothes into soapy water and sloshing it around. The hard part is getting the water OUT of the clothes! Clothes, when what... become very heavy and hard to handle it is also very hard to squeeze out the water as well as a washing machine does.

My plan for laundry will cost a little but it makes practical sense... use laundromats! From camping experience, the best way I find to store laundry is with duffel bags and/or cloth laundry bags such as the one shown below. A duffel bag is great for clean storage and laundry bags are great for dirty storage. Being soft-sided storage, they take up less room when they are less full.. which is vital to vehicle and RV dwellers who must make use of every inch if space. Avoid plastic laundry baskets if possible due to taking up valuable space when not in use.

3 months later... still not done

It has been almost 3 months now since I took in the van for the brake job which turned into a differential rebuild. I have ended up having to buy $250 worth of tools today on ebay for the mechanic to be able to do the job. In the next 7-10 days I should get them in.. and he'll have zero excuse for not completing the job.

I will be staying there watching him when he uses the tools as things have a way of disappearing in his shop. He has lost parts to the van a few times... as well as parts to other people's vehicles such as someone's alternator out of their truck. He had to go get one from the salvage yard to replace it. He tends to leave the shop wide open and people just walk through and steal things. The old differential shims are gone despite being in a hiding place in the van. I think he moved them and forgot that he did. I think one of the van's rim+tire is gone. If it is stolen, the person who stole it was an idiot. It's a 16.5" rim with a 20+ year old tire on it that I wouldn't trust very much. But I guess if that's the case... he.. or I.. will have to go get a used 16" tire and put on one of the 16" Ford rims I got.

So anyway.... yes. 3 months now and it's still not done. He's had all the parts to do the brakes for a month now... and it's still not done even.

I was about to have him do the brakes and pay for towing to get it taken to another shop but buying the tools are a better way to go. That way he can do it, it'll be done.. and I can resell the tools on ebay and recover most of the money I paid for them.

But.. he did do a ton of work on my old beat up daily driver car for me for only $50 to fix the leaking oil pump. So he did give me a good deal on that at least. He's not dishonest so much as scatter brained and over worked having to do all the work himself. Although... I had to go put the exhaust back on the car... my arms are skinny enough to get in there where his weren't. He said he fought with it for 30 minutes and couldn't get it. I walked over and had it on within 5 minutes. But it took him a week to do it.

After a week of riding my bike, I was happy as a clam to have the car back. I found myself NOT complaining about no AC in the car because I was so glad to have it back.. and.. without any oil leaks now.