8 Mar - 1 Apr 2021 Out of Storage, Good Life RV Inspection, Griffs Campground

After taking the RV out of storage we took it straight to Good Life RV in Bevington where we bought it last March.  There it received a complete inspection which facilitates another year of local warranty.  All was well, so on 12 Mar we hooked up and towed it to Griff's RV Park near Altoona IA, just around the corner from Facebook!  There we completely restocked it for our trip, made some minor repairs and improvements and then we stayed in it for a couple weeks to make sure all the systems worked properly before launching on our six month trip.  The weather was a challenge with some very cold temps and even some snow, but we have a beautiful electric fireplace that produces a lot of heat and we use a ceramic tower heater in the bedroom.  If the temps dip below freezing we have to use the forced air furnace but it is a real propane hog so we avoid using it as much as possible.

While at Griff's and before we departed we commuted back and forth between our home in Ankeny and the RV at Griff's while we made preparations for departure.   It was nice everything worked out that we were able to bring our "COVID hibernation projects" to a close before the trip.  We removed a huge partition wall between our kitchen and living room and installed a kitchen island in it's place, complete with Zwave under countertop lighting.

We also replaced our old gas fireplace with a newer energy-efficient one and then surrounded it with stone and installed a "live edge" wooded mantel.  The TV can also be back-lit with Zwave lighting

While doing stonework we went ahead and applied stone to our breakfast bar.  The foreman is pictured here QC'ing my work

Lastly we replaced our garage door and opener.  We believe it might have been the original and the garage door was very rusted out.  The roller bearing were shot and the opener sounded like it was on it's last leg.  The new one is so quiet and the opener is battery-operated so you can open the garage door even during a power outage.

We got all that done in addition to everything else you have to do to prepare for a six month RV trip!  It is a labor of love, though but we were really looking forward to "getting the show on the road".