Meet Micro-Minnie Winnebago. Let's call her The Dandelion for short.... it suits her yellow sunshine-y demeanor.
The Dandelion is a pull-behind camper or caravan, as we say in New Zealand. She is compact and light with a staggering functionality to square foot ratio. Inside, everything has a place, a space and a reason to be there. This is the essence of freedom and adventure; but also brings a strong measure of comfort to everyday life on the road and in the woods... hot water and warm air, the ability to cook/bake and sleep in a bed in a way that mimics home.
At the end of a season going here and there, it is only right that The Dandelion is given a spa-day of sorts and tucked in securely in order to withstand the dangers of a Colorado winter while sedentary.
This is my true (and hopefully accurate) account of winterizing The Dandelion. Fun and quite the privilege to be a part of!
Prior to this, Charles and Kris had put some clean water and a 1/4c of Dawn detergent into the TWO sewer tanks then driven around to swish it, before dumping that.
Start by opening the valve that will drain the hot water out onto the ground. There is a pressure relief valve that can assist, but equally useful is getting Kris to turn on the faucet inside so air can enter the tank and aid draining. Charles has a special socket that fits this valve, inside his Dandelion Toolkit.
I was told that if The Dandelion had been filled with water from a source likely to contain sediment, the way to remove that from the hot water tank would be to add water using the "water-pik" type tool, swish that around and flow the sediment right outta there.
Once the flow stops, you can use a paper towel wick in the valve hole to get last of water out. (Not necessary but if you want to be particular it is good!)
There are 3 valves on the hot water tank (identified by having Styrofoam insulation around it) located inside through the garage and by peering the compartment.
Upper and lower go to "off" position. Middle valve goes to "on" position.
Remember! Perpindicular is OFF; Parallel is ON.
There are 2 valves to 30 gal water tank (looking left with head poked inside the compartment).
One on, turn off, one off, turns on. This stops antifreeze getting into the water tank. Very important, it should go without saying!
Charles recommends the good antifreeze. Overkill for CO perhaps, but why take a risk with The Dandelion? The cost of undoing freeze injuries is higher than the cost of -100°F rated antifreeze, right?
Antifreeze bottle connects to the white hose.
The water pump is then turned on with the switch on a panel just inside the caravan door.
In this order, each of the water-producing areas of The Dandelion are flooded with pink antifreeze.
1. Toilet - Pump with foot until it appears in the bowl.
2. Go outside and use the outdoor shower - hot and cold. Until it turns pink.
3. Bathroom sink - hot and cold, until you see antifreeze.
4. Kitchen sink - hot and cold, running antifreeze into both side drains.
Turn off the water pump.
Disconnect the antifreeze bottle (it likely has about 1/3 of the bottle still left) and poke that hose just into the disposable cup with papertowel inside so it doesn't sticky pink antifreeze all over The Dandelions garage floor.
Use the apparatus that looks like a bike pump to pump antifreeze into the one-way valves.
(I believe one is for filling with water. The other is maybe a shower drain? Wastewater related?)
Kris then opened the hot and cold faucets at sink to allow pressure to release there and made it easier to pump (?). Then closed them. Charles disconnected the antifreeze pump kit and allowed surplus antifreeze to run back into the bottle from the pump.
On went the water pump switch again... And the rest of the antifreeze was tipped a bit at a time into the sinks and toilet before the last was gobbled up at the outdoor shower.
Pump switch off! Disconnect from mains power (assuming you are plugged in for this of course).
Don't forget to pull out the papertowel wick and put the hot water drain cap back on.
Now it was time to disconnect the batteries (x2) from the front of the trailer, just behind the propane tanks. The first step is turning the knob inside the garage to turn off power.
Green and horizontal = Battery power is connected.
Red and vertical indicates battery power is disconnected from the camper.
Remove and put on trickle charger with desulfurization capability for winter.
I worried that my rudimentary notes and bunch of pics would not be sufficient to ever remember all this, should we need it... Then Kris brought out the dandelion colored manual!!! Plan B... Or Plan A if you are smarter!
This guy with a sense of humor that never quits, was happy to 'Vanna White' the manual for me and I, once again, had overflowing gratitude for him. It almost goes without saying how much I appreciate the patience and attention to detail that Charles and Kris always bring to the table too... But I'm going to say it anyway! I learned a ton today and that was only possible because these folks are who they are and dared to bring us along!
In 2017, I had reservations about installing carpet. It was economical and quick. Quick was the right answer... actually, so was economical.
Nine years and more than a couple of cat puke episodes later, I realized that carpet had to go and while it was not going to be easy, the time had come for hard wood flooring to make its debut upstairs, as it had downstairs.
Arthur was my go-to guy for YEARS. He came, quoted and blocked time for me starting August 3rd. Sounds simple right?! Nope.
A summary of the chapters that made up July and August:
1. I (read; We) had to remove every little bit of furniture, accessories and art from upstairs to downstairs - or kinda nearby - but not in the rooms being redone, which was everything but the bathrooms! I had to empty my entire closet (which was more of an undertaking than I realized) and remove the closet organizers, which sat atop of baseboards, which also had to be removed.
2. Arthur - with decades of experience doing hardwood install and refinishing - had 5 days to complete his part. He brought with him years of conspiracy theory "expertise" too and a generous helping of religious nuttery that went heavy on the book of Revelation. More about that later.
3. Post install, Scott and I had 3 weeks to sort out this house AND move everything from his place to my place - or somewhere that just definitely wasn't his place. By the end of September, his apartment would be perfectly clean, ridiculously empty and the keys returned to ... someone who takes the keys.
Oh, and we had not one but two 3-day trips with friends into the mountains in those same 3 weeks. Let's call them "sanity breaks" since that became increasingly accurate. More about that later, too.
Chapter 1: The carpet had been well used and appreciated... but it was time.
While simultaneously living/sleeping in the space upstairs, I began the process of sorting and packing my things. Much went into boxes or suitcases for storing. A bit was left out for wearing between now and early to mid Aug.
The first of the furniture; Scott was still in Alaska and I made a strong start! This included shoving all manner of things into the guest bathroom. You'd be surprised at how a large dresser and queen mattress can be accommodated once one removes things like towel rails from the walls. After that, a host of smaller furniture, art and accessories can be stacked in tubs, on each other and in the crevices. It only took me THREE times to work it so the door could still be closed! Doh!
Once Scott was back, the real work began though. Heavy lifting, carpet pulling, baseboard removing, hands and knees in the most brutal summer temps.
I'm not sure what exactly it takes to wipe a smile off his face... Seems permanent. (I'm researching how to bottle and sell that, don't worry!)
The best decision we made was along the lines of not carrying the treadmill or the stationary bike down the stairs. We removed the computer-related parts then pushed them out onto the deck off the primary bedroom. This long, dry summer might have it's perks. No rain of significance was forecast in the next few weeks and we hoped a decent job of tarp-wrapping them would be enough, just in case.
Glamping! This was all that was left of our bedroom but at the end of these physically demanding days, a good mattress on the floor was heaven. Besides... the pets thought it was fantastic that no jumping was required. (Teddy still jumped up like it was 2 feet taller - muscle memory?!)
Remember that day the bookcase had to share the closet? Me neither. The ever-shifting chaos and endless days of dragging heavy things around were becoming a blurr.
Things didn't get less chaotic once the closets were empty and the organizers were stacked up in little pieces in the garage and primary bathroom. It was time to finish removing the baseboards, carpet tack-strip and hundreds of nails/staples left behind in the subfloor.
The "brains" of my treadmill. (Fair to say it was a lot smarter than me at this stage!) It finally found a temp home in the bathtub...
Every room had a workstation. Scott was doing a stellar job of cleaning up the baseboards we had removed. Nails out. Bit of a scrape to remove old caulk. Each piece labeled to match the side of the wall and room it had come from.
The sectional was partly in the garage, partly in my office. Wrigley could not have been happier the day he opened the door to the office and found "his sofa" with a stack of 3 cushions. It was the return of The Princess and the Pea. He sleep soundly behind the closed doors of my over-stuffed office, as we worked on.
Did I mention every day was record-breaking hot???!!!
The wood arrived July 31 and in the middle of the day, 2 strapping young lads hand carried each bundle off their truck and into the middle of my dining room. The benefits of being young with forgiving bodies and resilient organs cannot be overlooked. Nevertheless, I forced iced water and healthy snacks on them. They were earning every dollar that I hoped they got paid.
Chapter 2: Arthur
I like Arthur. But I struggle to understand him on a lot of levels!
Scott helped him carry bundles of wood up the stairs and distribute them to each room. Arthur said his son would be joining him, a bit later. Apparently the baby kept in up last night and he was catching a few extra minutes of shut-eye this morning.
Temps like this brought out Athur's conversation starters; They all fell along the lines of climate change hoax conspiracy theories and end of times prophecies from the book of Revelation. I admit to leaning into science and trying to add some fact to the conversation but pretty quickly bowing out. We left and went to Scott's apartment with Teddy. It was cleaner, quieter, cooler and a place that felt infinitely saner. I was grateful for the chance to help with his side of things too. Scott was clearing out, packing up and donating a BUNCH in order to move in to 285 Martin with me!
Arthur's son... looks 12, am I right? Are there any child labor laws I should be worried about here?
Not the one with the baby, right? Must be another son.
It was but a day or two into the project that we started to see magical progress. Arthur is an artist. A hard worker too. He started at 7am with his compressor and saw, nail gun and conspiracy theories. By 7:15am Scott and I were nowhere to be seen. It turns out that moon landing hoaxes, 9/11 doubters, flat earth believers, vaccination DNA-changing weirdness and opinions around parasite poo that causes cancer is just not my preferred brain-damage causing conversation! Go figure.
As it turned out, Arthur's son was not 12. He was 16. Nice kid... and father! The baby was his. And from time to time being a parent had to take priority so when he was later to show up one day because the baby (and baby momma) needed to be driven to the Dr appointment, that is where he went.
The first (or was it the second?) surprise came when Arthur asked me if the son's little family could come inside for a bit rather than stay in the hot car. Of course! But I made it clear the little one couldn't be left unattended or touch anything since my house was a hot mess and far from child-safe.
It gets better....
A few hours later, I came home and decided to film progress upstairs. Surprise ending. Keep watching!
Day 4: Arthur, having installed everything (and cut door trim so it fitted nicely under that) was now hard at work on his hands and knees adding this kinda pinkish skim coat that fills nail holes and natural blemishes that cut oak just comes with.
Post filler, he got out his commerical sander and sent Scott and me fleeing to Lafayette while the cats scurried off to sleep in someone else's yard at least a block away. LOUD! A necessary loud of course, but I had underestimated the noise of that thing as it smoothed away the surface in preparation for the 3 coats of water-based varnish.
The other hazardous side effect of dusting is... dust. Lots of dust. Every fan, vent cover, window sill, blinds and cobweb. (Cobwebs? Surely not. Yes!) It made its way downstairs to potted plants and other items that seemed like they were well out of the way, too. The dust was where my grey line of sanity-insanity became less blurred and I tipped resoundedly over to the insanity side.
Arthur finished on Friday afternoon. It was August 7th.
Chapter 3: Getting it together again.
Scott and I now had until Sunday morning to move ourselves and all of our things from the guest room downstairs and arrange ourselves back upstairs somewhere for sleeping.
Saturday was my cleaning day. I started downstairs - thoroughly cleaning the kitchen, bathroom, flooring, windows and sills, light fixtures and more. Then I moved to the upstairs.
By the end of that day we had cleaned surfaces and emptied the upper guest bathroom. There was a mattress and a lamp on the floor in the upper west guest room and that was our new temporary bedroom.
The handyman was coming tomorrow so by Saturday night (late) we had also given the baseboards a lick of paint, laid out on dropclothes in the living room and bedroom. Did I mention that some of the baseboards were so long they had to be passed over the balcony into the back yard to store in the dining room downstairs last week and therefore had to come back via the balcony too?
I was now a month into this journey and my 16 day of hard labor was taking it's toll. Without Scott's motivation, I'm not sure the last couple of hours would have been possible.
Sunday morning... ready for Devin to install and start the caulking!
Life at home looked like this EVERYDAY. The centrally located whiteboard - near coffee for planning the day and wine for celebrating the day - was chock-full of things to tick off. Big things. We congratulated ourselves with every tick and counted down the chores/days until we could run away for a couple of days and take a breather (of sorts).
By Tuesday we had to have a guest room ready for Mark, who would take over pet-care and Airbnb guest care for a few days. That meant two days of baseboard nail patching, painting, caulking. Two days to touch up paint the walls from understanding sanding machine scuffs, two days to mend holes in the walls going up the stairs (pivoting large furniture is not that easy!) and two days setting up bedroom furniture and comfort items for Mark and for us. We got our bathroom back, closet organizers were reinstalled, the treadmill and bike came back inside and were clothes unpacked - and repacked for our hiking, camping, Aspen jaunt. More cleaning, of course!
The days felt longer, but were actually getting shorter. Some nights were cool enough to sleep with doors and windows open now too. We broke up the manual hardship with dog walks and hikes and never forgot to admire the stars at night and sunrise the next day. While Mecha and Orange Theory classes took a back seat to all the lifting and moving, I don't think there was a week that went by without strength and cardio classes for us both either! (I had almost forgotten how impressive we actually were! LOL)
... And how not impressive I actually felt a lot of the time!
On August 13th, just 10 long days after Arthur began, we put aside all the undone chores and thoughts of still having to move Scott over from his place and we took our first real break together since April 24th.
Is it crazy that we celebrated not doing hard labor at home by camping and hiking to 14,000'?!
Then came home, worked our tails off at Scott's apartment for 3 grueling days and fled once more to the mountains for some R&R... which it turns out we are good at!
Read about that one here: Sanity Break #2
*** I will post more finished pics of the house soon... so come back here for that.
.jpg)
