Hello!

Yippee! Here we are at Niagara Falls! You can see how we are all waving and happy in front of the beautiful falls. Molly is not going to jump, although she looks like she is considering it.

Okay, that isn't really us - aren't you surprised? It is the real Niagara Falls, though - it's a photo taken on the cross-country trip I took with my parents and brother in 1988. Thank you, Mom and Dad!

We, not surprisingly, are still at home and still working on the van. It now has lots more storage space, and lots more paint. Soon, soon...

Happy Anniversary, Grammy and Grampa!

We were at the farm this weekend, at a family party celebrating my grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. 60 years! Their marriage even survived their own cross-country trip, taken in the 1960's with five children in a station wagon!

We have made progress on our little Gumby Van - we may even finish it this week! We now have walls, which make it look much more finished than before.

Staying Up Late...

We're still working hard (and late!), sustained by German gummy bears (thank you, Naila) and leftovers from the wonderful India Palace (thank you, Sajal and Kiren), and with our work illumined by Sandeep's Christmas-present work light (thank you, Grandparents Lillie). We're not quiiiiiiite done, though...it looks like we'll be leaving in a week or so, not TOMORROW as we had originally planned. We are often overly optimistic when it comes to estimating the time it will take Humble Gumby Construction to complete a project...yes, it is true.

We do have a complete and completely functional electrical system (another thank-you: thank you, Lou, the wonderful RV electrician!), with batteries and an inverter and working electric lights. We haven't plugged the refrigerator in yet, except to test it, but it works, too. The overhead cabinets are coming along, and we have a lovely wood-like floor. Our little Sprinter is beginning to look like a teeny-tiny apartment!

All Work and No Blogging

You might think we haven't done anything but stick stickers on our van - but you'd be wrong. In fact, we've been so busy building and building and unbuilding and rebuilding (we are Humble Gumby Construction, after all!) that we haven't had time to write about our progress! Even these photographs are a little out of date, but we'll post them now and add new ones soon.

So far, we have built a partition (with a lovely little arched doorway and painted-on chalkboard) between the driving part of the van and the house part of the van. Behind the partition on the driver's side will be the sofa, which will convert into a bed (we hope! we're still working on the design) - we have built the base of the sofa. Behind the sofa is a floor-to-ceiling cabinet, which will contain the refrigerator and a large cabinet/closet. The back corner on the driver's side will be the teeny tiny bathroom, with a port-a-potty and rudimentary (a very important word in the Gumby vocabulary) shower. The passenger's side will be the kitchen and an additional storage area.

It should be made clear that "we" in a building context actually means Sandeep - he plans and measures and cuts and constructs and worries about things falling down, and he deserves the credit for all the things that don't fall down. Jess fetches and carries and holds things and offers occasional suggestions and worries about things looking odd. This arrangement works out very well!