Drydock '09

We are at Infinity Coach in Sumner, Washington (map), Odyssey's birthplace (well, at least in her current incarnation).

I apologize for taking such a long absence from posting. We spent the weekend, from Friday afternoon through mid-day Sunday, parked at our friends' house in Kingston, and long-time readers know that we don't post map links, generally, when we stay with friends, in respect for their privacy. They were throwing a holiday weekend party, which was well attended. We had a great time, and, of course, everyone wanted to see the bus, so we had a couple dozen folks through for tours.

We were a bit anxious about getting here to Infinity and squaring everything away for the upcoming repairs, and so we rolled down here Sunday afternoon. Apparently the guys had jockeyed some rigs around in anticipation of our arrival, and "our space" right across from the office was available. Infinity has a handful of hookups available for customers, and we are settled in with 50 amps and a nearby water spigot.

It turned out that there was really no need to be here a day ahead, because shop logistics dictated that they couldn't really get to us yesterday anyway. We did meet to go over the list, and said hello to the gang, including meeting some of the new folks. Work actually started this morning, with Danny coming in to remove the bulk of the trim around the windows. We found a bunch of dry rot and some mold in the process, adding to the scope of work.

Good progress was made this afternoon. With the trim off and a hose running water onto the roof, we found at least three clear areas of ingress, and that was just on the passenger side. In the process of getting to the leaks on that side of the bedroom, we removed the emergency exit handle that has been broken for six years, opting to re-fabricate it out of aluminum before reinstalling it. If any of the other three handles shows any problems during the repairs, we may opt to replace those as well.

Kevin from the paint and body shop next door came over today to look at our handful of paint issues, and we've agreed on a course of action. We'll have to be finished with all the other repairs before we wrap up in the spray booth, and, with today's discoveries, I am estimating we will be here at Infinity for a full three weeks. When we are done, we should have most of the leaks under control, some of the old wall coverings replaced, and the body work and paint squared away.

I expect a rather light posting schedule while we are here. Mostly I expect that I will post occasionally about the progress of the work. At this moment, we don't really have a plan for where we go from here when we are finally done, but I expect that will shape up as we close in on a completion date.