DOWN and OUT

As soon as it warms up, I keep saying, I will start on all of those projects that have been on hold all winter. Temps have been rising here in Vail, Colorado, but then it went and snowed four inches on Friday night. Will summer ever arrive?

If it does, in fact, stop snowing, my priority project is getting the Old Lady in better road condition. This vehicle, a 1970 VW van, has impressed me over these last few years. It chugs steadily over mountain passes and otherwise just gets me where I need to go. Of course, anything this old is way finicky and constantly threatening to explode, but I guess I’ve committed to it and am not willing to let it go, especially after all I went through in the fall:

I may have mentioned it then, but when I returned to the U.S. after a prolonged absence, the van was full of mice nests, and it basically smelled like crap. I freaked out about Hantavirus and cleaned the entire thing out with bleach.

My summer plan is to gut the interior, put a new floor down and build a sleeping platform with storage underneath. Currently, an unusable sink and some sort of cooler are inside, along with bench seats that fold out into a bed. Those have got to go.

Mechanically, things are looking pretty good. I just put in new air filters, but other than that, I trust most engine issues to real mechanics. Anyhow, now I’ve written down the plan, so it must be put into action. As soon as the snow melts.