Spit and Polish

Airing it out.

    The first order of business was to peel off the damaged cover and take a good look inside. Everything was...OK, amazingly enough. Like I said, the canvas was relatively new, and I knew two new tires were in our future. But the inside was all about storage and cubbies and had a cool table that converted to a sleeping space. It was lots of varnished wood that needed polishing and metal parts that hadn't been greased in a while. Other than that, it was just sort of tired, like it hadn't gotten a lot of love recently. Luckily I had a crew who could remedy that.

    A good basic wash for starters, followed by a light polish, helped bring the green sides back to life.

Test patch. Gotta be careful with 53 year-old paint. Looked good.

    An online group of fellow Apache owners proved to be a treasure-trove of info, like how to bring the faded plastic lettering back to life--linseed oil!

That A is OK.

    Next I unfurled the canvas and, after much trial and error, managed to get it secured in place. Besides the smell of mothballs (to keep the mice away--luckily it seemed to work) and some tree-sap stains on the roof, everything looked great. Once inside we began to get a feel of how it would be to live in our new rolling home. The enthusiasm was high!

    There it sat, our home away from home. It still needed a lot of work to get ready, but most of it seemed achievable in short order. So far, this crazy idea was working out just fine.