The Fix Is In

         Here's a piece of traveling advice: If you're going to break an impossible to fix, small-but-essential piece of plastic on your fifty-five-year-old camper, do it on a farm. Even better, set up that camper right next to a well-equipped shop, which happens to have a supply of plastic sheeting the exact thickness you need, not to mention saws, clamps, vice-grips, drills, hammers and a rivet gun.

    This is Ben. You can't see his wings, but he is an angel. We were very much looking forward to our visit to Ben and Erin's farm in Northfield, MN. I'm typing at their dining room table now, and will post all about our wonderful visit here next time. For now, let's focus on how Ben helped to save our trip by fixing the un-fixable.

This is definitely not good.

    I mentioned to Ben that I had to do an emergency field repair and was nervous about the camper lasting the rest of our trip. He mentioned working on it at some point, if I wanted. Inside I was screaming "YES PLEASE!" But I know how the work on a farm never ends, so I didn't want to push too hard, and made a more non-committal response. But sure enough, Ben just happened to be hanging around the shop yesterday afternoon and mentioned giving it a look. So we dove in.

    A fair bit of head-scratching, brainstorming, drilling out of rivets, digging through the scrap pile, sawing, hammering, bending, swearing (just me), and maneuvering later, the fix was in.

A thing of beauty

    I know it just looks like a rectangular piece of plastic, but trust me, it's an amazing piece of resourcefulness and ingenuity, and it's not hyperbole to say it increased our chances of finishing this trip by about 99%. We get by with a little help from our friends, as the song goes, and that's never been more true for us than right now. Thanks, Ben.