Ok, can’t do it!

Julie and the boys have encouraged me to hang onto Brutus.  After driving it around like this for two beautiful days (country roads to break-in my new rear gear set) I agree.  I will probably tone down the tires to something slightly smaller, lighter and more efficient, and won’t do the off-roading trips.  Hopefully, I that will keep the costs and repairs manageable.  Stay tuned 🤪

AND it’s just tooooo pretty!  Especially in the configuration from this pic.

Wow!

A cool pleco that we saw at one of Julie’s favorite fish stores! I have a soft spot in my heart for any plecostomus.  

Blog workflow

I thought you might want to see a week’s worth of my blog pics queued up ready to go and separated by days?

Nobody will ever know…

That I laid my rear Jeep door down in the wrong place and shattered the rear quarter glass.  It’s leaning there against this tree now with my duct tape and cardboard fix in place… I guess I need to investigate a real fix for that now?! This will work in the meantime.  I did it on both the inside and outside to give it the best chance of working and survival. Haha.

I saw this graphic on a news story… Thought it was cool.

Jeeps, Patriotism, America

A good combo.  

Cool coffee package at Boston Stoker

I Ike the red white and blue of their 250th themed bags. 

I like the south east Ohio area.

In the Portsmouth area, I had an interesting view of a couple bridges and a steeple. I couldn’t see much of them, but thought they still looked cool.

On the way back towards Chillicothe, the sun was playing peekaboo behind the hills as it set. I like how you can see the reflection of the colors on the asphalt.  

Then I was off for more miles with the top off

I like the look this way, but it’s honestly not much different from the it feels in the driver seat.  The freedom panels and front doors make it so I don’t feel the need or even desire to take the top off very often.  I’m having another cooldown at the Super Quick, and in the bottom pic, the sunset shaped up to be really nice about the time I was stopping for gas or a cooldown again (I can’t remember). 500 miles over two days was kind of a blur haha.

I lucked into a nostalgic dinner :)”

I’ve been wanting to hit Ponderosa in Hillsboro for years, but it just never worked out.  I needed to pull over and let my gears cool down right about the time I was passing by so decided it was a perfect time for dinner.  Just for old times sake.  

It’s about the same as it ever was, just a lot more expensive.  They push the buffet with your entree, hard! 🤪 I gave in just because we always did growing up.  I got the sirloin tips which came with onions and mushrooms.  

Decent food, good memories.  

Taking everything off and heading out!

I had to get the rear gearing repaired.  You need 500 easy break-in miles.  The weather was perfect, so I decided to hit the back roads and enjoy it a little more.  I usually head southeast.  We will see where I end up.

Memorializing Julie’s pet jumping spider

He looks perfect on her mini shelf. This little guy had been hanging around the kitchen for a while.  For some reason, he decided to jump into the remnant soap bubbles in the sink.  It led to his demise.  But somehow he managed to be perfectly preserved so gets a place of honor.  

Crazy that this is Andy’s “leftover” Milwaukee…

We’re waiting for one more shelf to come in. That way he will have a place for his supply stock.

The process

It takes a fair amount of creativity, thinking, and work to whip a work van into shape. Fortunately, Andy had Sophie and me to be go-fers.

New shocks let me get flexy!

That is the scale equivalent of about 20 inches of flex. Not bad for $20 :) I even had to clearance my fender flares a little bit