We got back from SoCal on Saturday and I felt some sniffles Sunday into Monday. I powered through the week thinking I caught a cold. Makes sense. Working from home for the past 2 (3?) years and then dropping in amongst the people for some R&R – I caught a lil’ cold. I wore a mask in enclosed spaces, on planes, trains and automobiles.

Today is Saturday and I after doing my chores was waffling between going for a long ride, medium run… packing up to take the dogs on a ski tour in the Hood… but I just never managed to get out the door. I sat down to read, decided to make some banana bread… after sampling the baked goods, I thought – maybe it’s the C. Doesn’t seem like it though. I feel mostly fine, just a runny nose and some sneezes. Allergies? Never had them before, but the world it’s changing – maybe allergies.

C & T lining up full strength. Covid for the 2nd time. I saw a t-shirt a while back that read, “After the 10th infection all the mice were dead.” Awful thought, but what can you do? Apparently I was too loose with my mask policy. I’m going to take it easy this weekend, bank some sleep and calories and just rest.

Lately I’ve been: working a lot, skiing a little, running a little, not riding much, working on the van! Rosalita. That’s her name. Or The Boss. Or Olaf (there was an Olaf sticker on the passenger seat base when we got it). I should (probably won’t) write up a longer post about how we came to acquire a sweet MB 2500 4WD Crew Van from … New Jersey. It’s actually not an exciting story – but I now know a lot about how freight and auto shipping works across the United States. If you’re into logistics, hit me up and I’ll give you the behind the scenes. It comes down to the “load board” and surprise, it’s a market. Pretty interesting in a nerdy market economics way.

There’s a lot more to do on the van. So far I’ve only installed a Espar diesel heater – most vans have an auxiliary fuel tap (amazing) – so I connected that to the heater. I planned to run it off of the Jackery until I have a power system built out. It would work in theory, but I left the power line long (I haven’t decided where the controller is going to be mounted) and the voltage drop over the length of the power wire is too great to kick the heater on to start. Bummer, but it accelerates the power system design and build. Heater + front seat swivels… oh.. and some side steps. It was 24” to step into it… ankle breaker height. The steps help with that issue. We’ve used the seat swivels apres ski and I’m convinced that each step along the build process will feel like an exponential improvement.

Happy Easter!