This has not been a very fun couple of weeks for Big White Bus. My all time favorite thing on an automobile to work on is the electrical system. /end sarcasm.
I live by five simple rules.
I don’t play with electricity.
I won’t live any place I’m not the tertiary member of the food chain.
I never get less than twelve hours sleep.
I never play cards with guys who have the same first name as a city.
I’ve never gotten involved with a woman with a tattoo of a dagger on her body.*
There it was in black and white. Knocking or rattling noise. It doesn’t get more obvious than that. The picture above is from the RAVE CD. It clearly describes the problem I was having.
With my new job providing a minor amount disposable income once again, I was able to do a small landscaping project this weekend. I took Mr. Fisher with me on Saturday to Lowe’s to pick up some pavers, gravel, and a flower requested by Mrs. Okierover.
We got to Lowe’s and loaded up two push carts. I got it all paid for and then we took it out to load. Mr. Fisher thought that if we loaded it all in the back that the front tires might not be touching the ground when we were done. I didn’t think it would be quite that bad, but why risk it.
15 Pavers, 1 Geranium, 15 bags of gravel
So we loaded it all up. We put the gravel in the floor board between the seats. We put all the pavers in the back. My before and after pics of the load change on the springs don’t really show the inch it dropped. As I said to Mr. Fisher, Bill Burke said this is a 3/4 ton truck so we should be good.
Mr. Fisher loads the Big White Bus.
I have medium duty springs and once you add a few hundred pounds the BWB really rides nice. We got home and we both shared stories about over loading pickup trucks we owned back in the day. His a Chevy S-10 with way too much gravel in the bed and my Ford Ranger with way too much lumber loaded in her. In both cases driving home at a crawl because every bump caused the front tires to leave the ground. Stupid is as stupid does.
We got the BWB home and began the project. The first task was to clear the material from the area. With this I uncovered one of the biggest “wolf spiders” I’ve ever seen. The website says up to 1.38 inches in body size. We were all of that if not more. That is a standard size spade shovel.
Effin’ big spider.
A storm front was bearing down on us and we worked quickly to get the rock down and the border. I decided the western most portion of the bed had to be tiered. The water is carrying off the dirt at a high rate.
I didn’t take the recommended before picture but you can see the after…
Looks a lot better than the trench that was there before.
Another great use of a luxury SUV. I often see Jeff Aronson load up his Series II with firewood and people with dirty boots. You have all seen the pictures of Land Rovers “working”. Just because I have carpet and leather does that make it any less of a workhorse? Who knows.
To me my Range Rover is a “truck”. I’ve said this many times,
“I’ve never owned a car I was afraid to drive through a barbed wire fence.”
I mean that. Scratches, eh, dents, eh, what ever, it ain’t a beauty contest. Well it’s not with me anyway.
I was grounded this weekend with what is probably bronchial pneumonia. Lots of coughing, a very high heart rate from the medications, and an overall very tired feeling. Being relegated to the couch and bed all weekend, I watched a lot of television. I watched an entire afternoon of Star Wars movies. Episode 4 and Episode 5 mostly. I’m not a fan of The Muppet ShowEpisode 6 due to the ridiculous effort to cutesy-fy the franchise and merchandise the crap out of it. Okay back to the main point I came here to write.
