Thanks and giving

Leslie, Angus, Glenna and I spent Thanksgiving weekend with my brother and his family in Richland, Washington, about five hours northwest of Boise.

The prime motivation for the visit was to get Angus on some upland game birds - pheasant and/or quail. Glenna - our almost 10-year-old Brittany - was along for the ride, and unaware that she would not be partaking of the hunting experience. Despite possessing the most discerning and gifted nose for finding upland game birds I have ever seen, Glenna's gift for chasing quickly out of range the birds she unearths in the vast slopes far exceeds her ability to find them. Thus, she's destined for the couch or bac

k yard whenever I go hunting with anyone other than my own self.

Hearing that the F&G had released a new batch of pen-raised pheasant across the Columbia, we prepped early the night before and got a good early start on Thanksgiving day so we could get a jump on the other hunters we would no doubt encounter in the same area. Pulling into the parking spot at what Geoff thought would be the most productive area, we had a few minutes before shooting light to get buttoned up and out the door of his truck. One other zebra-striped pickup (no joke) preceded us in the parking area, but as we exited Geoff's Silverado at least two other trucks pulled in right next to us. Geoff, Finn, Porter, I, and Donner (Geoff's Brittany) and Angus headed down the trail ahead of our "competition," and as the day's light increasingly revealed itself to us, I began to understand the landscape.

And just as soon, shots rang out. It had been a while since I'd been in the field and I had more trouble than my brother and nephews figuring out which direction from which the shots issued. I followed and focused on making sure Angus - equipped with his trusty shock collar - didn't mess up anything. I wanted to ensure Geoff found Angus at least tolerable.

Finn, Porter and I followed Geoff's directions as to where we should go, based on where the shots came from and where the rest of the plentiful hunters seemed to be headed. Geoff regularly consulted his oldest son Finn - easily the most detail-oriented of all of us - as to where we might aim. Porter, 12 years old and not as keen as his brother and dad on getting up early for anything (including hunting), stayed near me as we headed into open habitat in search of pheasants that we hoped would be waiting for us to shoot them.

Angus, to my delight, seemed intent on mimicking Donner's quartering, and - as long as he could see Donner and the rest of us - stayed out in front and in good range. Geoff seemed pleased with my little tri-color of no experience, and remarked on Angus's similarity to his late tri-color Lou (named after Lou Reed). "She's my wife and she's my life" (a line about heroin).

We walked for probably an hour or more without finding a single bird, all the while hearing regular shots from across this expanse or that. Nothing. Ending up on a short, narrow peninsula suddenly a small covey of quail burst out and Finn and/or Geoff shot, nothing down. Dogs running akimbo. A single bird erupted here, another there, one or two shots. Nothing. Then quiet. Fog. Calm water. Trees missing most of their leaves. Bunch grass, undulating land. Every great once in a while some small cactus would appear, making me glad for my heavy-soled boots. All the while Angus never stopped moving left, right, back, forth. I was happy for him, and enjoying Thanksgiving so far.

We all stopped for a while in one spot along a little draw to allow a couple other hunters and their older yellow lab to hunt the draw, which took a fair amount of time and yielded no game. Angus whined. Donner looked intent on busting something soon. Finally it was clear.

Heading back toward the truck, moments after Geoff remarked that it was almost unbelievable that we hadn't seen anything, a cock pheasant burst from within a few feet of Finn's foot and Geoff knocked it down within a second. So we got one bird.

The rest of the way back to the truck we all had a renewed hope of another "unexpected" bird popping up, but nothing did. We drove the hour back to the house, got a quick bite to eat and some lead shells, and headed to another spot in search of quail. I told Geoff we didn't have to do this, but he seemed eager to get Angus on some real birds.

So we drove almost another hour to a spot near Benton City that was private land but which had become one of their favorite spots to hunt quail. Volcanic terrain with willows, Russian olive trees, and lots of grass and blackberry patches. And plenty of quail. We shot up a bunch of birds, and Angus got his fair share of smells. He never pointed anything, but was always in the mix and had plenty of good learning opportunities that I hope come in handy in the future. Having Donner to follow was certainly a benefit because that dog knows what he's doing.

It was an exciting place to hunt because Geoff and Finn knew where the birds were and because their hangouts were these islands of trees and shrubs that we would kind of surround, and the birds would pop out from any side in any direction, at what appeared to my rusty shotgunning skills to be light speed. I shot one or two quail I found hiding on branches, and then felt disgusted with myself for "sluicing" them. I missed several shots at flying birds, but so did Geoff and Finn (although they hit as many as they missed).

About the time to turn back to head for the truck and our massive meal (which I was getting readier and readier for), I heard - on the other side of the copse from me - a shot and then Finn: "Good dog, Angus!" I headed that direction and Finn appeared around the corner and calmly told me that Geoff shot a big pheasant rooster and that Angus beat Donner to it. It was the biggest pheasant I'd ever seen, about 32 inches from head to tail, a wild bird with gorgeous color and an impressively long barred dark brown tail. We took some photos of Geoff with the bird, and he wanted me to hold it with Angus in the shot, which made me feel a bit silly but what the hell. I was proud of my little puppa and glad he got a good sniff of pheasant to file away in that tiny brain of his.

We made it back to their house in time to provide not much help at all to April and Leslie with the big meal, and to hear their very entertaining stories about the 5k Turkey Trot race with Sarah Palin that ended up being no race at all for Ms. Palin - as is her wont - dropped out before finishing. The food was incredible and plentiful, and dessert was better than I expected (which really is saying something here). We took a walk after dinner - the traditional pre-pie attempt to do some digesting - and came across a nice herd of deer along the river than Angus wanted to chew to pieces.

The next morning we got up to go duck hunting across the river from their house but it was raining pretty good so we went back to bed. A couple hours later Geoff and Finn decided it wouldn't hurt to give it a shot, so they got Porter and me out of bed (Donner was the only dog to go on this trip) and we got the decoys set and into the blind about 9:30. Porter was happy because he didn't have to get up early. We had a decent outing and got a good selection of mallards and widgeon before calling it a day and heading back for the hot tub in preparation to go wine tasting.

Which was very cool, especially since we had the opportunity to get into a bad argument at Fidelitas winery with the Republican proprietors but managed to turn it into a sort of bi-partisan bonding experience. I started the whole thing by making a Sarah Palin crack, assuming that anyone operating a hip-looking winery such as Fidelitas (or any winery at all for that matter) would have to be a Democrat. Not so here, and boy were they proud of not being Democrats. Anyway, it was fun.

Then we had dinner at Anthony's, a tony seafood place, which had gone downhill since the last time I ate there (two years ago). Our waitress was somewhat annoying and reminded me of a non-humorous female resurrection of W. C. Fields.

The next day Geoff, Finn and I got up at 0-dark-thirty to get one more crack at the ducks. We set everything up with 15 minutes until shooting light, when a boat motored up to our decoys. Geoff flashed his headlamp at them to make sure they knew we were here. They shouted, "We see you, but we're hunting here anyway!" I had no idea what they were going to do. Then they shouted, "We'll be back later with coffee and doughnuts, DICK HEADS!" I guess getting up early and having the decoys set and the blind ready before shooting light - when the ducks fly around in the biggest numbers - made us dick heads.

Porter was thrilled when we got back to see that, for all of our effort and early rising, we got but one duck between us. "Ha ha - suckers!" he said, and off he went on his bike to his friend's house, no doubt to change the course of the sun across the winter sky.

Snowy Pipe Gig

Yesterday I and seven other dedicated members of the City of Trees Pipes & Drums hunkered down in the snow to play at a wedding. We do stuff like this to make money for the band. For this gig we earned $300. It involved the eight of us putting on the "kit": off-white hose (except for Josh White, who wore snow white hose), red flash (the ribbons that get folded into the top of the hose), sgian doubh (black knife) inserted into the top of the right hose (in case one needs to slit the throat of one's adversary or cut a piece of salami while waiting for the go signal), ghillie brogues (sort of a wing-tip shoe with long laces that get tied in a certain criss-crossy way in the front and back of the hose, with tassels that swagger about while marching), undershirt, white long-sleeve dress shirt, dark tie, kilt (for our band, we wear the Royal Stewart Black tartan - a 15 ounce, 8-yard wool kilt), kilt belt with large cast pewter buckle, kilt pin (mine was a lovely deer antler tip until I lost it - the second kilt pin I have lost in less than two years), sporran (the "purse" covering the crotch of the piper (drummers wear theirs on their sides so as not to interfere with the drum harness) - our band sporrans are made of skunk fur and are very soft and black; they provide a pocket for one's car keys, wallet, cell phone, condoms, or whatever - the kilt has no pockets), Prince Charlie vest (mine is fine wool with three diamond-shaped buttons and made in Pakistan - a cheap version of the 5-button gabardine wool versions made in Scotland), and glengarry with red feather plume and clan crest (the boat-shaped wool felt hat). After dozens of gigs I now have the dressing routine dialed in at about 25 minutes. To remove everything and get changed back into normal duds after a gig takes about half that.

We arrive at the designated spot - today at the Stone House: a pub adjacent to the Greenbelt. This is our second or third wedding gig here in the past year. I drove our Eurovan because I knew it would be snowing and that we'd be waiting for a while and wanted to have a heated haven where some of us could hang out until we were signaled to line up and march in. Six of us managed to fit in the van, cozy and warm with the propane heater running. I snapped a couple shots with my iPhone, hoping to catch some "regimental" images of my kilted buddies, but - alas - the iPhone's lack of a flash prevented any compromising photos. John McDade, our dedicated pipe major, and the band's only bona fide Scot, upon thinking I had snapped a shot of his privates yelled, "It's bloody cold - I'm claiming shrinkage!"

We finally got the go signal, and burst from the Eurovan into the falling flakes and lined up. Two drummers - Gene, the Drum Sergeant, and Rhonda, our unflagging bass drummer - followed the six pipers (John, Josh, me, Tim, "Junior" McKay) and Jayce - our next to be initiated band member and current gig gopher, whom - today - served as band photographer and official door opener. On P/M McDade's command, we fired up outside and began with Mairi's Wedding/42nd Highlanders and someone's drones were dreadfully misfiring. As we played and marched toward the entrance to the Stone House Josh - in front of me - shut down all his drones, thinking the wounded rhino sound was coming from his pipes. I had a perversely satisfied feeling the offending sonic malady was emanating from my bass drone but managed to ignore it and revel in the horrific dissonance as we marched into the absolutely packed interior and continued playing to wild applause.

For me at least, and I suspect many of my colleagues in the band, the most exciting moment of any gig is when we enter the interior of the venue, full of people - in this and many other cases, unsuspecting - and we are rewarded with facial expressions of childlike exuberance and fascination, hoots, hollers, whistles, and all other types of boisterous expressions of approval and visceral pleasure.

It is this dynamic that makes it worth the 25 minutes it takes to get dressed, and however long it takes to drive to the gig, and however long we wait in the wings before we are unleashed like rabid rats on a rotting feral cat carcass. It is this moment when I feel the righteousness of strutting, when I feel the loss of self that historical actors from Nazi storm troopers to the starting players in the World Series must have felt. My uncooperative bass drone notwithstanding, this moment is indeed what the great French social theorist Roland Barthes referred to as "jouissance" - the proto-orgasmic loss of self in the cataclysmic moment of pure pleasure...

We finish the two tunes and the ceremony begins. We scurry to stand out of the way so the guests can see. I watch the bride and groom - two middle-aged people whom I think are starting over with great hope, and surrounded by an impressive assortment of people I hope feel the same way - and remember with great warmth my own wedding atop a mountain in central Idaho. The bride's gaze upon her soon-to-be-betrothed is so angelic that I cannot stop staring at her makes me think that this is really a special moment and I'm privileged to be a part of it.

After a decent amount of time and words the ceremony is over and we're lining up to begin the march-out tune, which John calls out at the last second: Scotland the Brave. We play it through twice, marching elegiacally through the crowd of gleeful attendees, following the bride and groom, out the door into the falling snow. It sounded great. The bride and groom stood in the snow for a moment with us and expressed their gratitude. Gig over, we scurried to our vehicles and headed to our homes to remove the kit and get on with our separate lives, the weekend half completed, thoughts of what's ahead and what's due in the offing.

Hunting

Seeing the fresh snow dotting the mountains above our house makes me think of being up there in it, trying to kill an elk. I wasn't able to get out this year, the first elk season I've missed since I moved here almost ten years ago. It feels a little wrong not to have gotten out since it's been the most profound thing I've done in the outdoors, and the most provocative.

I have only been a part of one legal elk kill, with my friend Mike, on his tag. Every year about this time I think about it. The scene was superb: bluebird (but frigid) days after a remarkable November snowfall, many miles from a paved road. We were in the right place at the right time, and Mike killed a very nice bull on a snowy ridge top.

After the work was done and the two trips hauling meat down the hill left us exhausted, I began reflecting more intensely on the death moment. Not deeply, but intensely. The difference is that I didn’t try to make sense of the whole episode in terms of justifying the death of the elk as an act with primordial roots or whatever, but simply that I willingly replayed the death of that elk over and over and over in exact visual detail, usually with sound effects. In the following weeks and months, I continued doing so. The quality and intensity of my replaying the memory never wavered. And without exception each time it was very clear to me that it was massively wrong to kill that animal, and – by extension – any animal. Regardless of the connections with history, tradition, and culture, killing the animal is the same as murder. Or it is possibly worse than murder because wild animals are – in terms of their vast superiority to humans in manifesting the urge to live – far more accomplished and highly developed than humans, from both a biological and a behavioral standpoint. Murdering a human is taking another life similar to your own. Murdering an animal is taking a life better than your own. In any case, it is wrong. Indians – before we killed most of them – had meaningful ways of apologizing to animals they killed. White people never learned that lesson. Which is why they have been able to kill recklessly and without apology, and why they have destroyed so much in the name of creativity and innovation. There is always a victim.

It is no different with animals. My problem with hunting, then, is knowing that the objective of it is wrong and still wanting to do it. This is a problem for me because I do not want to explain the contradiction simply with the excuse that my modern white culture has shaped me that way. I want to believe there are other more noble and even spiritual reasons I like hunting. But really there aren’t. I may do it differently than some and think my way is better or fairer. But in the end the act is the act. And killing is wrong. And – although I have been remarkably unsuccessful at killing – I still want to do it. The contradiction is just something I accept in exchange for the things I get out of it, which are irrelevant to the question of whether killing is wrong or right.

Two years ago I was involved in an illegal elk kill, again not mine. That season I spent sixty-one hours trying to kill an elk. Most of those were alone, and most were spent hiking over very steep terrain. About half of those hours were spent “still hunting” – moving as silently as possible through terrain that seemed elkish. The particular tag I purchase, usually at Fred Meyer, allows me to hunt three separate sub-seasons with three different weapons, but I can harvest only one elk. In September, I can hunt bulls with a bow-and-arrows. For one week in late October, I can rifle hunt for “spikes” (young male elk without branched antlers). And for two or three weeks in November I can hunt cow elk with a muzzleloader (a rifle shooting large caliber but low energy slugs, with far less range than a high-powered rifle). The nice thing about this tag, in addition to the presumption by game managers that it doesn’t jeopardize healthy herd numbers, is that I can walk around the mountains with a weapon and a hope to kill an elk for three months, assuming I don’t get one early.

In my six or seven seasons of hunting with this tag, I have experienced a lot of memorable things, as anyone would who walked quietly off the trail in the woods beginning before light and finishing near dark. Miraculous sunrises. Close encounters with mountain lions, bears, and wolves. Salmon spawning in the Sawtooths one thousand miles from the Pacific. A cow and calf elk nosing up to me in a thicket responding to my calf calls. Six straight hours of wolves howling. Huge sage grouse at 8,500 feet above sea level exploding in flight at my feet and scaring the bejesus out of me. Getting lost at dusk in a blinding snowstorm. Watching a sliver of moon rise from above it, its orange light through the forest below looking like the flicker of a pre-dawn campfire. Smelling the musk of elk the first time, and then creeping on my hands and knees through dense lodgepole forest to get a look at them. They are beautiful creatures. Seeing them is worth the trouble, which is considerable. But I still try to kill one every time I go out.

On the final day of that sixth season, after four-and-a-half hours of pursuing a herd of elk up and down severely steep slopes through heavy, deadfall-covered snow sometimes a foot deep I got close enough to fire a shot with my muzzleloader. I took the shot and missed. The herd broke down the ridge back toward the road I had parked on before dawn. When they reached the flat area just short of the road, all kinds of shooting broke out. I saw one animal – still a couple hundred yards up on a ridge – go down in a flash of powdery snow and tumble to the bottom of the draw. It was ten minutes or more before I saw any hunters, and they were at the road, the main highway through these mountains. Only a rifle could have killed the elk on the ridge – the shot being at least 200 yards uphill, while muzzleloaders have a range of 100 yards or less on flat ground. It is illegal to use a high-powered rifle during muzzleloader season. As I crept down the ridge toward them, I noticed they were unloading their rifles and hurrying to put them away. Then they saw me and got in their truck and drove closer to the elk they had shot on the ridge. They had a 4-wheeler in the back of the truck. Then I noticed another dead elk laying just feet from the highway where their truck had been parked. They didn’t tag it. I waited near the elk at the bottom of the draw to see if they were going to head up and begin field dressing it. It is bad for the meat not to dress an animal as quickly as possible. By now it had been thirty minutes since the elk died and the sun had come out and it was getting warm. I watched them stand around their truck, talking. Eventually, I walked toward them and asked if both elk were theirs. They said yes. I was frustrated that I missed my shot and frustrated that I had spent a lot of time and energy pursuing these animals only to drive them toward these “hunters.” They seemed nervous when I approached them, as if they knew they had done something wrong.

This is not exactly the kind of “wrong” I spoke of earlier.

I think what bothered me most – aside from missing the best shot I’d ever had to get an elk – was the carelessness these two men showed about what they had done. It was as though the fun part – killing – was over, and they appeared to be indifferent about dressing the game and collecting the meat. I think part of it was their concern I would figure out they had broken the law and would turn them in. But even so, they had come by these animals through a combination of my hard work and tremendous luck, and did not seem to have any concept of appreciation for their good fortune. What makes killing most wrong is to have no concept that it is wrong.

Eurovan Obsession

After years of hankering after and coveting our neighbors' VW Eurovan Campers, Leslie and I finally put an end to all that unproductive desire and pulled the trigger on a lovely 2001 unit with about 64,000 miles on it.

Over the past four or five years I had learned a lot about these things, and waffled between going the old-school route with a chronically wimpy-motored Vanagon (especially the 4WD Syncro models), or a more modern, more powerful EVC. Various schools of thought compete with persuasive arguments about why their side is better: Vanagon campers are true Westfalias, engineered and built by Germans (as opposed to American company Winnebago, which made and installed the camper equipment in the Eurovans), with a better design, fit and finish. Vanagon campers have a better turning circle and more ground clearance, making them better suited to bad roads in faraway places (which really appealed to me). Vanagon campers have a much cooler "vibe" which almost seems to come from a kind of underdog ethos (a bizarre sensibility for a German product, regardless of the "volks" branding rhetoric) owing to their legendary lack of power, especially on hills. Eurovans, on the other hand, are roomier, have a much better power plant (especially the 2001-2003 models), making them better suited to road trips on the highway, especially in mountainous areas (which really appealed to Leslie). I think the deciding factor for me was that the Eurovan camper came with a 12,000 BTU heater, which was important for us since our favorite camping season is the fall when it can get very cold in the Idaho mountains. You can buy and install an aftermarket propane heater for the Vanagon camper, but it is expensive ($800) and a big job and puts out half the BTUs of the EVC heater.

With Leslie's input we decided on the EVC, which came in three engine sizes, the best of which was only offered from 2001 to 2003 (201 horsepower), when VW stopped making them for the U.S. market. I "watched" fifty or sixty of the 2001 through 2003 models on ebay during the past several years, and was amazed at how they seemed to keep their value. When new, I think these sold for somewhere around $40k, and you can still find several listed for near or even over that figure. About four years ago I bid $28,000 on a 2001 and just missed getting it. The one we bought cost $31,500, and we had to drive to Tahoe to get it. I won't go into the deal, but it was a bit intense. When we got it home and got it registered, we were very relieved.

Although generally in very good shape - especially the most important part: the engine - our EVC needed a bit of attention.

The first thing I had to do was replace the antenna, which got broken off when we took it through the car wash. Not the easiest job in the world, nor least expensive since you can't buy just the manually retractable aerial part but must get the whole antenna assembly. Since it's German, it is one engineered bugger. The first one I bought from GoWesty ($79) had the old farka (?) connector for the original Blaupunkt (?) stereo, but ourEVC had a newer Alpine stereo with a different connector. So I cut the farka connected off the new cable, cut the Alpine connector off the existing cable, and tried to solder the latter onto the former. Didn't work. The mini-coax antenna cable and the connector would not cooperate and I'm not really adept with a soldering iron despite my years of child labor in a Shanghai electronics factory making circuit boards for vibrating sex toys. So I did some research and found another connector on ebay. It didn't work, either (or rather, I screwed it up while trying to install it). Then I found a web site that had new, different OEM antenna cables that would hook right into the Alpine stereo. So I ordered that (from www.Europarts-sd.com, $15), and re-installed it in less than an hour.

While replacing the antenna, which you do through the engine compartment, I noticed the plastic faring over the battery was cracked nearly in half. VW wanted $80 for a new one, so I got some JB Weld ($6) and fixed that.

One of the fog lights was out, so I ordered some cool yellow ones on ebay ($2 plus $10 shipping!). Once I figured out how to dis-assemble the fog light (much easier than it looked, but took me a while to realize it), I replaced the one that didn't work, and it still didn't work. So I took the other one apart to see if it was wired up differently, and it wasn't. I replaced the working light with the new yellow one, then tested it and now it didn't work. I took it apart, reassembled it, shook it around, banged it, cursed it, sweet-talked it, then retested it. Fiat lux! So I went back to the other one and did the same thing, and low and behold, it worked, too. It was a thrill to drive it to work this morning in my Gangsta EVC. Yeah Boooooyyyyy!

Now onto the big stuff...

The fridge - a Norcold 3-way (LPG, 12VDC, 120VAC) - didn't work well on LPG, so I pulled it out and found a huge mess from what looked like an old boilover on the stove. I cleaned all that up, got rid of the stinky, stained vinyl flooring, waterproofed it, scraped some surface rust off the inside wall, primed & painted it with Rustoleum, and then added some compact foil-bubble-wrap insulation to the whole wall, cutting out the vent holes for the two fridge vents (the outsides of which I also replaced with new vent assemblies from GoWesty).

I could also smell an LPG leak somewhere when the propane was turned on, and noticed the burner box was missing screws and a gasket. So I took the whole thing apart, found some replacement parts on ebay (a new relighter assembly ($100!), electrode, interrupter, gasket, and thermocoupler), cleaned and re-installed it (which took about a week of evenings and a full weekend day). Now it works quite well on LPG, and gets very cold, unlike the old Dometic fridges in the Vanagons and Buses.

Underneath the van, the propane tank itself was really, really rusted and made me nervous, so I ordered a new one, and a new regulator from GoWesty (great selection and service, very high prices). My initial look under the camper intimidated me because of all the dirt, grease, minor rust, and hoses and components I didn't understand. I searched high and low on the Internet for blogs from people who had done this replacement but found none. I was pretty surprised by this because I'd done some modifications on motorcycles and had a choice of half a dozen step-by-step posts with photos by people who had done the same thing. Nothing on the EVC.

So I secured a weekend day to tackle this project, borrowed some jack stands and a floor jack from work, and crawled under the van. After a few hours I had the system dis-assembled. It wasn't easy because the 13/16th flare nuts on the three propane lines were impossible to reach with a wrench, but I managed somehow with a vise grip and crescent wrench to get them disconnected from the cross manifold. I knew that re-assembly would be impossible without a 13/16th crowfoot flare-nut wrench, which I found on ebay and ordered. The line coming off the regulator was saturated with oil, which made me feel better about ordering a new regulator. I took the two old rubber lines (from tank to regulator, and regulator to cross manifold) to Suburban Propane and they made up new ones with new brass fittings while I waited ($30). I got a new galvanized cross manifold and brass flare fittings at Home Depot, along with the yellow LPG teflon tape, and rebuilt the entire assembly.

This LPG thing was a time-consuming and big project for me. The new LPG tank I got from GoWesty (manufactured by Manchester, who made the original tank) had some paint chips down to bare metal which I was impelled to deal with because of the reason I was doing this in the first place: rust. So I masked all the ports and safety decals on it, sanded it down, primed and painted it with Rustoleum. Not quite satisfied, I sprayed the bottom of the tank with the rubberized under-coating. If this thing rusts I'll eat my hat. The bolts and mounting bracket for the LPG tank were also pretty badly rusted (the EVC originated in Pennsylvania before moving to California when she was two), so I prepped those areas and sprayed with Rustoleum and rubber undercoating, too.

The crowfoot wrench from ebay finally arrived so I could finalize the reassembly. It worked perfectly to tighten the three flare nuts on top of the cross mainfold. The thought of finding a leak when I tested this made me really focus on getting every fitting as tight as I could. I used the floor jack to prop up the newly prepped LPG tank (heavy!), and re-bolted it with new zinc-plated bolts and lock washers. I even added a little blue Loctite for extra security.

The last two things before I could test the system were the grounding strap and loom clamp that had to be reinstalled on the cross manifold. These took about two hours because of the cramped area they lived in. My forearms, hands and fingers still ache from these little devils.

Finally, the new system was ready to leak test. I hooked the tank line to the old tank, opened the valve, and then sprayed soapy water over each connection and looked for bubbles. Nothing. I got excited. Not satisfied, I then took out my cigarette lighter and fired it up and BLAMMMOOO! Just kidding. No leaks, no squeaks. Good to go.

Some other stuff we did or are doing to improve the EVC are:

• Lloyd rubber mats for the passenger area and front ($80 each from GoWesty)
• GoWesty Lift & Level Kit ($1800): comes with wider alloy wheels (made for Mercedes Benz), larger Michelin Hydro-edge tires, Bilstein shocks, a lift pad for the left side, and hardware. Basically restores the suspension to the level it's supposed to be, since the Winnebago camper conversion makes it sag and lean to the left. After installing it, the EVC handles and rides much, much better.
• Home-made awning: I bought material to make my own lightweight awning from Quest Outfitters (awesome online-store!), since the ones you can buy are a fortune. This will be a coated rip-stop nylon cover that will snap to the van over the sliding door, and be supported by shock-corded aluminum tent poles. Total cost about $110.
• Drink holders: the EVC console has a couple weird-shaped floor-level drink holders that don't accept anything but small drinks or cups, and reaching for them is kind of dangerous. I bought some OEM fold-up adjustable drink holders (one of which comes standard in the passenger area) to mount in the front - either on the doors or in a custom console I'm hoping to make (see below).
• Console: the EVC console is weak, and the cockpit is surprisingly under-designed and minimalist. There is only one 12V plug (the cigarette lighter); what do you do if you're using a GPS and also want to charge your phone or computer at the same time? Since there's no glove box (air bag and air conditioner components take that space in the 2001-2003 models), where do you put pens, flashlight, CDs, comic books, dog treats, gum, car wash coupons, laser pointers for screwing with small aircraft, etc? I bought a cheap console at Target to put between the front seats, but it gets in the way of our dogs tromping between the back and front while we drive, which we mustn't interfere with since they basically own us and we like the added danger of having dogs loose during drives on windy mountain roads at night. So we returned that. I saw a custom made console on the Yahoo EVC list and want to make my own with several 12V accessory outlets, an outside temperature gauge, a little lockable cabinet for wallet, etc., and probably mount the drink holders I got to it. Neither Leslie or I like clutter in the car, so this will be essential.
  
• Mattress pads: our EVC, we learned on our first over-nighter, was missing a couple of the foam mattress pads. I like to sleep up top by myself, away from our bed-hog dogs. Leslie likes to sleep below, away from me since I wake her up whenever she snores. So we went to the fabric store and bought some 2" high-density foam and some nice heavy-duty upholstery fabric with a nice design that will go well with the lovely gray interior and will make the extras we need.
• Bike rack: luckily for us, the EVC came with a nice new 2" tow hitch in which we can install a bike rack. After lots of research and reading reviews, I got the best bang for the buck, an Allen 545RR from Greenfish Adventure Sports (which, when I just looked up their URL discovered is on sale for $30 less than I paid two weeks ago! Aarrggh!). It folds down at the perfect angle to get out of the way of lifting the rear hatch on the EVC, and is very secure. At $100, this rack blows away the vastly overpriced Yakima and Thule racks.
• Seatback organizer: got a cheap little thing that ties to the passenger seat and gives you lots of pockets to put maps, gazeteers and other junk in.
• Propane tank cover: you wouldn't believe how many EVCs have lost these covers, made of thick, brittle plastic, probably from scraping them off on speed bumps. You can buy a replacement for $150! Incredible! Our EVC still had its cover, but it had a big crack in it that had been poorly repaired and broke in half when I took it off the first time. It's not super easy to put on and take off, which you must do to turn off or on the propane valve, which you must have off while driving. So I prepped it and did the JB Weld thing with it, and it's basically good as new, but with more character, featuring lots of scrapes and gashes from who knows what. While a pretty good protective device against the weather and road grime for the LPG equipment, I'm not satisfied with the usability of this cover. I bought some heavy PVC plastic and snaps and am hoping to make a cover out of that with a velcro flap that accesses the propane valve.

That's about it for now. I'll try to update this post with photos soon...