The Exorcism of Lucifer

You could say it is how Hubby spent his spring break, three days of extensive auto repair on Lucifer aka The Beast. Though, the mechanic/friend helping him thinks it should now be called Patches. One way or the other, they definitely removed some demons from the vehicle.

We have interior panels on all of the doors, no holes where the air bags are supposed to be, a functioning horn (I know, who removes the horn), windshield washer fluid (completely new system), two side mirrors that you can see out of, and both windows go up and down.

They even took our the old bucket seat and floor pan (welded together they were), put in a new floor pan with supports, and a bench seat. Some day we may want to figure seatbelts, but a least the passengers wont fall through the floor.

Look at that lovely door and sanding job, we still need to paint. We did discover that much of the "cactus coating" or "demon paint" isn't very attached to the vehicle. One of these days I'll take a paint scraper to the coating and see what we get.

They even got the new tailgate on. Now we have a tailgate with a spare tire mount, extra brake light, and all the interior structure that a door should have.

On top of all that he's got a new windshield, more new shocks, and another new power steering pump (this one doesn't seem to leak, novel concept). They even replaced the clutch and adjusted the emergency brake. Oh yes, and the knee bashing/head banging shelf was removed off of the backend. Now we just need some paint, maybe a new engine, and a little more tuning and tweaking.

After all that it is less bouncy, has power steering, and runs quieter. It might become a real vehicle yet. Maybe I should call it Pinocchio now. Hubby says is Frankentracker (not Su(zuki)(Tra)cker, or Sucker).

Adventures in Vacationing

I went from working to playing. This doesn't work well for catching things up at home or with the business, but is has been a fun break. The new website is progressing along slowly and we are having strong March sales, which is wonderful. So we went around town, saw some museums, and checked out a lot of shops. We found Hubby a new favorite shop, flavored Olive Oils and Balsamic Vinegar. He was ever so excited, dinner that night was extra tasting due to his excitement.

Today we went for a drive in the surrounding areas. We went out to Sedona. It was pretty, but we saw more tourists than anything else. Traffic was just madness.

We managed to see some old ruins at Montezuma Well and Montezuma Castle. The well was pretty cool and we got to learn about some traditional plant uses. Got to love the plant stuff, especially when they are facts that haven't stuck in my head before. We didn't spend much time at the Castle, as they were closing the gate, but the ranger was nice to let us run in, take a picture, and then get out. 

One of the highlights was discovering Jerome. We hadn't heard much about it. We came out of the canyon onto the small city streets and quickly realized that Prescott isn't the only town built in the hills. We decided that driving a car around town is just not the way to do things. Some day we'll have to go back and check out the shops, but it was just a crazy, little, old town. And yes, some of the buildings have fallen off the mountainside. 

So now we are home and tomorrow we return to reality. It isn't much fun. But we did pick up a little Agave friend to keep our other plants company. So, we'll find a way to make it through all the work.