Onward Molly!

Chores. They define us. They pursue us. They tackle us and throw us to the ground. At the beginning of this recently-deceased summer I had a longish list of them. Chores. It was overwhelming. Especially when added to the fact I was still working on a new business startup (www.hardtimesdistillery.com). Gasp. You mean I still gotta paint the house and....and everything else?! At least it wasn't the whole house, only the west-facing side. But, still. And the garden...the yard. The boat... Had to get rid of that. Had to rebuild the trailer, and I'd been promising the boyos a treehouse forever...what else?

Oh, yeah. I had to move Molly.

It's been two years since she hit the road; what would it be like to drive her again? Would she even make it the eight miles that separated her from her new home at Hard Times in Monroe? It was time to find out. Before that damned walnut tree she was parked beneath started to shed.

It took a while to get her ready. First I had to find an RV battery I could afford. Check. Then I had to finish putting back together the decidedly un-together dash (this would require enlarging the old radio/tape player slot to accommodate the new/used Blaupunkt CD/radio I found on CL). Check. Stainless steel screws. Check. Fuses. Check. Bolt in a driver's seat. Check. Spruce the place up a little. Check. Turn key--

But wait.

What if the transmission decided to fail? Or the tires went flat or fell off? Or the fumes killed me before we got to Monroe?

Only one way to find out.

I turned the key. Molly fired right up. She smoked a little (a lot), and none of the lights worked, and the power steering squalled, and the speedo flapped up and down like a moth on benzedrine, and the brake pedal 's action redefined the meaning of sloppy--but so what; we got there (with Jenna trailing behind just in case, and about eighteen various cars and trucks trailing behind her...), didn't we?

Here we go...

(Yes, I do have the hatch cover.)
She's just different looking. Not boxy like what came in the 80s. She has a dreamy Airstreamy quality. I can't wait to paint her and add an expanded metal deck on top. Oh, and of course finish the interior. And have her engine looked at. Seriously looked at (check compression, look for leaks, replace all hoses and belts). I've given myself a year to finish her. The clock is ticking.


And so's this little guy's. He and his brother are two VERY important ticking reasons for finishing Molly. N'est-pas?

Next up: more of Molly in Monroe...