Five Months

Vicky in her home for the next three months

We bought Vicky back in March and dropped her off in Hackensack, NJ, for what we thought would be a pretty quick process of cutting the service window, replacing her lights, brake system, water tanks, and reinforcing the axels and chassis as needed. We were honestly thinking we'd get her back sometime in mid- to late-June. But during the final walk through in June, we found a number of other things we wanted done and there were always last minute changes and back-and-forth. The total time she was in Hackensack: over five months.

Of course, during that time, there was still a lot to do: create our LLC, website, social media presence, logo, business cards, buy sinks and water pumps, and ice wells, and make decisions about pricing and look for storage and...

It's been a lot.

But we never felt like it was REAL until we actually had Vicky in our possession. And now we do.

Even picking her up wasn't simple and filled with starts and stops.

Three weeks ago, Ryan and his parents drove up to Hackensack to pick up Vicky. They got Ryan's dad truck, tow package installed, brought Vicky's license plate, the last installment of our payment, activated our insurance policy and they hit the road. After the final walk-through, they hooked Vicky up to the truck. Everything was perfect and they were ready to drive away.

But as they were pulling out one of the mechanics flagged them down. The rear right brake light and blinker weren't working. They pulled back into the garage. After investigating, the mechanic realized that when they were securing the interior skins, they must have nicked the wire that runs from the front end of the trailer where it connects to the tow package on the truck, to the rear lights. They were going to have to re-run that wire. We couldn't take Vicky.

To say that we were disappointed was an understatement. The following week, Ryan did the whole thing again. This time, though, I didn't have my hopes up. I was convinced that something was going to go wrong and we were going to be disappointed again. Even when he texted me that they were on the highway, I was still convinced that he was going to get in an accident or break down or the brakes were going to fail, or they weren't going to be able to get Vicky up Ryan's parents' extremely steep driveway. No matter how many updates Ryan sent me I wasn't at peace until I got the final update with a photo of Vicky happily parked at the top of his parents' driveway.

We spent the whole day yesterday with Vicky, drinking beers sitting on her wheel wells, taking measurements for flooring, arranging and rearranging the components until we were convinced that we'd picked the best configuration. Even our dog, Charlie, curled up in one of Vicky's corners and took a nap. Vicky is finally home.