Yes dear, there is shrinkage......

You will recall a few blog posts ago that I acquired, through a fellow Classic Newell owner, a hundred feet (or so) of his just removed rubber trim to be used to replace the 33 year old shrunken rubber trim on my Newell Classic.  Depending on how long some of the rubber strips were the shrinkage was quite noticeable as you can see in the picture below.  This particular piece had shrunk about 4-5 inches on each end.

Just after I picked up the salvaged trim I coiled it all up so it would fit in the back of the VW, and this is what it looked like just before it was stowed for our trip back to the Verde Valley a few days ago.

This stuff is quite old, and I needed to uncoil it and lay it in the sun to soften up again so I could work with it.....after a couple of hours in the sun it was like limp spaghetti!

The sun did its job, and then I began mine.  Over the course of 6 hours I was able to replace all the rubber trim on the passenger side of the coach and it looks much better.  I know many people did not notice the 'shrinkage', but I did......now she looks more like her original self.

  Started on one of the short corner pieces

There wasn't enough of the salvaged trim to fill in every spot, so I re-purposed some of the pieces I removed by cutting and fitting them into the shorter runs, and by doing that I will have enough to remove all evidence of prior shrinkage.

No shrinkage here.....

That was pretty much my day......well, let me back up a tad.....we decided we will stay here at the Krazy K RV Park until the 14th.......Marla cut us a very good rate......basically she extended our Passport America discount for 10 days......the website says it is only good for 2 days, but Marla is a very accommodating gal, and we appreciate her generosity a lot.  On the 14th we will head back to the NFS land a few miles up the road to spend another week before heading north to Lake Powell to spend some more time in one of our favorite boondocking sites.  One of our reasons for staying where we are a couple more weeks is to give the weather time to warm up a little.....those overnight temps in the mid 20's can be draining on the batteries.

Around 5:30 I fired up the Sea-B-Que in preparation for a filet mignon TLE had purchased the day before.  TLE prepared mashed potatoes, more spinach mixed in with the leftover rice concoction from the night before, an broccoli.  We chased the food with some wonderful Pino Noir.

While we were eating we began talking about our friends Bob and Karen (college buds) who live near Coupeville, WA on Whidbey Island.  Our habit has been to see them pretty much every year, but we missed them in 2014.  They have both been on my mind lately so we decided to call them to see how they were doing.....as it turns out Karen was out of town, but we talked with Bob for close to an hour.  We will be stopping by to see them on our way to Spokane in October.....YAY!!

The Newell 'shoe horned' into Bob and Karen's backyard back in 2008.

For the night cap we watched the season finale of 'Gold Rush', and the second installment of this season's 'Amazing Race'.

Thanks for stopping by!