Installation of the Lift and Travel

Sunday night we had positioned ourselves a little over an hour from Life Essentials, the place we are having the lift installed.  Skruffy and I woke up early....err, with the time change I guess we woke up at a normal time, bright-eyed and busy tailed......hey Skruffy, you are suppose to be the navigator...you cannot navigate with your eyes shut!

 No, I did not post the same picture twice...these pictures are actually hours apart.  One in the morning, one if the afternoon.  Thank goodness I got a GPS, because Skruffy isn't cutting the mustard as a "guide dog".

We got to Life Essentials around 8:30, which is 7:30 for you Central Time Zone folks (and for my brain).  It took four hours to install, and here are just a few pictures of the action.

The guys from Life Essentials were great.  They knew this was our "home on wheels" and they respected it as such.  They first installed a metal frame to hold the lift.  This required four holes drilled through the motor home, but little to no mess in doing so.  First they had to remove a handle which had a light in it.  They covered the hole with a metal plate which is hidden by the lift, and the wire for the light is right behind the plate if we ever need it again.  They then installed the lift, ran some wire from the batteries which is way in the back (did not show pictures of that since all you would see are two butts hanging out from under the motor home), and bingo, the lift was ready for a test drive.  The last picture shows how high it will get.  There is a cover which came with the motor home, and with a press of a button, it covers the wheel well (see one of Skruffy's pictures above and you can see the cover over the stairs by the door.)  The handle, which includes a up and down control, and the metal stand are easily removed and stored during travel.  If the door was not so close to the wheel, the stand would actually rotate under the motor home for travel, but with our set-up, that just won't work.  But I was amazed at how light, yet sturdy, the stand is.

Of course, someone had to supervise the installation, and with all that sleep, she was up for this job (along with barking at the 3-4 dogs and the many chickens running around all the time.)

Well, we got on the road around 1:00 pm eastern time, and made it to within 60 miles of Chattanooga, Tennessee.  Tomorrow, with a little luck, I will be in Palm Harbor, just in time because Marcia will be out of Re-hab Tuesday, and she will need me...I mean, she will need my help.  :)

And I figured out what put Skruffy to sleep....she was watching these things go around and around and around and around....There were many of these up in the wind-swept area of Northern Indiana.