Carmen gets her first new toys!

So it's been a pretty slow February as it relates to working on the ambulance conversion.  Jeremy's been traveling to Buffalo off and on through the month, and I have been traveling quite a bit as well...last week to China and early this week to Mexico City.  The scary thing is that our schedules don't look much better as we hit March.  This will make the original goal of having Carmen done by July 4th, which seemed very attainable in January, a little more in question now.

The good news is that we made some progress this weekend.  On Friday night, I replaced the batteries (she has two), and then on Saturday, we started building the back entertainment wall.  The reality is that most of the hard work is coming up with the right design and dimensions.  Making the cuts and assembling the box is pretty straight forward once you have a design in mind.  Jeremy and I spent some time Saturday working on it and things should go together pretty quickly.

On Sunday, I went out and spent some time working on reconfiguring the cabinet that will house the two beverage refrigerators...the result was awesome!  The fridges fit perfectly and once the cabinets are refinished the look will be awesome.  See below for how the fridges look at this "rough" stage:

AWESOME!!

In addition to working this weekend, we did continue to have strong support and interest with three "ambulance showings"...two on Saturday and one on Sunday.  Universally, people seem to be really into the idea behind our ambulance conversion...if not only for the interest in coming at tailgating at what promises to be one of the best setups on campus next fall!

We continue to buy things for Carmen, but not quite at the blistering pace you would've seen in Jeremy's last post.  Truthfully we have most things we need for the back outside of building materials.  The purchases now are either small accessories or items that we need for the cab or exterior.  I did get a nice Valentine's gift from the family though...all kinds of Buckeye trinkets to adorn Carmen with.  I even got Buckeye fuzzy dice for the mirror...should add a nice touch.

Next on the list is finishing the rough construction...entertainment wall, doing all the wiring and electric reconfiguration.  After that it will be on the finish work in the back.  Once we're done with that, Carmen will find a new home at an indoors storage facility so we can start working on the cab and the exterior.  Somewhere in there we'll finish the mechanical work as well which isn't too much at this point.

Here are a couple more pictures of the back at this point.  The left wall, while open in the back now, will be totally closed off with the entertainment wall and an extension that will connect to the existing cabinets.

Stay tuned...the next post should show the back entertainment wall built!

Until next time...