Wedding Veils and Converted Trucks

 Dean  (the husband)
Shalane  (the wife  :O)

Wedding veils and converted trucks, I wonder how many people that follow this blog think, “Where in the world do they get these ideas?”  I can honestly say that I don’t know.  It seems as if they come to us by, as Nike would say, “Just Doing It.”  

Let me explain, as we formulated what we would need to convert our truck into a mini-camper, it occurred to us that there would be times that it would be too hot to sleep comfortably in the enclosed shell of the truck.  

Unfortunately, the windows on our shell don’t open, so there's no cross breeze.  That's on the wish list for our next truck.  We started going to different stores to see if we could find some mosquito netting that would work as a screen door for the back-end of the truck.  My wife and I had just come out of yet another camping supply store, and we were walking back to the car.  We actually found something in that store that would work perfectly, but it was over $50, which I just thought was silly for a piece of netting.  On the long walk to the car, down the plaza’s sidewalk, we were passing one store after another when suddenly, without warning, my wife stopped dead  in her tracks, turned and walked into a fabric store.  Now, I know many of the men out there reading this right now know exactly what I was thinking,  “Why do we have to go to a fabric store?”  I don’t even like to shop for the things that I do need, why would she ever think I would want to go into a massive craft store.  Now, to be honest,  there are times when I am amazed at her thinking skills, and I realize that she is more than just a pretty face.   What follows is a perfect example of this very thing.  It happens so often that I am surprised that he still gets amazed.  :O) 

She walked back to the fabric section, and started looking thru the material for what appeared to be the makings of a wedding veil.  I know that one of her favorite shows on TV right now is called, “Say Yes to the Dress.”  I was thinking to myself, “Why is she even  looking at this, neither of our daughters is even engaged.”   Though we’re waiting for the good news any day now!  Then she explained that the stuff used to make wedding veils would be perfect to keep the bugs out.  Genius!  As they say, “necessity is the mother of invention,”  so we bought four yards of it.  The total cost was around $10.  I don’t know why he questions my genius. :O)

Last night, even in the mountains it was a little too warm to keep us from having  a good night’s sleep.  We knew that it was time to bring out the wedding veil/mosquito netting.  The only question that remained was how to get it to drape across the back.  The answer is the greatest thing since duct tape…..bungee cords!  Dean has become obsessed with bungee cords.  I wasn’t sure that it would work, but he uses them every chance he gets just so he can stand back and admire his ingenuity.  As you can see from the picture, we used the bungees across the top corners of the fabric to hold it in place.  The bottom of the “veil” was anchored down by a couple heavier objects we have in the bed of the truck.  It worked to perfection!  I don’t know why I question his genius. ;O)

 
If there is one thing that we have learned in this conversion process, it is that “great ideas” come from just starting the process.  One by one, we have learned to invent new ways of putting it all together.  I know that a lot of the people that follow our blog have discovered the same sort of things in their camping adventures.  We would love to hear from you!  As I mentioned in a previous blog, we are in the process of putting together an eBook-like collection of the things that we have learned.   We would welcome your advice and/or ideas so that we can pass it on to others.   Tomorrow, we’ll tell you how to take a wedding DRESS and turn it into a new battery.  Nah, just trickin’, but until then, Happy Trails!