When we removed the original wheelchair lift, it left a lot of holes in the floor. We sealed them up but we couldn't repair the damage to the vinyl flooring. So we pulled out the old vinyl and put down a new piece. It is darker than before, but it still looks pretty good. Here is a shot of the new flooring in bright sunlight plus another picture of the whole floor. [100]

Our Labor Day did not go as planned. We intended to visit Jerry's Dad who lives near Valdosta, GA but Hurricane Hermine had other plans. The eye of the storm passed directly over his Dad's house and they had 60 MPH winds and lots of localized flooding. Thankfully, we had been watching the weather forecast so we decided against going due to the path of the storm. The good part is nobody in the family suffered any damage related to the storm... the bad part is we won't get another chance to visit them until Thanksgiving.

We're making real progress on the van conversion do-over. The portable A/C has been installed in a new location for better airflow, all the electrical has been moved and everything has been rewired except for our little reading lights. Jerry's bed is complete aside from us not knowing if we want to paint it or leave it as is. There is lots of storage under his bed and you can reach it from inside our through the driver's side sliding door.

His bed is built in 3 independent sections. Section 1 holds the batteries and the converter and it is permanent. It does not block the door so no worries about that. Sections 2 and 3 are removable so we can have more room in the van when we are not camping. The sections are small enough that one person can lift them and we can put them in the garage. The hard part will be my bed because it requires a little ingenuity. It will have a main section that is 3 and 1/2 feet long and that part will be mounted to the floor. At the foot of this section will be a 3 foot pull out so the bed frame can extend to 6 feet so my mattress will fit. When we are not camping, my mattress will stand up against the wall over the fender well and the bed extension can be slid back in. This gives us full access through the passenger side sliding door. Pretty neat idea but a little complicated to build.

We have to get it built by mid October because we are taking a road trip to the Ark Encounter! We are very excited about this trip. On the way back, we will drive through Gatlinburg, TN so we can see the fall colors there. It will be awesome and we will take lots of pictures to share with you all. Anyway, below are some pictures of the van conversion progress. For more info about each step of the build, click here. [98]

We've added a new wall covering to the inside of the van. If you recall, we had paneling up before but it looked pretty bad. This time we went with knotty pine tongue and groove boards. We got them at Lowe's and they we $12 for a pack of 6 boards. They are pretty thin and very easy to handle. We measured and trimmed them then screwed them in place. It looks so much better than before! We still need to get the smaller places and the odd shaped places on the wall covered. This will take a little more effort. Below are some pictures of the progress at this point. [99]