Cap hit the last straw.

So that package did arrive before the weekend, USPS got its head out of its derrière in time.  It included a workbench upgrade.

The rest of the parts for the cap.

And also a vacuum sealer that I wanted to play with.  Historically I have had a lot of trouble freezing anything for more than a couple of months, thought this might help.

Lastly my new shoes.  That is my old one on top, where the outsole and insole are almost the same thing now, and are almost extinct.  

I worked from home on Friday since my calendar was literally wall to wall meetings.  I have a new member in my wildlife club.  I am not sure what kind of bird it is, it looks like either a Red-Tailed Hawk or a Coopers Hawk, but I am not familiar enough to differentiate them.

Debbie rolled through Friday afternoon and evening, so I didn't do much else.  My yard is under water again though.  

I finally got far enough in the food planning to start packing it though.  Here are all the lunches (in the tote, and obviously not including the frozen parts).

Saturday was still wet and soggy, so I didn't do much before the afternoon.  I did go out and work out the details for the modifications to the  trailer I am going to make for Matt.  It shouldn't be too bad, I might try to do it during the week.  

I noticed that there were a bunch of bees out by the cap when I went out, so I went to battle with them.  I couldn't find a nest, but I direct hit three of them, hit a fourth but he flew away, though it used most of my can of spray.  I didn't get stung though, so I will call it a win.  

I also tried out the vacuum sealer.  The initial test was a failure.  

Despite me padding the moisture out, there was still too much left.  I saw online some people saying you have to freeze what you want to seal before sealing it, which would work fine for meats, though perhaps not for the veggies I don't want frozen.  We shall see though.  

After that, I figured most of the bee goo would have evaporated off the cap and went back to it.  I got the old handle which had completely seized up out.  I unfortunately destroyed every piece of it getting it out, including the piece that rotates the arms to close it.  

I went to install the new handle, and discovered that my cap isn't standard.  I had to drill out the holes a bit more to get it to fit.  

Unfortunately though, the screws on the inside are too small to actually hold it.  Ugh.  I will see if I can match them up and get some washers today at work.  

I also installed the new lifters.  Turns out that I ordered the wrong size (this one at least is my fault), I got 14" ones when I should have gotten 16" ones.  It just means that the cap doesn't open up, it only goes to horizontal.  Annoying, but not a problem.  

Then I went to close it.  And then there were a few pops, and now there are a lot fewer rivets holding the back window on.  I didn't have any intention of rebuilding the back window as well, at least not before this trip, but now I need to do something.

Another view of what it did.

I am at the point where I think I might cut this cap up into little tiny pieces and send it to the dump air freight off the front of my boot..  I have spent a ton of time on it, but in terms of cost, I have very little in it, still less than a hundred bucks.  The only problem is that my trip is less than a month.  So with that in mind I see a couple of paths forward:

1. Be angry and annoyed, but fix this cap.  Build a new back window for it.  There can't be that much more that goes wrong, most of it is rebuilt.  This raises big time before the trip questions, and it means pouring more time and money into something that I might scrap anyways.
2. I limp this cap through, spend no more money on it, and don't assume it will survive and be water tight.  Rip the window off completely on the road if it is going to be a problem.  
3. Forget the cap, buy a cheapo tonneau cover (you can get cheap roll up ones on Amazon for ~$150-175).
4. Say screw it, and run with no cap.

Outside of option 1, which incurs the cost of rebuilding the back window, none of the other options allow me to use my current fridge.  This means I will be buying another portable one (so I have a fridge and a freezer).  I am leaning towards option 2 at the moment.  I had already bought some JB weld to try to fix the e-bike, so try to chemical weld this POS back together, take off the right lifter to minimize the stress on the frame, and I still have a leftover latch kit from when I rebuilt the cap on the Tundra to be able to latch this one closed (they came in a 6 pack and I only needed 4 sets).  I will just put gorilla tape on the holes in the roof instead of buying more fiberglass.  I briefly considered option 3, since I could use it in the future as well, but I can't find one that isn't black and will bake whatever is in the back.  I am tempted to go with option 4, but there is a lot of risk with that one; come back from a hike to find all my food and stuff missing, or find a bear in the back of my truck.  

I had spent the rest of the evening on Saturday researching the options.  Sunday I was still undecided, so I went for a walk around Otter Brook to deliberate.  The water levels were predictably much higher than my last visit.

I mostly worked on trip stuff when I got back.  I ran a test of my cooler on my Jackery, to see how it compared to the stand up fridge.  I ran it for ~26-27 hours, set to 5F, and it used 26% of the battery, so it should be able to run 2 of them no problem for 2 days, which given that my portable 12V is one of the least efficient in the 12V camper world, surprised me a little.  My stand up fridge is a lot worse than I thought, either that or the inverter in the Jackery is really awful, or both (most likely both).  This gives me more freezer space to work with (good), and substantially less refrigerator space (meh, I don't use most of it anyways).  I did take a quick look at possibly adding more charging capability to it, which I might try.

I also tried cooking the same way I plan to on the trip.  I only intend to have a microwave available (I am not bringing my toaster oven or anything this time).  So I tried to make a hamburger helper in the microwave.  It doesn't look too appetizing, but it tasted okay;  it was kind of runny.  It took a lot longer to cook (it takes about 15-20 minutes stovetop, but took 25 minutes in the microwave).  So the idea works at least, but I might cut the water.

I did get restless in the afternoon, and decided to try changing the fluids in the excavator.  It didn't go well.  I realized as I was peering in, I had no idea where things were or how to do it.  I found something that looked like the drain on the motor in a really awful spot guaranteed to make a huge mess, but never found the drain for the hydraulic fluid.  I might need a pump or something to change the hydraulic fluid, and just pump it out the top.  They have cheap ones at Harbor Freight I might snag.

I took Monday off as well, since it was originally supposed to be a nice day.  Then this happened.  So I relaxed, did a bit more meal prepping, and made a shopping list, since Monday is my shopping day.  Conveniently Dollar Tree and Market Basket didn't have the stuff I was looking for, but I still at least got a lot of it.  It was an expensive shopping week, $250 roughly, compared a normal $150.  It may not have been a highly productive day, but it was nice.

I need to make a firm decision on the cap.  I am currently leaning towards limping it through the trip, and chopping it up when I get back and chucking it, or at least postponing the decision until then.  Maybe make it a winter project (as if an outdoor winter project will actually get done...).  

Current to-do:

• Design deck
• Build deck
• Build armoire.
• Install whole house filter.
• Refurb cap
• Access panel upgrades in master closet
• Back yard drainage.
• Insulate the water lines
• Take scrap metal to Buffum.  Clean up trash.
• Close up tiny home.  Seal up plumbing.
• Storm doors