First Journey with Maggie

After many months of fixing up Maggie from our home in Stromness, Orkney, we are ready to hit the road.  With all that work we still have so much more work to do.  We have a floor to stand on and insulation in the walls.  Most of the wood is on the walls but not all.  My old kitchen cabinet is bolted to the wall.  We cut a hole in an old broken table for a sink and placed 2 containers underneath it.  One with clean water to be pumped up to the sink by the foot pump and the second empty to receive the dirty water.

We have one lonely window, that was a gift, installed into the back wall.  Without this window the truck would not be able to legally be considered a motorhome.  Bigger windows for the sides will need to wait.

My first attempt to create wooden benches off the metal frame fails miserably so most of our clothes end up in boxes under a stack of plywood waiting for the second attempt.  We figure we can best finish things along the way as we are bound to get new ideas.

As Maggie seems to want to prove that she is plenty big enough for the task she woos one extra passenger aboard in addition to the family.  We are 7+1.  We are Jones family and Donald.

Stromness has been a wonderful home for us during the last few years.  It is so hard to leave.

Goodbye Pottery business. Goodbye mystical treeless landscape.  Goodbye Arts Cooperative.  Goodbye cobblestone street.  Goodbye wild winds.  Goodbye beautiful flat.  Goodbye happy chandelier.  Goodbye stone circle.

Mostly, tearfully, goodbye lovely friends. Goodbye wild and crazy friends. You have changed us forever and will always be found in our hearts.  I hope our paths will cross again someday.