Selcouth

Listening to: "Pompeii" by Bastille



Fall, that dripping predecessor to Winter, has arrived in full force here in Western Washington.

Today, whilst waiting out the rain indoors, wrapped in a blanket with cup of tea, I stumbled upon a list of uncommon English words. One of the words that caught my fancy was 'selcouth'.

"Selcouth" adj.
Definition: "Rarely known; unusual; strange; marvelous."

 I think it captures the essence of life really, and the spirit of this blog. We are meant to pursue and experience the unknown, the strange, and the marvelous with open arms. 

We are now 12 days away from our own undoubtedly selcouth experience, and things are starting to come together! The van has had all the necessary bits added on and is fully functional. All systems are very nearly go! There is one last repair needed to fix a leaky windshield and make sure Charlie is fully water tight. We will head to my parents' house on Thanksgiving to stuff ourselves one last time, and bid loved ones adieu, then we will be leaving first thing in the morning, towards warmer climes and great adventure. 

Preparing the Majestic Land Yacht for Liftoff

As Dave and I scramble to put the last of the details in order on Charlie the Wondervan, it seems as though it's all coming together. New additions include a sturdier table, new alternator, 3" memory foam mattress topper, endless amounts of electrical tinkering by Dave, and a hand-made dog bed and jacket liner for our Doberman, Jax.

We did a trial run to test out how the van will handle cold weather with all of us inside of it. In true Washington style, it absolutely poured rain the entire 80 miles of freeway to my parents' house. When preparing for the trip, we laughed and shared confident high-fives, visualizing ourselves sitting warm and dry in the cockpit of our faithful steed, while the elements huffed and puffed and did their worst. The elements definitely fulfilled their part, slinging wet strands of drooling rain down on us and smacking us sideways with big gusts of wind. Instead of laughing, we spent most of the drive frantically trying to control a catastrophic leak that appeared out of nowhere along the entire bottom seal of the windshield.

"Charlie's incontinent!" I wailed at Dave, while sopping up the water that was dripping into the vents and dash.
"Well, he is an old man." said Dave with a shrug, as he squinted through the fog of condensation on the windshield.

We made it safely to my parents' house and drowned our sorrows (pardon the pun) in steak and potatoes and the warmth of family. We spent the night camped in the driveway. The heater works amazingly well, on the high setting it got the interior of the van up to a comfortable T-Shirt temperature in about 5 minutes. Unfortunately we were concerned about safety, so we didn't leave it running while we slept, and the outside temperature quickly fell to 37 degrees Farenheit. Dave and I were toasty in our bed, but Jax the Dog was freezing cold on the floor.  He woke us up at 2AM with pathetic wide eyes, whimpering and shivering, and was summarily integrated into our cozy little bed system. After that we all slept soundly, and in the morning headed out to The Calico Cupboard for breakfast.


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