WE INTERRUPT YOUR REGULARLY SCHEDULED PROGRAMMING FOR THIS IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENT!
No, we didn’t win the Euro Lotto (at €104 mil. last I saw), the drawing hasn’t happened yet (as far as I know) and one very important aspect of that potential result is missing, we haven’t bought any tickets. So what might it be? Come on, . . . you know. What have we been agonizing over ever since we decided we were going to move to Europe? Yes! Beast’s replacement.
So earlier this week we received an email (it’s no longer e-mail, by the way, so says Websters) from Kristian about our EX 420. “Why not from Karsten, your usual bimobil contact?” you might be wondering. Well, Karsten, like bimobil, is German. And in Germany, they believe that a vacation is, in fact, a vacation. Now, we’ve known Karsten since about the first week he started working at bimobil, when he contacted us to let us know he’s taken over Simon’s job (Simon told us he was leaving when we signed the paperwork.). Ever since then we’ve either been in touch with him, watched him on YouTube or followed bimobil at various trade fairs that we know Karsten was involved with. Given that it’s been on-going the whole year, we weren’t really surprise to find out that “Karsten is on vacation until the end of December.” Count it . . . yes, a 6-week vacation. That’s what the rest of the normal civilized world means when they say “vacation,” not this 1-week or 2-week thing that Americans go on, while still doing work during vacation at Disneyland (or New York, or Bryce Canyon). (Oh, by the way, Portugal just passed a law making it illegal for your boss to text or call you after working hours. Think about that for a moment . . . .).
Anyway, Kristian is a production manager and is covering for Karsten for the time being. Since they received our vehicle recently (see the post), they had a production team meeting about building our rig. And as is the case in these situations, they had a few questions. And since Kristian doesn’t speak excellent English like Karsten does (who are we to complain, our German isn’t squat!) we agreed to try and answer them via email (and Google translate).
So we received an e-mail with a couple of questions/issues that had arisen, as well as a couple of production drawing they are going to base the build on.
The first question involved the air vent/fan in the bathroom. Originally we had a pop-up window over the shower. After thinking about it a bit, we asked them to put in a FanTastic Fan instead (like we have in the kitchen area). After some discussion, we moved over to a MaxxFan (for several reasons, and for both the bathroom and kitchen) and that was where things stood until the email. Apparently the MaxxFan is a bit bigger than the FanTastic Fan and the first question was whether there was a problem with them moving the fan from directly over the shower to over the bathroom. Our response . . . not a problem.
The second question involved a shoe-box access we had originally requested. Our goal was to be able to grab shoes as we were entering the vehicle, so we asked if they could build a box with an access door in the stairwell into the living cabin. (I would note that until we mentioned that possibility to Simon in January of 2020, we had never seen that in a bimobil and . . . since then, we’ve seen it in a few different builds. Ann is a genius . . . it was her idea!). Kristian wasn’t sure whether we wanted the normal, in-closet, lift up flap for a shoebox, for for a side door access from the steps area. We said the steps!
The third question concerned the means of securing our camera bags while driving around. We’d discussed a couple of solutions with bimobil and settled on putting some airline-track inside the lower bunk in the rear so we can strap our camera bags to the (in)side of the vehicle while we’re moving. It’s a solution that worked for Beast and should work here. Kristian wasn’t sure what the description in the work order meant (he was not involved in the discussions with Karsten) so we described our idea with him. While preparing a response, I came up with a potentially different solution that depended on the height of the bunk. We’re waiting on a response from him.
The last question concerned something Karsten had suggested that we could only offer a general response. We rarely used our awning with Beast, so we didn’t want to pay several grand for an awning (especially given that the whole side of the cabin opens by the eating area so we can always open up the vehicle if we want to), but the thought of having the option for an awning was enticing. Karsten suggested we put awning track on both sides of the vehicle. All we need to do is find a good awning fabric and the right sliders and slip it in when we’re stationary for quite awhile (like when we’re encamped in Iceland for a couple of days to do laundry and want to take a break from hopping from one place or another - we have plans!).
Kristian wanted us to draw on the plans where we wanted the track to be. How the hell would we know? It was Karsten’s idea! Thank goodness I have a full version of Adobe Acrobat and I could draw a few lines, even if on vacation. Our comments clearly stated “NOT DRAWN TO SCALE”. We then explained that the track should be approximately 2.5 meters long (with the understanding that on the passenger side of the vehicle it would have to be segmented [we will not be using the cabin opening and an awning at the same time]) because our internet searches showed that most tarps are between 2 meters and 2.4 meters wide. Plus we said it should be about arms-length or a bit taller (we will have a step-stool with us), whatever that height is. I also told them how tall I was (in meters) in case that made any difference at all. I mentioned that Karsten said several newer builds have used that awning solution, so they should rely on that as a guide (or call Karsten on his vacation to ask him . . . I wonder if Germany has the same law as Portugal has . . . .).
So on the day we moved AirBNBs from Funchal to Seixal, Ann and I spent the evening answering Kristian’s questions and supplying him with images and web-links to information that should help bimobil (don’t ask me why, but the company uses a lower case “b” in their name) do the build exactly as we want.
Hopefully, it won’t be long before the next update. Because, as we explained to Kristian, right now there is nothing more important in our lives than the bimobil. The wait continues . . . . until then we return you to your regularly scheduled programming.