I hope all of my TnTTT family members have been enjoying a wonderful Christmas season, and that it continues into a happy new year!
On the food front we had a nice quiet get together at Mom and Bill's new home. Mom made a fresh salad with sliced apples, Stilton, baby greens and red onions; a small rib roast crusted with herbs, salt and pepper; horseradish sauce; Brussel sprouts halved and roasted with fresh cranberries and a bit of maple syrup; small potatoes halved, parboiled and roasted with carrots and a bit of olive oil; and a nut cookie tort ala mode for dessert.
On x-mas day I cooked a beef tenderloin rubbed with a bit of brown sugar, S&P, and rosemary, wrapped in bacon; my seriously sharp mac and cheese two ways (straight up and with Chester's smoked BBQ corned beef brisket chopped in); fresh cranberry relish; horseradish sauce; Yvette's twice baked potatoes; and Graber olives, all served with a nice dry Pinot Noir. My BIL brought a luscious chocolate cake with ground espresso in both the frosting and cake layers, and some locally made multi-berry jam in the middle layer (de-lish), my SIL brought fudge, and Yvette had made all of her favorites (rum balls, peanut butter balls, oatmeal cookies with raisins and butterscotch chips, and spritz cookies).
The real news is that my Unimog/Jeep adventure friend Larry contacted me the other day. I think I mentioned previously, and you may recall that we lost the lid to his ARB/Dometic style 120/12v fridge/freezer on the way back from one of the Unimog events a couple of seasons ago. He had the cooler nestled into the back of his utility trailer, which seemed adequate, but apparently the wind caught the lid enough to rip it off and send it flying.
I had felt really bad, because I was following in a separate vehicle and Larry had assigned me the general duty of keeping an eye on the load, and I never saw it go. So I tried to impress upon him how easy it would be to make a new lid using the same composite skills I have developed working on the camper. We never seemed to prioritize this, and now that he has taken a job elsewhere, we don't see each other as much as we would like to.
These things go for something like $800 or $900 new, and even on the used market nice ones can be $300 to $400, if you can get to them first. His has a little surface rust around the cooling fins and the paint isn't very shiny anymore, so I think he got it for under $300, but it still works great (if it had a lid).
Anyway, he is a picker. He likes to do yard sales, pawn shops, Craig's List, etc. So apparently he found an identical fridge/freezer in better condition, with lid intact, and managed to negotiate a deal that he was comfortable with (mid $300 after shipping). Can you see where this is going yet? So as he's telling me all of this I'm thinking, great I'm going to offer him a couple hundred for his old one, build a lid for it, put a fresh coat of paint on it and be sitting pretty with my "new" 12v fridge. Larry is such a nice guy he wants to give it to me "because he will just be so relieved to have the whole deal behind him, and he is happy to have the upgrade". So now we are going back and forth about how he won't take any money, while I insist that I can't take advantage of our friendship that way; so I have decided that Yvette and I will treat him and his wife to dinner and a show. Win, win. He gets to give me the fridge for free, I get to do a nice thing in return for them, and we can get together socially instead of just saying, "we should get together sometime".
Long story short, I plan on using the fridge as a motivational jumping off point to get back into my build. Hopefully I will have an update later this week!
Also, I made out pretty well on my x-mas gift wish list, including a new jump/break cue and 2x2 cue stick case; and an Activeon CX Gold action camera with waterproof enclosure (basically a less expense knock off of a GoPro). The latter will insure that I get good video of the big rigging event, lowering the camper down out of the loft, as well as being able to capture (some of) the trail ride during the big Poet Creek trip.