Our day started with our usual morning routine.  We were out of Linda’s homemade granola, so she made Quaker brand Raisins, Dates, and Walnuts instant oatmeal.  This has long been my favorite oatmeal and I still like the taste and texture.

After breakfast we removed the containers of water from the bus fridge, rolled it out of the alcove, and unplugged it.  We then moved it farther up into the coach, behind the front passenger seat, so I could work in the alcove and on the floor.  We then got the Shop Vac up into the coach.

Linda left around 9:30 AM to meet Diane at Kensington Metropark.  They decided they want to get together and walk once a week and the Metropark, which is about half way between their houses, has as an extensive trail system.

While Linda was away I went to the FedEx Office store in Brighton and got a copy of the 11″ x 17″ sheet with the drawings of the seat and back cushions for the built-in sofa.  I stopped at the Shell station and filled the tank as we would be leaving very early in the morning for Indiana.

Back at the house I vacuumed up as much loose debris as I could inside the coach.  After checking my pantry drawings I decided I could stack at least two pieces of 3/4″ plywood, one atop the other, to get the base of the refrigerator high enough to allow the back to go over the bundle of wires that run along the junction of the floor and back wall without interfering with the pull-out pantry.  This will allow the refrigerator to go into the alcove far enough that we can open the kitchen cabinet drawers under the counter to the left of the sink.

Linda got back around 12:30 PM.  After lunch we were going to mask off the inside of the coach with painter’s plastic and tape.  Our goal was to upkeep the dust that resulted from sanding the thinset and mastic out of cabinets and off of counters and woodwork.  We planned to run the Shop Vac while sanding but knew, a priori, that it won’t suck up all of the dust.

After considering what would be involved in masking off the inside of the coach we decided instead to wrap the refrigerator in plastic to protect it and then tried using the belt sander on the residual thin-set from the old ceramic tiles.  The old aluminum oxide belts failed fairly quickly, which was discouraging, but the sanding did generate a lot of airborne dust, which was encouraging as it indicated the sanding was actually removing material.  Our Craftsman belt sander has a built-in dust collection bag and Linda was running the vacuum so both of those things helped.

Late afternoon we went to Lowe’s and bought a 4′ x 8′ sheet of 3/4″ (nominal) maple veneered plywood and a 4′ x 8′ sheet of 1/4″ SurePly underlayment plywood.  We also got two #36 (very coarse) 4″ x 24″ ceramic particle sanding belts and a box of 200 3/4″ self-drilling screws.

Back home we unloaded everything and I then called Josh to confirm that he could still meet us at the Martin’s supermarket in Elkhart in the morning.  I also called Butch to remind him that we were still coming down.  The rest of the evening is lost to me, as I did not record our activities soon enough, but they probably involved e-mails, computer updates, and iPads.