HoWie

HAMster On Wheels

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HoWie’s story as part of our family starts on April 15, 2024, when we drove to Genesee Twp., MI and exchanged him for some money. Of course we’d studied his ad online for a couple of weeks, and had visited him the day before, but on April 15th he became ours. As we drove him home, right after we filled his gas tank, he dumped his coolant all over the parking lot. So we got him the few miles to a nearby dealership and dropped him off. Better to have him checked out right away, anyway, and have any fixing done that needed doing! (See We Bought A Bus!)

On Friday, April 19, HoWie came home sporting a new radiator. And that’s when we started getting to know each other. (See HoWie Comes Home.) The next day I shared some video (see Heeeeere’s HoWie!), and that brings us to the present. Future updates on All Things HoWie will be posted on this page, which can be accessed from the header at https://chia.owly.net/howie.

August 8, 2024 – HoWie is HOME!
For those who don’t know: A couple of months ago we bought a bus to use for travel. We don’t plan to camp in it exactly but if we want to stay overnight somewhere, for example, we will have a comfortable place to do it. In addition, since I am disabled and my husband has multiple physical issues, there are times we just need to STOP when we’re on the road and take a break. We’ll be able to bring our own food and will have the ability to cook as well. We took HoWie (Hamster on Wheels – my husband is a ham radio operator) to our son-in-law who outfitted him for us, and this is the result! We are so happy to have HoWie back home where he belongs! And my granddaughters are helping to show what their dad did, too.

July 7, 2024 – Today we visited our daughter Casey & son-in-law Bill & the grands, I took the opportunity to check on Howie’s progress! Bill has had some GREAT ideas that he is implementing! Until recently he has been working 2 jobs, plus we had an awful heat wave when I wouldn’t have expected him to be working in a bus, yet he is still making so much progress! He installed the futon to be quite high, at night we can fold my scwalker up under it while we sleep, and there is plenty of other storage storage! AND it rolls out to meet the same-height padded bench, to make a lovely bed for us! He also padded the top of the cabinet/arm rest up front and got that installed exactly where we wanted it. Remaining are the tables for the bird cages (with dog crates underneath) on one side, and a table with storage for our Ecoflow, bottled water, electric cooler, and other supplies on the other. There will be a bucket toilet that is half-walled in behind the driver’s seat for “just in case” use, and he is painting the roof white. And then HoWie can come home – and we can’t WAIT!!! Once we get him back Pete will be installing his ham radios, and J&E will be screening the windows; we will also be putting a gate across the front so the dogs can’t rush out the door when we open it, and I think Pete has a couple of other little things he wants to do, eventually – certainly before winter – I will hang insulated curtains over the windows and across the front…BUT he’s sure coming along and we are so pleased!

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May 20, 2024 – HoWie has a dirty story. I was driving him to Farwell on a hot and dry day. We have several miles of dirt roads to get out to the main road, and because it was hot I had all 9 of his windows open. Suddenly I saw a very tall, very thick tower of dust approaching me. I couldn’t close all of those windows. As a truck and trailer blew by, a thick layer of road dust and sand settled on everything within HoWie’s area. He is very, very dirty.
In a few days HoWie will be riding to our son-in-law Bill’s house so that Bill can work on him. We have more than enough to keep J&E busy and though we know they would do a beautiful job of getting HoWie ready to go, Bill would love the work and had offered quite a while ago to do it – before we even knew that our bus would be HoWie. Anyway, we will miss him; driving our SUV – a plain black vehicle like millions of others out there – just isn’t the same. We love our HoWie!

May 8, 2024 – Today we went to one of the larger towns where Pete had an appointment, and while there we went to a Habitat reStore to look for stuff for HoWie – and found a couple of GREAT pieces! In today’s vlog I show them, and talk some more about HoWie and our plans for him. Meanwhile, here are a few pictures from the reStore of the cool furniture piece we found for him! It will be bolted down and suitable for riding (seatbelts not required by law but if we can find any we will add them later); I talk about how we will be using this in the video linked above. (I will be covering it, as the “leather” isn’t in perfect shape.)

(We also got a cabinet that will be used for storage and an arm rest for the driver but I see I didn’t get any pictures of that – will take some later and post them here.)

May 2, 2024 – NEW POST! HoWie’s First Adventure

April 30, 2024

Now that Howie has been registered to us with the state and insured and so forth, we plan to take him for a spin tomorrow. Pete has his monthly infusion and the oncology clinic is about an hour away, so I’m going to drive Howie for the first time! A potential issue, however, is that Howie has no seats. So rather than just leave Pete to roll around on the floor (???) he and Jared did a little project today. VERY temporary until we get another seat and get it installed properly. But this way Pete can also lay back and get a nap should he need one. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, so here are 4,000 words worth:

(Click on the photos to bring up the larger images.)