Groundhog Day

This weekend Victoria was successfully hoisted onto the dolly, thanks to the efforts of my dad and Harry. Once we had her on the structure, the van seemed awfully high. "I wonder if it'll clear the door," I said rhetorically. "It depends how fast we push it," Harry replied. Alas, he measured the door and, as I suspected, we had a good 6 inches clearance.

For readers outside North America, Groundhog Day is an annual holiday celebrated in early February in the United States and Canada. According to folklore, if a groundhog emerging from its burrow on this day fails to see its shadow, it will leave the burrow, signifying that winter will soon end. If on the other hand, the groundhog sees its shadow, the groundhog will supposedly retreat into its burrow, and winter will continue for six more weeks.

Similarly, if a J Van leaves a barn and sees sunshine, restoration will continue. If it's cloudy, on the other hand, it'll be deferred until spring. Thus when we pushed Victoria outside earlier today after three months in the barn, I found it really thrilling. When she entered the barn, she was filled with mahogany paneling and other crap. Now she was nearly disassembled. My priorities now are find replacement parts, removing a cleaning the tar off the roof, removing the suspension and steering, assembling my new sandblaster, and tapping out a few captive nuts for whom I had to remove the bolt heads from, leaving the rest in place.