Chief.

Some of you know that the Chevy van we drove for years was christened Gladys. Gladys took us a whole lot of miles and is perhaps soon to be owned by a fellow musician friend, which seems appropriate. But we had yet to give a name to the Winnebago. Too obvious to call it Winnie, everyone does that. I was pretty sure it should be a girl’s name, because a vehicle this big is really more like a boat than anything, and boats are girls. (I am not sure why; I bet my Dad told me, but he’s going to have to remind me. Big Guy, why don’t you remind everyone and write in yourself?)

So, a few days back, while Nate was driving, I suggested Winifred even though I knew darn well that was about the most uninventive name I could have come up with. Lame. Well, the model of this RV is a “Chieftain” and Nate had already felt that this big boat has got to be tough to make it on our tour, plus if it’s a girl, it’s pretty ungainly… so he said he thought the name was Chief. So that’s what it is. When we are really excited about how well it’s running, we all yell “CHIEF!” We’re proud of it so far and I am very proud of Nate, who has gotten the fuel filter change down to about a 3 minute task and one he can do without losing the smile on his face. He and Ike both talk engine stuff a lot and keep up with the oil checking, the filters and other stuff I don’t care to know about except that they make the Chief work better. I definitely feel more at ease thanks to the work these guys do on the Chief. Phil also does a lot of this work with them, including hammering the tires every morning like his Dad suggested, to make sure they haven’t gone flat. And he’s becoming quite a navigator, too… I have enjoyed this in the past but I am enjoying not being so responsible for that this time.

Anyway, GO CHIEF!!