During a routine inspection of Ripley yesterday, we noticed her front passenger tyre was waaaay flat. She had issues with a leaky valve a while back that we thought we had sorted, but there has obviously been a slow leak.

Re-inflated the tyre, a quick call to book her in to get a new valve fitted, and it was time to un-hibernate her. Ripley has been undercover for 4 months now, well overdue for a drive. Because October typically delivers random, storms and occasional hail, and as COVID still has us pinned down, we had planned to keep her asleep for a few more weeks.

Now. Peeling her dirty, dusty cover back like a giant cicada shedding its old skin.

Quickly stowing all the hibernation clutter, the four of us (Kelly, Juno, a beautiful afternoon, and me) all piled in and we just sorta drove around Canberra for a while.

It was great to be in Ripley, on the road again. I cued up my ‘road-trip’ music selection, turned the volume up to ROCK, and we all pretended we were headed out on another epic road-trip. Instead, we ended up in Kingston, where we masked up, and ambled around for a while, before coming home. It was just so good to get out and about.

Tomorrow morning I will take her in to get the new valve fitted, and then we will spend a little time getting her road-trip ready in enthusiastic anticipation that things might soon open up again.

Every day is a good day.