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“Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” A Milk Crate Update

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Lately, storage space (or a complete lack thereof) in the Metris has been driving me crazy - pun intended.   It could be because I’ve been watching all those “Van Life” reels on Facebook that show beautiful functional full camper van interiors, but I honestly feel like there could have been a little bit more practical storage functionality built into the MB Getaway conversion.  With this in mind, I went on an Amazon binge and ordered a bunch of stuff I thought might provide more storage options.  This is my summary of what worked, and what didn’t. Probably my #1 complaint is that when we are set up, with the top popped, there is no real way to hang anything inside.  No surfaces work with magnets, and most are “soft” which means Command Strips or Velcro really aren’t options either. My husband expressed concerns about hanging anything from the pop top roof directly because of the stress it could cause to the struts that hold it up.   Plus, he is pretty tall, so a...
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Warranty Work

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  Because our Metris Getaway is a bit of a hybrid vehicle, we have found getting warranty work done to be a bit of a challenge. Our local Mercedes-Benz dealership will do the very basic stuff like oil change, maintenance, etc. For vehicle or body work, we have to go to Springfield to the Mercedes dealership there because our local dealership does not do vans. Then for the up-fit components we have to drive to a Chicago suburb. We just had some warranty work done on the pop-top of our 2020 Driverge Getaway.  Had to road trip 2.5 hours to a Chicago suburb to a Driverge “sister shop” called Mobility Works.  Normally they do wheelchair vans, and had never seen a Metris Getaway.  It’s kinda fun to see people’s reactions when they realize what a cool vehicle it is!   They replaced the seal around the bottom edge of the pop-top because it had split and was hanging down when the top was popped. They also fixed the issue we were having with the pop-top buckles not stayin...
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Canoe think of anything better than a day on the water? I shore can’t! (aka Our State Park Summer)

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  This summer we decided to stay local, and visited a bunch of Illinois State and County Parks.  We've both lived in Illinois all our lives, so some we had been to in the past, but a few were new to us. My last blog post was about Fyrne Clyffe in Southern Illinois, which had some surprising waterfalls, and a lake for fishing but not big enough for much else.  It was a new park to us, and we would go back to Southern Illinois again, but maybe not to this campground.  The Shawnee National Forest has a lot of options, but for us it means a long weekend trip, ideally with at least four days, because of the long drive there and back.  A few weekends later, because it was hot, we went north to White Pines in Mt. Morris.  Again, a fun experience, but not one we would return to with regularity.  For us, the highlight was driving the Metris across the fords.  (Not fjords, as I kept wanting to call them.)  The creek that runs through the park has trout...
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First Year Anniversary Detail and Inventory

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 This week marks one year since we purchased our Metris from MB Orlando, and it's been quite a year.  We have camped in Florida, Kentucky, Indiana, Wisconsin, Michigan, Missouri and of course, Illinois.  To mark the occasion, we had the vehicle professionally detailed (outside only) and oh, boy - it's looks like new again!  Earlier in the spring, while parked at Wal-Mart, the van was side scraped.  We filed a claim, and State Farm paid to have all four panels on the driver's side repainted, and a dent removed.  After this body work, the originally painted parts looked dull in comparison.  The body shop reassured us that if we had it washed, waxed and buffed - all would be be fine.  So that's what we did, and it looks awesome again.  We are wondering why MB does not use a top coat?  The new paint job included it.  So, waxing appears to be the answer, and we have vowed to try to keep it better waxed in the future.   The deta...
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