Building a Showman's Caravan Part 11

What an EPIC Day!!!!

TODAY, we finally completed the Last Showman's Caravan in Canada!!!

It was an exciting time, right from when I got up at 8:13am. I showered and drove the 98km. to the Ranch... and lo and behold, Ward and his brother had created an amazing ramp system to help make the moving out process as easy as possible.

Now, remember, the Caravan had been inside of the workshop during the course of the winter. And if you go back and look at the size of the Caravan, compared to the height of the ceiling... you will see that there is only a 3 inch clearance.

Many people have emailed me stating that I had made some sort of logistical building mistake, while working on the Caravan in the workshop... but, Ward and I had it all worked out way back when we first started. And NOW we were going to put the idea to the test. This was a mondo exciting time, because we could see that this could go two ways... and we were hoping that it would be the Positive, Happy Way ;)

Take a look at the first picture, you can see that there is little to no room for mistakes.

The Caravan inside the workshop

The Caravan had to be rolled onto small skids, so that it could be pushed out of the workshop. This was a very tense time as we began to move the Caravan forward.

slowly rolling the Caravan out

Once the Caravan was partially out, we had to place a large iron rolling bar beneath the floor of the Caravan, so that it could roll onto the wood planks outside.

Caravan on rolling bar

We were not out of danger yet, half of the Caravan was still inside of the workshop, and one false move and we could rip off the top of the Caravan!

looking from inside of the workshop (note the ceiling)

What made this process so cool was the fact that Ward and his brother were very calm as they methodically moved the Caravan out of the workshop. And THAT was something that I have not encountered with many people in my past. If this was being done in Toronto, I bet apples to oranges, that there would have been many nervous breakdowns in the first hour of moving the Caravan. But, Ward and his brother were confident with their abilities and they took things nice and slow. I was truly Amazed with how well they worked out all of the problems that had arisen during the initial moving out of the Caravan from the workshop.

rolling the Caravan forward

Over a two hour period, the Caravan was slowly moved out of the workshop.

When it finally cleared the doors, we all felt a sense of accomplishment. PHEW!

Tadahhh!!!!!!

With the Caravan successfully out of the workshop, it now came time to prepare the wagon wheels for attachment. The steering tongue was old and rotted, but Ward fixed it so that it would work for the time being.

preparing the lower end of the wagon

The Caravan had to be winched up by hand, so that the front would be high enough to accommodate the front section wheels.

winching up the Caravan

We took the front of the wagon apart so that we could move it under the Caravan's carriage. The Caravan had to be winched up 3 feet off of the ground, to get the front wheels to fit underneath it.

the front wheels in place

Now we had to winch up the back to get the back wheels into place. Because of the weight of the Caravan we had to pile planks up one by one until it was level with the front.

planks in place for the back wheels

After around an hour of hard work, the back wheels were lowered into place.

We had to dig ruts into the ground to accommodate the back wheels.

placing the back wheels onto the Caravan

The final step was now done! We had the top of the Caravan on the lower end of the wagon, we had been looking forward to this day for 5 months! Huzaaaah!!!!

The Showman's Caravan completed!!!!!

What a GREAT DAY! Ward and his brother and I felt like we truly accomplished something... and it was time for celebrating!

An EPIC Day!

We are very happy with the way the Showman's Caravan has turned out, and now that it is up on its wheels, I will take a few weeks to paint and detail the Caravan even more. But for now, the Caravan is complete!.... or as complete as it can be (we have some wonderful detailing to do now.)

Prof. Crookshank's Traveling Medicine Show

 Thank you all for taking the journey with us as we built Canada's Last Showman's Caravan! In the past few months we have had people checking out the Blog from Germany, Japan, England, France, Italy, China, the USA, Canada and many other great countries.  Over 3800 people have checked in during the past month alone!

I will be posting more pix of the Showman's Caravan with Prof. Crookshank in front of it in the next little while... so stay tuned! And don't forget to visit http://www.miracleelixer.com for all of the Tourdates and adventures as we take the Caravan out this summer to various Carnivals, Festivals and Events!

A BIG thank you goes out to Ward Wright and Paul Huether,for making this Dream happen!

The adventure continues......