My kids are at a short summer camp with the youth group from our awesome church. I drove up tonight to cook for everyone on two of my old MBH kettles.
I wasn't there very long before my oldest, Joseph, asks me if I can tell him how old the Weber at the adjacent camper was.
I strolled over to look and I'll be damned if it wasn't a Wood Dale. Then I looked at the legs, but there were no thumbscrews, and it had plastic wheels. Also, the bowl had that ridge that the cooking grate sat on. It was a bastard, and the metal handle on the Wood Dale lid was crushed and unsalvageable.
Then I spied an 18.5" on the other side of where I was cooking. I could not believe what I was seeing.
The wheels were rusty.
So I strolled over there, and sure as shit they were rubber treaded steel wheels (the rubber is seriously weather checked all the way around). As my eyes wandered up her shapely legs, I noticed it had thumbscrews! I look at the lid. Two rivets, with "Patent Pending" stamped in the vent. (Which doesn't make sense, I know.) Otherwise it was in pretty darn good shape.
Anywhoo, my friend who camps there is going to check with the owners of the 18.5" to see if they would consider a replacement or selling it outright.
Frankly, I have no room for it. But I will get it if I can just to save it, and I think a certain area connoisseur of 18.5s might be interested in it.