2021 Feb/March Island Trip Day 1

It was a good and productive day. Those words don’t always live in the same space! Due to good planning, and early to bed last night, we were able to roll with the early morning, and even had a few minutes to relax before finishing packing up the car and truck. T’was nice.

The drive was flawless. My truck’s speedometer reads fast. If it says we’re going 65, we’re really going 62. I keep this arithmetic in mind as our speed limits change during the drive, always being 2-3 MPH above the posted speed limit. Experience bears out that there are Always others willing to rocket up the highway in search of tickets 😜. This is called ticket insurance…

Once here we:

• Deployed what seemed like at least 100 things. We brought so many things that I was careful to distribute from vehicles to either barns or Stella to minimize back and forths… Despite our best intentions, we still had a couple of carries from Stella to the lower barn, which we are now calling our walk-in-closet. 😏
• After disgorging the vehicles, and a pause for lunch, we went to the hardware store to find an array of life enhancing products including: saw horses, hardware for some cabinet repairs (done!!), a water filter that purports to remove sulphur from the water (!), yet another sewer hose that matches up with the rest of the black tank slicer-valve work-around (and it fit, and we are gold, wait black, wait, poop colored! It works!!!), s’more RV TP, disposable face masks, and other miscellany.
• From the hardware store we went to the acre-plus community thrift emporium looking for a replacement door for the pump room. While they had some that could have worked with augmentation, for very little money, I’ve decided to buy a steel door from a big box hardware store. One with a frame. I’m going to need my AN to install this for me, and it’s going to be easier on him, and less expensive for me if we start fresh.
• Upon our return to the property my DH went to work on the two cabinet hardware fixes, and I went for a hike into our woods. I have a number of drawings, aerial pics with property line overlays, and the county’s official docs regarding the property boundaries. This hike was to explore these edges. When I was 16, there was a road at the north edge of the property. There’s a vegetative delineation where the boundary could be, but any road is long gone. I’m going to ask my AN if he has time to show me where the NW property corner, one we share, is.
• We settled into a couple of rounds of backgammon, which I won 😜, and then ordered takeout from a restaurant that burned to the ground a number of years ago. They have completely, and successfully reinvented themselves. Dinner was spectacular.

Stella is so much more comfortable than she was two months ago. It’s like the external temperature isn’t battling with us this trip. The little electric heater is keeping her in the high-60’s with ease. In December we couldn’t maintain this temp without using the propane-guzzling furnace in addition to the electric heater.

My DH heads back to our Mainland home early tomorrow. Work beckons. I have a list of things I want to accomplish and have promised not to work 10-hours a day.