Quick May 2021 Island Trip – Day 4

Eight hours of solid sleep is such a gift! I got up before 7 yesterday, and worked my ‘way out of Stella’ over the next two hours. This included all the messy things, like dumping grey and black tanks, but also watering my new plants with the tea kettle. My AN will keep the new additions watered while I’m gone. This, in part, is why he’s Amazing.

At this point in the year we don’t need to drain the hot water tank. In the saying of it, it sounds like a task to cross off a list. Not so. Airstream, at least between 1967 and 1999, did not make removing , or re-installing, the water heater plug easy. Leaving the Island is more streamline for not addressing this task, which takes patience due to tight access and the ever present potential to slice your hand open on the tank’s exhaust cowling. 😏

I had a reservation on the 2PM boat, but got in line for the 11AM, shortly after 9AM. This, because in order to get to the steel recycling place with the retro Husky riding mower, I had to get the earlier boat. This I did, as did Tim! He was heading off Island to spend the weekend with his son and grandgirls. We spent the boat ride yacking. This was a good way for me to transition off Island. While it’s always good to get home, it’s always hard to leave. Spending the ride with Tim was like bridging my two worlds as he exists in both.

I’ve never seen anything like metal recycle place. There were endless two-story mounds of vehicles, bulldozers, steel scrap, buildings full of lots of mysterious bits, dumpsters… It must be 15-20 acres. The scale dude weighed the truck and gave me directions to where to unload. The kid looked at my load and got his fork lift. He had to chain the mower’s front axel to the forks in order to get it off the bed of the truck. Then he graciously emptied the truck bed of the rest of the metal scrap I tossed in this morning. Back at the scale, the scale guy set up my account, and then came out with $18.50 in cash. I looked at him and said, “I would have paid you $50 to take this mower!!” He assured me I’d come out ahead. I said I’d see him in July with the vintage John Deere. And maybe more… the John Deere is smaller.