Catching Up

[kevin_standlee]

I got home around 8 PM last night, including a long stop in Sacramento to visit and talk with my sister. Lisa had already gone to bed because her sleep schedule is very disrupted.

This morning I "slept in" until 8 AM, by which time Lisa had been up for hours. Job 1 today was to go to Big R to buy a pallet of firewood, for we were essentially out of wood. (There was perhaps enough wood for a few more hours left in the wood box, but that was all.) Except that Lisa could not find the trailer hitch for the Big Orange Van, and she wanted to use it, not the Astro Minivan, to haul the utility trailer down to Big R.

So Job 0 became going to get a new trailer hitch. Lisa tried to start the BOV. No luck. It seemed to turn over sufficiently, but it acted like it could get no fuel, which makes no sense because even though only one of the two fuel tanks currently work, we filled the other tank recently. Lisa climbed under the van and had me actuate the button for the auxiliary electric fuel pump. Sure enough, there was a leak on the low-pressure feed, and fuel wasn't even getting to the fuel filter.

So Job -1 became driving in the Astro to get a length of fuel hose tube, and we could get that trailer hitch from Job 0 as well. We transferred into the Astro, where I saw this in the front windshield.



Oh great. A large crack had formed on the lower left corner of the windshield. Not visible in this shot were several other minor cracks also forming. No sign of what might have caused it. Lisa said there was nothing wrong with it when she brought it home. There's any number of things that might have happened. I reassured here that this wasn't her fault.

We set off to deal with the queue-jumping errands, and decided to get some others done as well since we were out anyway. I had a letter to send to Cheryl, but I'd mislaid the "Global Forever" stamps, so we went to the post office, where it turned out to be too early. (I went back later in the day and dealt with it and to buy more stamps.) We went to Big R and bought a new heavy trailer hitch, which is not cheap. We went to O'Reilly Auto Parts. To our bemusement, they were out of 3/8-inch fuel tubing. Lisa said, "Never mind, I'll figure something out." Across the street was Scolari's grocery store, where we picked up a frozen duck and other things for our planned Thanksgiving day meal like some locally-sourced honey from Lovelock that Lisa will use for the glaze on the duck. We took all of this stuff home, put the duck in the refrigerator to start thawing, and Lisa took the trailer hitch to the garage, where to our great satisfaction she found the old hitch (same model) and some 3/8-inch hose she could cut to size and fix the van. She also found the fuel filter was full of all sorts of crud, but that she could clean out.

So finally we were back to Job 1, and with the BOV running and towing the trailer, we loaded the (unopened) replacement trailer hitch and travelswithkuma and went back to Big R. It was no problem to return the unused hitch. We used the opportunity to pick up some other things we needed, like more pink RV anti-freeze and some socks for Lisa, and we also of course bought the pallet of firewood. Because of the credit for the hitch, it was only about another $40 extra cost when I was done. Lisa and I took the rear gate off the trailer, they loaded the pallet, and we headed home.

Okay, that finally got Job 1 out of the way. While Lisa had been looking for parts in the garage earlier, I was checking auto-glass replacement. I could find no place in Fernley, but there was a place on the east end of Sparks, and I knew exactly where it was; it's adjacent to the Pick-N-Pull. After calling to confirm their hours and availability, we loaded into the Astro, stopped for lunch at Arby's, and headed to Sparks.

Alas, by the time we got there, several other people were ahead of us, and they said it would be a two hour wait. To pass the time, we walked down to the Alamo Casino/Petro Truck Stop. We managed to kill some time there, and even came out $3.54 ahead on slot winnings. That along with walking around the nearly-deserted industrial area of that part of Sparks kept us occupied until the windshield was finished, and $150 later we were ready to go.

By the time we got the minivan window replaced, Lisa's day was nearly done, so we headed back home. We have grocery shopping still to do in Reno/Sparks for Thanksgiving and to try and refill some of the canned food larder that is now somewhat depleted, so I reckon we'll have to go there again tomorrow, and we haven't actually unloaded the firewood. (I've pulled out enough wood to keep us warm tonight and tomorrow morning. The full unloading job is an hour or so of Lisa handing wood to me over the fence and me packing it into the wood box.) But the most urgent stuff is done, and we're feeling better. And I'm much happier doing these domestic chores than I was much of the past two weeks.

Comments

[msconduct.livejournal.com]

Wow, you must have a super-cold fridge! I've never defrosted a duck, but I only defrost a 5kg turkey for three days.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

Well, the last time we did this, three days wasn't enough, so we figured we'd give it extra time.

[garyomaha.livejournal.com]

Thank you for blogging. It's such a relaxing read to hear about tasks so similar to our, yet sometimes so different. I love the "Job 0 and Job -1" references. It's great to hear about life in the almost-country, as opposed to here in the middle of the city. To hear of true do-it-yourselfers. As opposed to the mostly political stuff coming from almost everywhere else, friend and foe alike. Thanks for helping to bring my Internet down to home level. Have a Happy Thanksgiving!

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

I was just trying to get across the way we never seem to be able to get a straightforward project done without having to back-track and side-track things.

[garyomaha.livejournal.com]

Just like normal peoples and bears!

[kalimeg.livejournal.com]

Ah yes, the old "buy a replacement to make the old one show up" trick! Isn't it amazing how that works with all sorts of things.

[kevin-standlee.livejournal.com]

It was a particular relief because we already knew the hitch would not fit into the receiver unless Lisa spent a long time grinding down the part that doesn't fit, and we were not looking forward to doing it at all, but it did have to be done.