More mud-room work ; weekend on the Eastern Shore ; ATV ride ; looking for the next camper-van platform

(posted from home)
(This post covers 1 – 17 June, 2011)

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Sunday, 17 June -

I caught up the blog a bit and then went down to the mud-room to start planning how to re-mount the wall-mounted storage cabinets we had taken down for construction of the new bathroom.
We took down five cabinets but they now must be relocated. We didn't get far before realizing we have some problems to overcome. I need to move an overhead light and install the metal strapping on the notched joists before making that area inaccessible with a cabinet.
I zipped in to Lowe's for some hardware for the job when we get around to it. That was my excuse for a motorcycle ride on this very-pretty day, anyway.
That afternoon we went over to Mom and Dad's apartment for a Father's Day celebration. Later, we ordered ribs-to-go from the Texas Roadhouse and they were perfectly done, as always.
We also took care of a few little pesky items. The phone wasn't working so they had missed calls from the other family members. That turned out to be batteries in the portable phone. Apparently the handset had been dropped and a battery had come out of its carrier.
Dad also mentioned the cable bill seemed to have new charges. I found that the cable company had added a monthly charge for a rental modem--- and he didn't have one. I had bought the modem from Amazon myself so I knew it was an incorrect charge. I called the cable company and had the charge removed and a credit given for the spurious charges. I also found a recurring charge for wireless networking tech support but they wouldn't remove that one on a weekend. I'll have to call tomorrow.
That evening we had things to do and didn't watch TV. Labashi spent the time trying to identify a disease on a few of her plants (via the Web) and I caught up the blog for a long-overdue post.

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Saturday, 16 June -

Today I took the Miata in to town for a trip to Lowe's and Home Depot. I need to repair a water-rotted sill and an upright on a door frame. I intended to buy a spiral saw or trim-router for this. But the more I looked at the tools I realized they're too bulky for this job. I talked it over with a tool guy at Home Depot and he pointed out I could get a spiral-saw bit for my Dremel tool. That should do it since I don't need to precisely control depth for these repairs.
I also bought some foot-long metal straps to finally address a problem with joist cutouts. When the house was built the plumber notched three joists almost three inches in for a drain pipe to pass. That would be a code violation today but apparently at the time it was common practice. Though I see no evidence of the joists cracking or sagging, I'd just feel better to strengthen them.
I spent the afternoon mowing on this hot day, taking several breaks when I'd overheat.
That evening we watched the last three episodes of 'Intelligence', Season One.

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Friday, 15 June -

Today Labashi and I took Mocha Joe over to Lititz to pick up the F650GS from its 6000-mile maintenance appointment at Trans-Am Cycles.
However, we first went on to Four Way Auto Sales in New Holland to look at the NV2500 and Sprinter vans on their lot. We took Mocha Joe there so we'd have it available to take detailed measurements and compare them to to the cargo space of the NV2500 and Sprinters.
It turns out the NV2500 is slightly narrower than Mocha Joe and there's some question whether our futon mattress would fit across it. The difference is only a half-inch but it's already a tight fit in the Ford.
The other disappointing news is the cargo area is shorter in the NV2500 than our van. The spec sheet says cargo room is ten feet in length but usable space is actually only a few inches over nine feet. That would mean a loss of about eight or nine inches of space behind just behind the driver's seat. That's an important place for us as it's prime space for hanging clothes (high) and storing the laptop (low).
We decided the 144-inch wheelbase Sprinter would be the way to go. But the one there was a 3500-series van with dual rear wheels. The 170-inch-wheelbase model was very roomy inside but had far too much overhang for driving gravel roads and two-track. Still, both of them had a 21-inch step-up for the side door. Our Ford's is 19 inches as was the NV2500. If we were to do the Sprinter we'd probably need to start taking along a portable step (a permanent step would affect ground clearance).
The Nissan was significantly cheaper and I'm still attracted to it but this particular one didn't have power windows or door locks not to mention opening cargo-area windows. I know how I use the van and those features would be sorely missed so that was that.
Back home, we watched French film 'The Chorus' that evening.

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Thursday, 14 June –

Today I ran the ATV out of its trailer and loaded up the GS. I took it over to the BMW dealer in Lititz for its appointment for a 6000-mile maintenance tomorrow.
After dropping off the bike I hit the nearby Starbucks, then tried the next-door Philly Pretzel Factory. While the 3-pretzels-for-$2 deal was great and the pretzels massive, I think I'll stick with Auntie Anne's pretzels in the future.
After lunch I used the iPad to give me directions to Four Way Auto Sales in New Holland. There I took a look at a Nissan NV2500 van, the first one I've seen being sold used. This one had been an Enterprise rental and it's in very good shape. I was surprised to also find two Sprinters there. That gave me an opportunity to compare. Now I need Labashi to see these.
That evening we watched 'Three Colors: Red' with Irene Jacob. Loved it!

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Wednesday, 13 June -

Labashi woke feeling much better today. The symptoms had disappeared and she had her energy back.
We both had appointments in Mechanicsburg today. I had a routine dental appointment and she took her car to the dealer to have the tail-light assembly replaced. This is the same assembly I had had replaced last winter before leaving for Florida. The service guy at the dealership made light of that and even gave her a frequent-replacer discount.
Late that afternoon I rode the GS down to Rocky Ridge for my five-miler.
We watched 'Three Colors: Blue' with Juliet Binoche that evening. We had seen this movie in the early Nineties but remembered almost nothing about it. And the great thing about seeing it now was getting the discussions of the movie by the actors and by film critics. Without that info, it's so easy to miss the symbolism and repeating themes of the movie.

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Tuesday, 12 June -

Labashi was sick today. The constriction problem in her throat subsided but she felt very slow and achy and had a sore throat. These symptoms sounded much like my Florida problem this Spring so I was concerned she had somehow been infected by sleeping in the van.
Since we were having a rainy day I took her car for a quick trip into town to pick up the chlorine test strips at Grainger's and then hit the Starbucks on the way home.


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Monday, 11 June -

Today we returned home from our Chesapeake weekend. We took the long way home, first heading up the ocean highway through Ocean City to Rehobeth, then west across Delaware to US50 at Wye, MD, then north up 213 to Chestertown and Elkton before turning northwest toward Lancaster, PA and home. Late in the day we stopped at Park City Mall and had a Haagen-Dazs milk shake.
That evening we came to regret the milk shakes. We're not sure whether we had had too much heat, too much food, or what but we both had to take Alka-Seltzers to try to get our digestive systems feeling better and Labashi had a breathing problem. She said she felt like someone had their hands around her neck and were restricting her breathing. She ended up calling the Blue Cross nurse and talking it through as we contemplated going to the emergency room. I even retrieved an emergency oxygen kit I've had since our SCUBA diving days and had it handy if things got worse or we needed it for the trip to the emergency room.
As it turned out the Alka-Seltzer did it's job and the breathing problem also subsided so we didn't have to do the emergency-room trip.

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Sunday, 10 June -

With another hot day on tap we discussed going home but I saw from the weather report that the overnight temperature was supposed to be a few degrees cooler. Also, we hoped to camp at Assateague Island tonight and I knew that campsite would be along the ocean and we should have a breeze. We decided we'd give it a shot and if things got bad we could drive on home or find a motel.
We spent the morning in Pocomoke City. We initially intended to just walk a block or so along the river dock but discovered it leads to a nice boardwalk trail through the swamp. We had no insect problems there and it was nice and cool on the shaded boardwalk. We walked through to a golf course at the far end of the trail and returned. Nice!
By that time the Delmarva Discovery Center was open for the day. This turned out to be a very nice little museum about Chesapeake-area history.
We then continued on to the Pocomoke State Park where we slowly drove through. We had camped here a dozen or so years ago and had one of our first successful owl-calls. We had called in the cutest little screech owl and took its picture. I later submitted that to the Maryland DNR and it was used on their web site for a few years.
We drove on to Berlin, MD and had an ice cream and coffee at the coffee shop before taking a slow drive through of the main streets.
Continuing on to Assateague Island State Park, we arrived mid-afternoon and found one of the few remaining campsites. Labashi took a short walk on the beach while I avoided the sun and read. We then had a long chat with a neighbor who loved his Sprinter van. He gave us excellent advice and recommendations for web resources to further research on Sprinters.
With the steady breeze we were fine to have a completely-exposed campsite. After the sun dropped in the sky a bit we rode the bicycles from end to end of the state park, then chilled in the shade of the van as the sun began to set.
We slept wonderfully that night.

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Saturday, 9 June -

This morning Labashi and I arose early, packed up Mocha Joe, and headed for the Chesapeake. We drove down past Baltimore to the Bay Bridge where we stopped for a quick lunch in the parking lot of Hemingway's. Our next break was at Cambridge and it's visitor center and then we drove slowly through town looking around. We then continued on to Crisfield and the nearby Jane's Island State Park. We've been there five or six times but this time we had a new challenge-- greenhead flies. These very aggressive biting flies are incredibly fast and are apparently attracted to movement. When we first arrived at our campsite we had a few flies but they seemed to lose interest. We could sit out with only minor annoyances.
I set up the folding bikes and we rode the roads of the park and only had a few problems with the flies.
Late in the day we toured little Crisfield and then ate at Capt. Tyler's. We had magnificent jumbo-lump crabcakes but they were expensive ($20 for one, $24 for two) and the drinks were a straight rip-off (imho). Labashi's margarita tasted like straight mixer so we ordered a sidecar of Cuervo to add to it and even that didn't help. I had two weakish soco-and-cokes and they showed up on the bill as $10 each.
We had a very hot day but we had had a nice breeze for most of it. But after dark the wind suddenly dropped entirely and we couldn't get the van cooled off enough for sleeping comfort. We both had a sweaty, largely-sleepless night but did manage to catch a few hours of shut-eye toward morning.

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Friday, 8 June -

Labashi went to tea today with her 'tea-buddies' and I went ATV riding. I used Mocha Joe to take the ATV trailer over to the Michaux State Forest ATV trailhead above the family campground.
I spent three hours riding, pushing pretty hard. I'm surprised to find how rocky much of the 'easy' trail is. I rode from the east parking lot to the west lot and back with two diversions off the main trail. One of them almost got me in trouble.
I went up an intermediate trail which narrowed down with a high bank both sides and a steep uphill at the end of the bank. I tried to keep my weight forward but as I accelerated up the hill the front end came up and started falling sideways. That caused me to slow and put a foot out to keep the ATV from rolling. The ATV stopped and started rolling backwards and nearly trapped my foot. That could have gotten ugly. It wouldn't have taken much to have found myself trapped by the quad and unable to reach my SPOT emergency messenger. I'll need to save the more adventurous riding to times when I'm with someone else.
After my ride I loaded up and drove over to the west parking lot, hoping to reach Maypo at work by cell phone to invite him over to ride. But I didn't have enough signal. I had two signal bars but the call wouldn't go through. I finally gave up and headed home.
When I arrived home Labashi had a long face. She had backed her car into an obstruction and had broken the tail-light. Fortunately it didn't damage the body so it's really quite minor.

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Thursday, 7 June -

I rode the GS into town today for some small items and then finished up the mud-room cleanup.
I also mowed the lawn yet again. The lawn is growing crazy-fast this year.

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Wednesday, 6 June -

Today we installed drywall in the corner of the 'mud-room' in our exposed basement. We had chosen not to bother with this corner when we had done the rest of the room because it was behind the water heater and had several problems. But with the rest of the room now done and access opened up by the plumbing changes, it's time.
The project took us all day but actually went well. I had a bit of shimming-out to do and had to take the Sawzall and a hatchet to a badly-installed header board (so the drywall would lay flat) but these were minor issues.

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Tuesday, 5 June -

Today I ordered the chlorine-strip test kit for testing our water. Around mid-day we drove into town and, after lunch at Fuddrucker's, picked up three sheets of drywall and drywall screws at Lowe's.
Back home, we removed the old dryer vent and plugged the hole in the wall and replaced the insulation, then I mounted a nice blanking plate on the siding.
That evening we started watching 'The Beaches of Agnes', a film by Agnes Vardas, but we didn't finish it. We felt like the film required some familiarity with her life and previous work to make sense and we didn't have that.

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Monday, 4 June -

I researched the disinfection process for our water pipes. We had the ultraviolet light installed last month but haven't yet disinfected the pipes downstream of the light. I've done this process in two of the houses we re-habbed but this time I wanted to be a little more scientific about it. After researching, I rode the GS into town to look for chlorine test strips. I found test strips at both Lowe's and Home Depot but they had a very limited test range. I'll have to order online.
Upon my return from town I set up for Mom and Dad's visit this afternoon. I set up chairs on both our front and rear patios so we can choose to either be in the sun or shade.
Labashi picked up her parents at their apartment and brought them over mid-afternoon. We chatted for a few hours on this absolutely-perfect day, then went to supper at Hillside Cafe before running them back home.

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Sunday, 3 June -

Weather has cooled off and we had a visitor today. Shilla, Labashi's high-school buddy, dropped by today. She lives in Boulder and was in the Burg visiting family this week. We only had a few hours with her this afternoon but that was very pleasant.

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Saturday, 2 June -

This morning I caught up the online blog to the end of the May. I installed the rubber fitting for the dehumidifier drain hose and then took the Concours out for my regular coffee-and-walk ride.
Labashi spent the morning mounting bathroom accessories in the new bathroom using drywall anchors.
Late in the day I mowed half the lawn, then we watched 'Paris, Texas', a 1984 Wim Wenders movie with Harry Dean Stanton. I'm normally a fan of Mr. Stanton's work but in this one he seemed to be acting for effect. I'm not expressing that thought well but I guess the point is I felt like I was watching an actor at work and not the character he was portraying.

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Friday, 1 June -

Today Labashi and I loaded up her van and went to Chambersburg. We loaded up the air conditioners and an older dehumidifier which are now left-overs after our project. Maypo says he can use those. I also had a few items belonging to Maypo from our Florida trip.
We arrived in Chambersburg just as a soaking rain started so it wasn't much fun unloading. We then chatted with Mrs. Maypo a bit before getting back on the road.
We stopped at Restaurant Sidney in East Berlin on the way home and had a fancy meal. I was intending only to have one of their excellent bar-be-que sandwiches but made the mistake of taking a seat in the dining room rather than the pub. Once we saw the dinner menu we had cocktails, then split a goat-cheese salad, tomato consomme, a fresh-halibut entree, almond tarte, and a glass of port. We definitely overdid.
That evening we finished up disk 2 of 'Saving Grace' Season One. I love the theme song by Everlast... also called 'Saving Grace'.

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