~March 2, 2021~
Day 261
What a swing in weather…..one day, hot and steamy, the next rainy and cool and yes people, we have turned on the electric fireplace. You know you haven’t used it in a while, when you get that temporary dusty, musty smell coming from it. It’s hard to believe we were just in The Keys a few days ago, in our bathing suits, snorkeling a few reefs, to now wearing long pants and flannel. The campsite is already pretty dark with all the lush vegetation, so when you add cloud cover in the mix, the morning seems like 4:00 in the afternoon.
Remember that project list we had started a few months ago? As I recall a few items got crossed off, but then came all the fun in the sun. That’s the effect this sunshine state has on you.☀️🕶 Well, anyway, the list came out of hiding today with the first trying to make an appointment with Ford to have our 4 wheel drive looked out. We’re hoping it’s a little thing (maybe just an electronic sensor issue) since the truck is new and the 4 wheel drive had only been put to use once, back in October when we barely made it to Colorado Springs in that snowstorm. I know, I know…..October? We just haven’t had the opportunity to get to a Ford dealership to have someone look at it. Again, too much fun in the sun! Priorities!! Unfortunately, we couldn’t talk to a service tech today, so we’ll be waiting on a call back on that one.
Laundry day for me and not the best day to do so with all this rain. But we are running out of goods so today’s the day. The facility is not close so the trips will be made by car. It’s nice there is a laundry facility here, but by past experience, I am always a bit reluctant in using campground washers/dryers. Most have either ill-maintained equipment, or they consume, like a black hole, all your quarters. I should always listen to my instincts. When I got there, there were 2 washers, and 2 dryers, with 1 dryer with a sign “broken” on it. Almost driving to the local laundromat, I instead drove to the camp store to get quarters and try out their machines first. I asked the clerk (the store owner) about the broken dryer. He looked at me perplexed saying both dryers should be working fine as he had just checked them that morning. He gave me his business card in case I had any trouble. O.k. So I went back to start my loads, then came back 30 minutes later to transfer them to the 2 dryers. The washer actually ran for 45 minutes, kind of in this perpetual rinse mode, so left. When I returned again, a woman was taking my clothes out of the washer (I was only a few minutes late). There is no laundry etiquette when it comes to moving on to the next patron. You just take out what’s in there and leave them on top of the dryer or a table to get yours in, especially when there are only 2 washers. There goes my flow. It was going to be a long wash day. Anyway, the woman taking my laundry out and her husband were both very nice, so we struck up a conversation about our travels and hometowns. They are doing a little traveling in their home state of Florida, breaking in their new trailer. When I mentioned how much we liked our Lance, she lit up and said, “that’s what we bought!”. They purchased the 17 footer which we looked at too but was too small for us, full-timing it. She quickly became jealous when she found out that Jeff and I don’t need to climb over each other in the night, to get to the bathroom. It appeared we were the only 2 doing laundry this rainy day. When I came back to check on my “dry” clothes, the 2nd dryer was in fact, not heating. So that cycle was a waste of time. So back to the store I went to let him know the dryer was definitely not working, and to get my $2.25 back. I should be put on the payroll for equipment updates. So it does appear there will be one dryer for the entire day. I think I must have driven back and forth 7 or 8 times to get the job done. Wow, this isn’t looking good that I took nearly a page to explain how my laundry day went. 😆🧺
Back at the ranch, Jeff was working on the repairs to our black tank flush; something we’ve been without for a few months now. It all began when Jeff was trying to flush out the black tank with freshwater. We try to do this every few weeks or when the sensors don’t read accurately. The sensors have been reading ¾ to full for a few months now, so we really needed to get this done. Between Jeff’s tools and removing the fireplace, and me coming in and out with laundry, it was quite the site. You can check out our black tank flush line segment on our YouTube Channel at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy3ajow4r8g&t=7s or on the “video” section on our website. Good times!
With laundry complete and a few things checked off the to-do list, I think we deserved a little movie time. We really savored the moment, cozying up on our bed with Sadie, with freshly baked chocolate chip cookies and the hard rain falling to watch “The Way” with Martin Sheen and Emilio Estevez. We became inspired to watch this since we had seen a Rick Steve’s presentation on PBS about the Camino de Santiago Pilgrimage trail. Jeff and I are definitely intrigued with this spiritual path or retreat and are seriously considering doing it one day, possibly when this trip is done. Great cast, great story. Definitely check it out!