Labor Or Not Days

Saturday: (09/05) We’re starting to have brisk mornings. Fall is in the air. However, it’s still hot later in the day. We did our usual Saturday morning grocery shopping run. Lou finished up her sand blasting of the chairs. These will be valuable chairs based on hourly pay rates. I finally finished installing new valve stem mounting brackets on the motorhome. These replaced seriously aged original brackets that were falling off including the temporary mounts I installed a few months ago. I didn’t do too much else myself today. I did finally upgrade my laptop from Windows 7 to Windows 10. It’s been nagging me to do it for a while. I hope it doesn’t kill it. I made corned beef hash and eggs for breakfast. Dawn made salads for lunch and Lou made BBQ ribs, coleslaw and French fries for dinner.

Sunday: (09/06) Started as we often do by watching the Sunday morning TV shows like CBS Sunday Morning. Dawn made porridge for herself and Lou and I had leftover corned beef hash for breakfast. Lou and Dawn attended a sing along and then we headed off to the Kings Mountain Art Fair up on top of the mountains above Woodside North of Palo Alto.

 
It’s a benefit for their volunteer fire department. It’s interesting because it’s in a redwood forest on rather uneven ground . Some very interesting art was seen. None of the stuff was imports, the artists were in the booths. I couldn’t resist a huge cookie I bought from some elementary school students. We came home through San Mateo so we had dinner at Neal’s Restaurant. Then we stopped by Hillsdale Mall for a look around before heading home.

Monday: (09/07) September is turning out to be hot. Granola for breakfast. I installed a backup camera and monitor in the Hyundai as my first an really only task of the day.  It has terrible rear viability. It seems to work. Lou pointed out a new leak in the waterline to the backyard. A big puddle formed further out in the yard so the water’s off again to dry out. With the heat, I’m not sure when I’ll fix it. Chili sizes for lunch. In the 90′s today. Inside all afternoon tinkering on the computer.  For dinner we drove up to Applebee’s for hamburgers. We did a little shopping before returning home.

Tuesday: (09/08) We have a high of 100 degrees forecast for today. An inside day. Lou was off to the dentist early. I worked in the “office” all day. Granola for breakfast.

Wednesday: (09/09) Another hot day, or so I assume. I really only went outside twice for short tasks. Why risk getting hot. It’s nice and cool inside thanks to Mr Cooler. I’m not sure what I did all day but the day passed quickly. I did spend some time trying to order a phone for Dawn online, The model she wants is obsolete but better than the current models. We keep being told it’s available at stores only to find out they don’t really have it. It is available for the ATT system but not the Verizon system. It is supposedly available online but the online shops can’t seem to complete an order and the final kicker was that when I finally had almost completed the order after talking to customer service, there is no warranty available for the phone. Big waste of time. Time to choose another phone. Deciding on that model took months. Granola for breakfast. I made popcorn for lunch. Dawn made some vegetable soup for dinner.Dawn had her writers club meeting in the evening.

Thursday: (09/10) I made a nice wiener, hash browned potatoes and eggs breakfast. My main event was to go to see the movie “A Walk In The Woods” with my hiking group. After the movie we had lunch at Aqui’s Restaurant. An interesting movie. Amazing how Redford and Nolte never worked up a sweat hiking! Their clothes did but they didn’t. At home I spent some time hunting for another pipe leak. Nice that it was cooler today. Lou made tuna noodle casserole for dinner. Today the fourth season of Longmire was released on Netflix so we started our binge.

 Friday: (09/11) Not too hot today. I headed out to the hardware store but on the way I stopped at jack In The Box for breakfast. I collected a bunch of parts for the water line repair. I hadn’t actually found the source but planned on replacing everything I had exposed yesterday. When I tried to hook things up the pipe headed off under the sidewalk came loose about two feet back.

 
So I got my jackhammer out and blasted out some of the walkway. Unfortunately that wasn’t easy because I pit the walkway in and  it’s laced with rebar. I also decided to remove a short section of fence that was in the way and note needed anymore. After a lot of work I found the tee that the pipe came loose from. I cleaned it up and install piping to new valve. Everything looked good, for about 20 minutes then water started leaking from the tee. It turns out it was split.

 
Getting access to replace the tee was even more work intensive. I had to remove more walkway and dig a much bigger and deeper hole. That took the rest of the day. Lou prepared chicken gouda lettuce wraps for lunch. I wrapped up work about 1945, took a shower and headed out for dinner at LUU Noodle House and another visit to the hardware store for more stuff. Lou and Dawn wore off for an appointment.

Saturday: (09/12) Today was unexpectedly cooler. It was overcast and seemed to threaten rain but none came. Granola for a late breakfast. I was up late binging on the last of the Longmire episodes for season 4. Then I got to work repairing the water line and restoring the sprinkler lines. The repair went quickly, the reinstallation of the sprinklers to their new location took longer but no problems. And the nice thing is there are no leaks now. Much of the rest of the day was spend backfilling the hole and tamping it. I then had to put things away and clean up. I needed to finish this project because we are to leave tomorrow. To this end i couldn’t attend a neighborhood ice cream social that Lou and Dawn attended. They also went to see a movie at Gunn High School that the students made. Guacamole and chips for lunch.  Lou and Dawn made pepper steak for dinner.

Sunday: (09/13) Cloudy this morning. We worked on getting ready to leave. I had some work to do on the sprinklers. I hadn’t tested the sprinkler valve I moved. When I did, it didn’t work. I obviously spliced the wrong wires. Correcting that made the valve work but then I noticed water pouring out from under the sidewalk. That didn’t seem right. From the electric valve their are four circuits each with a manual valve, fortunately. The manual valves on the water circuits isolated the bad water line. Fortunately it could just be abandoned by moving a couple of drip emitters to another line. Finally OK. I then tested all the other sprinklers since they have not been used in months due to the bad water line that fed the entire back yard. And finally, I added a sprinkler to Mt Donald. Then I readied the motor home to go and packed. We finally were ready to go. But, I had a low tire. For this trip we’re not towing the Jeep, we’re taking the Hyundia. Lou and Dawn headed off. I aired up the tire and was off. I stopped for gas on the way out. Nice prices now. As I was leaving Gilroy, Lou passed me. They had stopped for a walk. Our late lunch and dinner was in Greenfield at the Rancho San Miguel Market. Lou and Dawn were off to find a camp spot. When I arrived at Pismo Beach SP she was still trying to find a spot. None available? This was unusual for a Sunday night. We headed back up to El Churro Regional Park in San Luis Obispo and found a spot. Wieners and tapioca pudding for dinner.