The Quiet After.......
This past week was a low key affair. From Sunday night until Thursday afternoon it was pretty much and rainy and gloomy. It felt like Autumn was right around the corner, which of course it is, but I’m always hoping this time of year for a summertime extension….just never ready to start layering clothes again.
I don’t believe I did a single, solitary constructive thing until Thursday when I headed up to the campsite with my latest item of plunder. When I pulled into work Thursday morning I realized that one of the skids used to bring a new machine into the plant was laying there and it was pretty much exactly what I needed to build the walkway to the Amish Outhouse. So, I went and asked the powers that be if I could snag it. They said yup, so after work I went home, grabbed the pickup and came back up to load the future walkway into the back of the pickup. I had to enlist the aid of one of the guys and a lift truck to get it in the box, but once that was done I was good to go. No exciting adventures this trip like there’d been hauling the outhouse a few weeks ago.
I got to the campsite about 6 and spent awhile wrestling the behemoth out of the back of the truck. I realized after I got it on the ground that some digging was going to be necessary for me to situate it the way I envisioned it, but at that point I was running out of available light so I put up the tailgate, fired up the motor and headed for home.
Thursday was also the day my new boss informed me that there wasn’t going to be any more overtime for awhile. Not real sure why the company had to hire another level of indirect labor to tell me what I already know, but nobody asked for my input either….all I have to do is deal with the situation. So, Friday at 3:00 I was done for the week. I used my new found time off by going home long enough to grab the pickup and the wife and headed back up to North Muskegon where Tony, the brother-in-law works at the Meijers store there. He’d told us that they had one 5’ x 8’ shed left that they wanted to get rid of and if I wanted it he’d give me a deal. A 5x8 was smaller than I wanted, but I can’t afford what I do want at the moment so a small shed is better than no shed at all. By the time we got the shed boxes in the truck, along with a couple Tiki torches and fuel we’d gotten a heckuva deal…..approximately 66% off the usual price. We said thanks to Tony and headed down the street to Tractor Supply where I got some stuff for the campsite, including chicken wire and mortar for the campfire ring.
Friday was also the day that Ri and Adam got back home from their honeymoon. They spent their week in Cincinnati, visiting the Zoo and other sites and then went to Mammoth Cave Kentucky before heading back to Michigan. Later on Friday evening we went down to Clover to meet up with Gigi, to see wedding pics and harass the son-in-law who was back to work already. Gigi had put together a couple really nice books full of her pics and the wait staff there were passing them around, ohhing and Ahhing over the great shots. After everyone had seen the pics we headed for home. Ri and Adam stopped over later before heading home but at that point I was about 70% asleep so I wasn’t the greatest conversationalist on the planet.
Saturday dawned with the best weather we’d had in the last week and the plan was to take a bike ride down to the Kalamazoo fair grounds to c
heck out the NSRA show. It was sunny and warm when I left home but by the time I got down by Kazoo it’d had gotten cloudy and cool and the roads were wet in places. By
noon though the sun was out and it warmed up nicely during the afternoon. I got to the fairgrounds about 11:00am, parked the bike and headed in. The NSRA shows are specifically for cars 1949 and older so there were fat fendered hot rods strewn all over the place….from rat rods to cars with $20,000 paint jobs. I just started with the first one past the gate and spent the next 6/7 hours just wandering around, taking pics of my favorites and talking to their owners. Click HERE for all the NSRA pics.
After watching the parade of cars exiting the grounds at the end of the day for about an hour I got back on the bike and headed back for home. It was dusk by the time I made it back and not long afterwards we were back down at Clover again for supper where Adam and Ri both were working this time. Gigi came down again with even more pics and once again the books got passed around as everyone took a look at her work. After a couple hours of socializing it was time to head for home.
Sunday I had planned on going to the pow wow at Charlton Park but the wea
ther looked a bit iffy for taking the bike cloudy and real windy, so I changed the plan to a trip up to the campsite for the day to put up the shed we’d gotten Friday. I’d slept in and then decided to make breakfast before heading up so it was close to 1:00pm before we pulled into camp. Chris came with me and it’s a good thing he did cuz it was a two person job. From the time we got there until about 6:00pm we worked on assembling the shed. We also worked a bit on getting the walkway to the outhouse to fit better but that still needs work before it’s a done deal. By the time I’d tightened up the last couple of screws in the shed it was a tick past 6 and the weather had deteriorated to the point it looked like rain was imminent. We put the stuff that was staying in the shed, the stuff that was coming home in the truck, locked up the outhouse and the shed and headed for home. We weren't 10 miles from the campsite when it started to rain. It rained on and off the whole way home. We pulled in the driveway right about 9:00 and that was pretty much the end of the week.
I don’t believe I did a single, solitary constructive thing until Thursday when I headed up to the campsite with my latest item of plunder. When I pulled into work Thursday morning I realized that one of the skids used to bring a new machine into the plant was laying there and it was pretty much exactly what I needed to build the walkway to the Amish Outhouse. So, I went and asked the powers that be if I could snag it. They said yup, so after work I went home, grabbed the pickup and came back up to load the future walkway into the back of the pickup. I had to enlist the aid of one of the guys and a lift truck to get it in the box, but once that was done I was good to go. No exciting adventures this trip like there’d been hauling the outhouse a few weeks ago.
I got to the campsite about 6 and spent awhile wrestling the behemoth out of the back of the truck. I realized after I got it on the ground that some digging was going to be necessary for me to situate it the way I envisioned it, but at that point I was running out of available light so I put up the tailgate, fired up the motor and headed for home.
Thursday was also the day my new boss informed me that there wasn’t going to be any more overtime for awhile. Not real sure why the company had to hire another level of indirect labor to tell me what I already know, but nobody asked for my input either….all I have to do is deal with the situation. So, Friday at 3:00 I was done for the week. I used my new found time off by going home long enough to grab the pickup and the wife and headed back up to North Muskegon where Tony, the brother-in-law works at the Meijers store there. He’d told us that they had one 5’ x 8’ shed left that they wanted to get rid of and if I wanted it he’d give me a deal. A 5x8 was smaller than I wanted, but I can’t afford what I do want at the moment so a small shed is better than no shed at all. By the time we got the shed boxes in the truck, along with a couple Tiki torches and fuel we’d gotten a heckuva deal…..approximately 66% off the usual price. We said thanks to Tony and headed down the street to Tractor Supply where I got some stuff for the campsite, including chicken wire and mortar for the campfire ring.
Friday was also the day that Ri and Adam got back home from their honeymoon. They spent their week in Cincinnati, visiting the Zoo and other sites and then went to Mammoth Cave Kentucky before heading back to Michigan. Later on Friday evening we went down to Clover to meet up with Gigi, to see wedding pics and harass the son-in-law who was back to work already. Gigi had put together a couple really nice books full of her pics and the wait staff there were passing them around, ohhing and Ahhing over the great shots. After everyone had seen the pics we headed for home. Ri and Adam stopped over later before heading home but at that point I was about 70% asleep so I wasn’t the greatest conversationalist on the planet.
Saturday dawned with the best weather we’d had in the last week and the plan was to take a bike ride down to the Kalamazoo fair grounds to c
heck out the NSRA show. It was sunny and warm when I left home but by the time I got down by Kazoo it’d had gotten cloudy and cool and the roads were wet in places. By
noon though the sun was out and it warmed up nicely during the afternoon. I got to the fairgrounds about 11:00am, parked the bike and headed in. The NSRA shows are specifically for cars 1949 and older so there were fat fendered hot rods strewn all over the place….from rat rods to cars with $20,000 paint jobs. I just started with the first one past the gate and spent the next 6/7 hours just wandering around, taking pics of my favorites and talking to their owners. Click HERE for all the NSRA pics.
After watching the parade of cars exiting the grounds at the end of the day for about an hour I got back on the bike and headed back for home. It was dusk by the time I made it back and not long afterwards we were back down at Clover again for supper where Adam and Ri both were working this time. Gigi came down again with even more pics and once again the books got passed around as everyone took a look at her work. After a couple hours of socializing it was time to head for home.
Sunday I had planned on going to the pow wow at Charlton Park but the wea
ther looked a bit iffy for taking the bike cloudy and real windy, so I changed the plan to a trip up to the campsite for the day to put up the shed we’d gotten Friday. I’d slept in and then decided to make breakfast before heading up so it was close to 1:00pm before we pulled into camp. Chris came with me and it’s a good thing he did cuz it was a two person job. From the time we got there until about 6:00pm we worked on assembling the shed. We also worked a bit on getting the walkway to the outhouse to fit better but that still needs work before it’s a done deal. By the time I’d tightened up the last couple of screws in the shed it was a tick past 6 and the weather had deteriorated to the point it looked like rain was imminent. We put the stuff that was staying in the shed, the stuff that was coming home in the truck, locked up the outhouse and the shed and headed for home. We weren't 10 miles from the campsite when it started to rain. It rained on and off the whole way home. We pulled in the driveway right about 9:00 and that was pretty much the end of the week.It's cold here tonight....time to crawl under the quilt and get some shuteye.
posted by Tom Eckels at 11:24 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home