Rainy Day

This past week has been filled with an abundance of hard work and a fair amount of fun too. First, I promised shed updates to keep the pressure on. Some progress has been made though not as much as I would like. Every step requires about twice as much work as I originally expected. This week I finally decided what kind of door to use and purchased both the Door and a window. Armed with the required rough opening dimensions for the window and door, I designed the structure for the walls that they occupy and built the wall with the window opening. I also built the two other straight walls that have no openings.

Three down and one to go. If the rain will stop, I can finish the remaining wall. Then I think I'll build the truss roof prior to erecting the walls. Did I mention that the walls have been built flat on the floor so I'll have to round up some help to get them erect. The reason I want to build the truss system for the roof prior to erecting the walls is so that I can build a template on the floor for the truss. That way I can build 12 of them and they should be all alike. That's the general idea, right?

Enough about boring building stuff. Now for the fun stuff. This past Saturday was rally day for our car club.

Rallies can take a lot of different forms but the one we participated in was sort of like a puzzle. The general idea is to drive a route that has been designed to provide an interesting ride. This would be all fine and good except that the directions are a bit cryptic and you score points by both driving the correct distance ( translation: don't make any wrong turns) and answering questions about things you should see along the way. In many ways, this sort of reminds me of hanging wallpaper with your spouse. After a few wrong turns , inability to answer questions etc. , communications start to break down. There was even one couple that quit and went home to cool off. Anyway, we did eventually find our way to where we were supposed to be, "The Smoky Pig". We enjoyed a mid afternoon bar B Q meal with friends. A good time was had by all.

A week from now we'll be getting ready to leave for Urbanna where we'll meet a group of our motor home friends for a fun week end at the Urbanna Oyster Festival. Sounds like fun!

Update

This past Saturday, Oct 17, we made a trip with the Corvette Club to White Hall Winery in White Hall Virginia. For those that don't know, White Hall is in the Blue Ridge Mountain foothills west of Charlottesville. The weather was ominous early in the day and as a result the turn out was less than expected but by the time we got there, the sun was shining and everyone had a good

time. Virginia's wine industry is growing and White Hall Winery is producing some real nice wines. The tasting included generous servings of ten different wines. It's a good thing we had planned a picnic on the grounds of the winery before leaving! The food helped diminish the Glow.

Update on shed..... Progress is slow. I'll blame the weather since there has been little time to spend on it. There is progress though so there's hope.

Note that more building materials have arrived. By the way, they don't just arrive. Every stick of wood and every sheet of plywood has to be carried by hand about 100 yards. Believe me, this isn't my idea of fun. Maybe I should have selected a different spot for the shed.

Coming up soon, Corvette club rally on Saturday followed by Urbanna Oyster Festival next week

Busy

After two grey and cold weeks the sun is finally shining and the weather has warmed up. This is much needed so that I can get in some time working on the latest project, a garden shed. Hopefully I can at least get it under roof fairly quickly and before the weather turns. I'll put the pressure on myself to make progress by occasionally posting photo's. Here's where it starts.

As you can see, not much progress here but at least the building materials are in place for the floor.

Not much else to report here except for more plans. We'll offer updates soon on photograph classes, car club outing to White Hall Winery, motor home chapter rally at the Urbanna Oyster festival and another car club rally on 10/23.

How will I find time to make progress on the shed?

Tired

It's hard to believe three weeks have passed since I last updated this blog. We've been busy and now we're tired.

Here are some highlights:

Shamu, our motor home was looking a little tired so I decided some soap, water, polish and wax would solve the problem. For those that have washed a motorhome, you know it's not a trivial task. If you also wash the roof , it can be an exhausting all day task. Not wanting to take any shortcuts, I opted for all of the above plus added in a polish job and wax on the aluminum wheels and a full body wax job. It only took about a week.

Friday, September 25 we drove to Newark, Delaware where we visited with friends Rufus and Susan Barbour.

They have a great driveway where we stayed the night. These folks are life long friends so it's always great to catch up. Susan recently had lap band surgery and has lost 50+ pounds so far. We're proud of the progress and enjoyed her improved state. Rufus has been busy as usual with projects including his new equipment to manufacture bio diesel from used vegetable oil and the

new solar system on the roof. (see photo below)

He's making electricity like you wouldn't believe.

Saturday, September 26 we drove on to Hershey, PA. where we enjoyed a few days of R & R. On Tuesday we went to Roots to the farmers market where we loaded up on produce and deli items. This is always a fun stop because of the great variety and quality of vegetables and of course the great prices.

Thursday, October 1 we traveled to Williams Grove race track where we enjoyed a long weekend of World of Outlaw racing, car shows and auto swap meets in Carlisle with motor homing friends in the FMCA Dogwood Chapter.

We co-hosted the event so some work was involved but it always seems worth the effort when everyone has a good time. Mother nature cooperated with good weather except for Friday night when the race was rained out.

Sunday, October 4 we traveled on to Gettysburg where we visited with friend Gerry and Larry Clark. We went to the Apple Harvest Festival in Arendtsville, PA where Carolyn and Gerry enjoyed the crafts and Mann and Larry enjoyed the Car Show. It was a real nice event. Monday, we spent the afternoon introducing the Clarks to geocaching in the Gettysburg area. We had a good time and I think the Clarks did too. Here's a photo taken when they found their first cache.

Tuesday, returned to Midlothian VA home. Man has doctors appointments and Carolyn has he high school reunion next weekend.