Our Trek: Nemesis

Ok, I know that it has been a long while.  We left you last in Belize, back in November.  For my 3 remaining readers, I have a reasonable excuse for at least 3 months, which will generate much pity, but I will get to that.  Let’s just say for now that I am re-learning how to type with two hands. 

After Belize, we returned to Mobile, Alabama and then headed to Charleston to close on our new house.  All went well.  Tom rented a UHaul trailer and headed up to Manassas, VA to get our bed and a few other items out of storage.  With hired help, he loaded and returned without further ado.  It was beyond wonderful to have our bed back!  I guess we old folk can get cantankerous regarding what we put our backs on.

Then, we were once again off to Steamboat.  I won’t overload you with details on that.  One fabulous multi-week stay in Colorado ski country is so much like the next one, but we did have a blast!  The snow was plentiful, and conditions were awe inspiring.  During one 7 day period we had 4 feet of snow fall.  It just kept pilling up! 

However, you will be glad to know that there was some work involved.  Linda’s dad has a larger Condo in Steamboat, in the same building as ours.  It is available to us at any time.  So, we decided to sell our condo and pay off our new home.  This meant removing everything that we wanted to keep from our condo and either putting in the Somers condo, or taking it back with us.  Also, for those of you with a weirdly effective memory, we still had our storage trailer (remember that accursed thing?) with many of our possessions (such an appropriate word) in Colorado.  I put 4 new tires on it and we drove it back to South Carolina.  So far, so good.  With the addition of the trailer goods, our house was now adequately, though sparsely, outfitted.

Linda’s fabric studio is the top floor.  I don’t mean “on the top floor” I mean “the whole top floor”.  This is approximately 1000 sq feet.  To normal people, that would seem to be a lot!  Reality check: she is squeezing to make all her stuff fit.  It was carpeted.   That may seem great, but not for a fiber room.  Linda’s activities invariably produce small bits of string, cloth and fiber which imbed themselves into carpet like a half-consumed tootsie pop in a 5 year-old’s hair.  So, the carpet had to go, to be replaced with “Luxury Vinyl Plank”.  It made no sense to fill the room with stuff and then set about replacing the flooring, so Tom prioritized this project.  Number 1 with a bullet!  Until…

OK, so here is where my pitiable excuse for not updating this website comes in.  Long story short; (or shortening story short, if you like leading puns:) Tom fought the saw, and the saw won.  All four fingers on the left hand were impacted, with the middle finger cut to the bone, and the ring finger cut through the bone, but still attached.  The fingers were sewn up in Frankenstein style at the ER. 

This was most inconvenient, and delayed the floor project by a good 2 weeks.  (Parenthetical note: This was in early March.  Now, in early June, I have recovered enough feeling in the fingers that I can type with both hands, but I make a lot of mistakes with the left one (think “e”, “w”, “s”, and “d””).)

We still had a lot of stuff in Manassas for which we were renting 2 storage bays.  So, Tom and Linda headed up to Manassas for a trailer load, taking our own trailer, now with us from Colorado (this will be very pertinent later).  We managed to squeeze in visits with just a few friends, then headed back to SC.  Storms were forecast for late afternoon, and indeed we hit torrential rain once in SC.  Then 40 miles from home, we are flagged down by a passing motorist.  I look back, and there are sparks flying from the underside of the trailer.  We are in a construction zone, with no place to pull off, so we spark on down the highway until we can pull off.  The issue was obvious: the wheel is completely missing on the right side of the axel that we didn’t replace.  The hub was bent, and various parts were roadway grinded.  Then, the rain we had passed through caught up with us.  We limped into a truck stop, and got the OK to leave the trailer there overnight.  We unhitched and drove home.  The next morning, we arranged for a flat-bed tow to bring the trailer to our house.  (40 miles at flatbed rates = $800)  Ouch.  Over the next couple of weeks, Tom YouTubed his way through replacing the axel.  He also figured out how to wire the electric brakes (they had not worked up to this point).  Yay.  And we moved everything from the trailer into the house, which was now markedly less sparsely furnished.

At this point, the trailer and Tom were not on the best of terms.  This relationship continued to deteriorate.

Another trip  to Manassas was needed to get the last of our things.  This was a very short turn-around trip.  On the way up, near Florence, SC, Tom glanced in the side mirror and happened to see a wheel rolling past.  Suspecting the worst, Tom pulled over and confirmed that the roll-away was indeed off the trailer.  The bolt holes in the rim were now each over 1 inch in diameter AND all five bolts were sheared off.  This wheel was off the axel Tom had just installed.  We slow rolled our way down the highway to a Walmart for a new wheel, and to Advance Auto for 5 new lug bolts.  With a few borrowed tools (the guys at Advance Auto were Awesome!) the lugs were replaced and we were again on our way.  We arrived in Manassas about 3 hours later than anticipated, but we made it.  The trailer was packed the next day, and we closed out the leases on the storage.

Return trip: within 15 miles of Florence, SC (See above) we were signaled by a trucker.  Another emergency pull-off.  This time, one of the wheel hubs (older axel) was pretty much on fire.  Smoke poured from the wheel.  The wheel came off without being unbolted.  The entire wheel assembly had melted down.  A quick google search located a farm service store that had wheel hubs.  We left the trailer by the side of the road, and were off to do some shopping!  The store had everything needed, as long as you knew what it took.  Another google search revealed the mysterious contents of a wheel hub, which I collected from various bins and took to the cash register.  I checked out as the store was closing.

The previously molten hub required considerable time, physical force, and dubious use of tools to disassemble, but the job was completed, in daylight, and we completed the journey home.  The next day we emptied the trailer and soon parted with that demon-possessed infernal hunk of metal, wood and rubber.  We are happy to rent to meet all future trailer needs!  Then again, I am never moving from this house until the moving vehicle is a hearse, so I should be good without any trailer (except maybe one for kayaks).

We are delighted to report that we have found our new church home, Harbor City Church.  Linda has signed on as a greeter, and Tom has worked a few projects for it.  Tom is connected with a local paddling group, and has gone on several extended kayak journeys. 

Linda has connected with the local knit wits, sorry, knitters, and spinners, and quilters, and… you get the picture.  She has also joined the Magnolia Gardening Club.  This is mostly to get help identifying what is growing in our yard!  The previous owner believed in promoting the use of local plants.  Not being locals ourselves, it is difficult sometimes to distinguish between what should be fertilized and what should be pulled.

 We have come to terms with South Carolina Summer in a manner best exemplified by the phrase “sweat happens”.  Holding off sweat with an anti-perspirant is like holding off a herd of charging bison with a flyswatter.  Rather, you just surrender to the sweat, allow it to wash over you, and know that everyone else is pretty much sticky and smelly also.  It is an amazing feeling of freedom once you get there.