Water pressure, finally! - Day 1352 (Year 4, Day 257)

Williamsburg, VA

Not a real exciting week.  Mitch was home twice this week due to rain or mud. Something tells me that this assignment, which is supposed to end by the end of March could extend through the summer, with all these lost days.  I'm not happy about that, as this is not one of my favorite places.  It's very hard to get around the campground due to the constant mud, and the walk to the office (the other campground) is about a mile away, up a steep hill.  It's also a very narrow, winding road so riding my urb-e there isn't a safe option (an aside, we're putting the two urb-e's up for sale as we're hardly using them and they're just taking up space in the truck these days).  Also, although I enjoy history and going back in time (Colonial Williamsburg), we've been there plenty of times now and I'm kind of "CW'd out."  Lastly, once again we're in an area that's nowhere close to a shul and we miss being part of a community, especially with Passover right around the corner and the anxiety of where we can attend a seder (but we have a month to worry about that.  And fortunately, the first 2 seders are Fri & Sat nights so if we need to travel, we can spend the weekend out of town.

Anyway, about the title:  for over a month now, the water pressure in the kitchen has been pretty poor.  We thought it was just a function of the new faucet Mitch installed before we came here.  Last week, however, we noticed a huge drop in the bathroom sink and shower, all of which were just about down to a trickle.  Mitch checked all the hoses and connections and cleaned out any screens (there were no clogs).  We decided to test another hypothesis:  we ran the water via the water pump (taking water from our fresh water tank instead of from the outside hose), and lo and behold - the pressure was fine.  This led us to conclude that the problem was definitely somewhere in the city water system. We thought maybe there was a leak in the outside hose which brings water into the rig (since there's a little stream running along side the trailer, but we later learned this is all from the rain) so he bought a new hose and replaced it.  Still didn't solve the problem.  Today, just for the heck if it, we decided to remove the water pressure regulator which is connected between the water source and the hose (as it's name says, it's supposed to regulate the water flow and ensure we don't get a blast that blows out the lines).  Well, being the cheap model that it was, the darn thing was broken (probably happened when the water froze, which thinking about it, was about a month ago, when the pressure started to drop).

So now we have beautifully flowing water again.  And as soon as he's able, Mitch will buy a new regulator, and this time spend a little more money and get a good quality one (this is the 3rd regulator we've had to replace).

The rest of the day (after troubleshooting the water pressure problem) was spent cleaning out the truck, which was in severe need of cleaning and re-organization.  I then did some baking (my keto crackers and scrambled egg muffins to last the week) and Mitch is creating a new shelf organizer for the bathroom closet (he was so pleased with the job he did in the coffee/tea pantry and his underwear drawer, so now he's in major organization mode.  Which is rather odd since he's so oblivious to clutter and I'm the one who gets bent out of shape if a paperclip is out of place!  He calls it OCD but I think I'm just a neat freak).

Another nice day out in CW - Day 1345 (Year 4, Day 250)

Williamsburg, VA

For a change, this was the first nice Sunday we've had in a while and one in which we didn't have a long "to-do" list (well, we do, but nothing absolutely critical that we couldn't take the day off and enjoy ourselves).  It was bright and sunny and temps in the 60s so we decided to return to Colonial Williamsburg.  We started out at the museum and visited a few exhibits which we missed the last time we were there.  Today we viewed mostly antique furniture and fabrics.  Truly fascinating stuff.

Afterwards, we learned there is a Tea & Spice Exchange in the Merchant Square section.  We had visited one in St. Augustine and Savannah and love the chain!  I'm running low on tea so we decided to go to that section as well.  On a whim, we decided to take a little time off and visit here:



I had the red wine sampler and Mitch had a glass of cider, plus we shared some goat cheese mixed with fennel and lavender.  Yum!  (Note: this is not the actual winery; that's a few miles away.  This is just a store front which lets you sample their wares and entices you to visit the premises.  Or just enjoy some wine and cider).

I also took a little video (360 degree view) of the area (can you spot Mitch?)  It's a large file, so here's a link.  Not sure how long it will work though: https://s.amsu.ng/PVl8noOLNxfN

We did a lot of walking through the area and saw this very interesting classic car parked:



After this, we went to the tea/spice store and purchased some Earl Grey tea, beet root powder and "everything but the bagel" spice (we were going to buy it at Trader Joe's but they had some here so it saved us a trip).  Afterwards, we returned to the visitor center, picked up the truck and headed home.  We were going to go shopping (need more vitamins and wanted to buy a new Shabbat tablecloth) but we were both, as always, way too exhausted.  From now on, if we have any shopping to do on a day we want to have fun, do the shopping first!

My "exciting" life - Day 1334 (Year 4, Day 239)

Williamsburg, VA

Another 2 weeks have passed since my last post.  Hard to believe; it feels like I just posted a few days ago!  How do we keep time from flying by?

Obviously, not much exciting has happened as it's been work, work, work.  Mitch has had quite a number of days off due to the rain and very muddy conditions (very thankfully, not more snow or ice).  At least this gave him an opportunity to catch up on a number of back burner projects he's been meaning to accomplish, and I also gave him some work for my company (A-Z Admin Solutions: www.AZAdminSolutions.com, in case anyone's interested!).  We both agree that it would be wonderful if I could hire him full time, but alas, the workload isn't enough right now to warrant that.  Although, admittedly, a huge project has come in that I don't have (1) the desire, or (2) the time to complete myself and have hired a really awesome subcontractor to help me with.

My "excitement" of the week has been discovering a bald eagle!!  Very sadly, I don't have a camera that could zoom in close enough to get a good shot, although I was able to clearly identify it using binoculars and various bird identification tools.  Here's the best I could do photographically zoomed (it is really majestic when it's flying):



One thing I do find disappointing is our lack of seeing wildlife.  For example, this campground is divided into the front and back sections.  There are loads of deer in the back section (we're in the front) and I have yet to see a single one.  Mitch said he saw baby bears in Asheville (I didn't) but other than many different kinds of bugs, we haven't experienced much.

Regarding synagogue services, we have not gone for quite a while.  I guess we both sort of decided that it just wasn't worth the 25 mile schlep.

This past weekend, as seems to always be the case, the weather was miserable.  We ended up on Sunday just running a bunch of shopping errands (including a trip to Michaels to buy a replacement clock mechanism) and then spent the remainder of the day watching downloaded movies.

Regarding next steps for travel:  it was suggested to Mitch that our next assignment will be in Salt Lake City, Utah.  On one hand, this sounded really exciting as we haven't been out west before.  On the other hand, it's a 5000 mile round trip.  Three out of four parts of our cursed Ford 6.0L engine have been replaced to date but we were warned the last part (the head gasket, the most expensive of all) is due to blow at any given time.  Since the trip would take us 50% of the way through "fly over country" -- the Midwest with nothing but farmland and tiny cities hundreds of miles apart (kind of like our travels in the Dakotas), and then the rest of the way through the mountains and steep grades (towing 20K pounds), we decided we didn't really want to take the risk of this kind of travel at this point.  Mitch asked his supervisor to please keep us on the east coast, which he agreed to.  We will most likely be here until some time (end?) of March but it's unclear where we'd be going next.  So far, it seems like the highest possibilities are either NJ, or Asheville or Raleigh, NC.  Will keep you posted....