Tuesday January 18th, 2011

Woke to a beautiful sunny day.  What a difference this makes in ones outlook on life.

Left Brain went out to wax the trailer.  I did my part by staying out of the way and playing scrabble on the computer.  I’d play against She Devil, but I hate getting beat by a cat.  There’s no arguing with a 20 pound cat that bites if you disagree with her.

After the waxing was done we laid our the floor tarp and commenced to setting up the cabana tent attachment.  We’d both  been secretly fearing this task as the posts on the R-Pod Nation website warned how difficult this is. Obviously they’ve never wrestled with EZ Up tents and other camping gear before.  We had this puppy up and staked down in about 15—20 minutes.

Then I set up the deluxe camper kitchen from an earlier  Wal-Mart excursion.  I really thought he’d mock it, but it seemed to impress him.  You just never know.  I set the table up over the wheel for the toaster oven and made a living room with two chairs and a small table.  The cabana has floor space of about 8’ x 10’, so it adds a lot of ROOM to our camping experience.  Not to mention it will keep us dry and comfy.

Modifications were added to a wooden board to situate over the gas stove top for additional countertop space and Left Brain will install the folding extension table tomorrow.  It’s all starting to come together.

He mentioned that he needed to make a run to the Hardware store and I immediately volunteered to do this chore for him. It would have taken him probably 30 minutes max for this.  It took me about three hours or more.  First I decided to call a friend to chat and missed the turn out of the park...twice.  I’m sure the nice couple walking their husky figured I was totally lost, and they were right to a degree.  Left Brain had programmed in the directions to Ace Hardware and I had it really confused by ignoring it over and over again.

I finally got out of the park (I have the same problem with stores in malls, I just keep circling and circling.  I would never make it as a lab rat) and proceeded down the highway. The GPS kept directing me to turn and announced “You have arrived” but I couldn’t see any hardware store. I decided I’d stop somewhere for lunch and check the computer.  My first stop was Applebee’s and this was no easy task.  If you’ve ever driven in Florida the first thing you notice is the lack of frontage roads. Everything just pulls off from the highway.  You can usually see where you want to go, but you can’t always get there.  When they apologized for not having Wi-Fi I said “no problem”...and then I left.  I punched in Panera on the GPS and found it with only minor problems. Yes, back in the land of the internet!  I found the phone number of the hardware store and called them for better directions.  They asked if I was directed to Outback and I said yes and asked if they were nearby. Nope, this just seems to happen with some GPS.  It had me going the opposite direction of what was needed.  Got to the hardware store and found everything needed and returned to base camp.

We enjoyed a lovely afternoon in our cabana and Left Brain went off to take a shower.  We aren’t going to tackle showing in the shoilet yet due to limits on the holding tank.  That adventure will wait until February when we have sewer hookups.  That should be interesting.  We grilled some supper and ate outside.  Now I’m really on vacation!  There’s talk of taking a hike and getting the camera out tomorrow as the weather continues to be nice.