Day 290, Year 8: The BIG Move . . . with a Little Help from Our Friends
Date: Tuesday, August 20, 2013
Weather: Sunny and Hot, High Temp 90 degrees F
Location: Back in Eel Pond, Woods Hole, Massachusetts
The temperature in the 90’s today didn’t make the move of all of our stuff in the Concord, NH, storage unit any easier, but with the help of good friends, we did it. We packed everything in the U-Haul truck and traveled back to the Cape. The packed U-Haul truck is spending the night within the gates of our new storage place here and tomorrow morning, Heather, Jed, and boys will help us unload. Mark and I were able to load all of the boxed things this morning and then we called Tom Porat who came to help with us with the big stuff. Alan Kanegsberg had come by earlier and suggested that we call a consignment store to come haul off the things we had planned to take to the Salvation Army. That was a great suggestion. Some of the things we wanted to get rid of were very heavy and by having the consignment truck come, they did all the heavy work. But even at that, by the time Tom arrived to help, Mark was really overcome by the heat. He had to take it easy for a bit, but between Tom, Mark, and me, the big stuff got loaded. And then Helaine Kanegsberg brought lunch for all of us. It was sooooo delicious. The storage unit was mostly empty by the time she came, but we found some milk crates and she served an elegant lunch on the concrete floor. Her chicken macaroni salad is to die for and the fresh cucumber and tomatoes tasted better than any I have ever had. So a great big thank you goes to Alan for his suggestion that made our day so much easier, to Tom for giving us that critical help to move the big items, and to Helaine for providing such a wonderful lunch. Friends helping a little makes such a big difference.
I’ll back track a little to our visit with Leslie and Rich Kole last night. We hadn’t seen them since last summer, so we had a lot of catching up to do. Leslie and Rich went to Turkey and Greece last fall and we got to hear all about that trip and see the photos. They arrived in Istanbul in Turkey, traveled by boat to other locations in Turkey, visited the islands of Rhodes, Santorini, and Mykonos in Greece, and then they did a mainland tour of Greece ending in Athens. It was a fabulous trip and hit all of the places that Mark and I would have visited had we gone through the Red Sea to the Mediterranean. We’re still glad we didn’t do that, but doing a tour of Turkey and Greece by flying there and chartering a boat is still a distant dream. Listening to Leslie and Rich talk about all of the wonderful things they encountered made me realize just how lucky Mark and I are that we were able to sail around the world. We saw so much that it was truly like being on overload all the time. I really, really need to get that book written to document and finalize the experience. It’s just so hard to find the time. Leslie and Rich are going to Switzerland to the Prague this fall, so we’ll look forward to seeing them next summer to hear all about that.
Now back to today. We left the storage unit before 2 o’clock. Mark drove the U-Haul and headed to Hanover, Massachusetts, to drop off more furniture at a consignment shop. I was to take metal trash to the metal recycling center and then drop off all the rest of the trash at the town dump before heading south to meet Mark and help unload the furniture at the consignment shop. That plan got derailed. The traffic in Boston was bumper to bumper, and shortly after getting out of the tunnel that goes under the city, I realized I had a flat tire. I was in six lanes of traffic that was barely moving and couldn’t even think about pulling over and blocking rush hour traffic. So I just kept creeping along hoping the next exit would come along soon. In the meantime, lots of drivers tried to be helpful by yelling across the traffic to let me know I had a flat. But I knew that! I dreaded to think what damage I was doing to the tire, but I kept going, got off at the exit, and stopped at the first filling station. I got no help there, so I tried to figure out where my spare tire might be located. I had the 200 feet of anchor chain in the back of the car weighing about 350 pounds which complicated the search and the thought of jacking up the car to change a tire. The owner’s manual did not help me find the spare, so I called Jed and asked him to try to find a place nearby that could repair a tire. This was one time when I wished I had a smart phone, but Jed did the searching for me. He also helped talk me through the possible locations for the tire which I finally located. Thank you, Jed. I called the tire repair shop that was close-by, but unfortunately they told me they were closing in ten minutes and couldn’t help. But when I gave them my location, they told me the filling station directly across the street actually had mechanics on duty. So I walked across to see if they could help. At first they were resistant, but finally they told me to drive across and they would see what they could do. The fix was actually very easy. A young man inflated the tire and started examining it to find the leak. He couldn’t find anything, so he drove forward to expose another bit of the tire. I immediately spotted a tiny silver fleck, touched it, and could feel air coming out of the tire. Bingo. He used needle nose pliers to pull a nail out of the tire, sprayed the area with a liquid that looked like pink dish detergent, and then inserted a piece of rope-like material (soaked in the same liquid) into the hole. He sprayed the area with more pink liquid. There were no bubbles, so he told me I was good to go. The cost was $10 and he promised I could drive on this tire indefinitely. I won’t feel safe about doing that, but it did get me home. In the meantime, Mark had found help unloading the furniture at the consignment shop and he waited for me so he could follow me home . . . just in case that tire didn’t really make it. Thankfully, we did make it home safe and sound. And tomorrow morning we will continue to storage unit adventure.
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| 130820 Day 290 Cape Cod, USA–Moving Out of NH Storage Unit |
