Jan 4 - a half day

Finishing up my mid-day blog from yesterday ... went to Pat Martin's to meet with him and Susan for the Lost Channel Roads Board.  Came home and had a shower and threw all my clothes immediately into the washing machine, due to cigarette smoke.  Pat's wife Helen and Susan's husband Tom did all the smoking in another room but it didn't help.  Next time it will be a conference call ! 

There was little action on the fishing rigs yesterday.  Within a few minutes of putting them in, a flag went up.  Minnow was still there.  At the end of the day, one rig still had its minnow, the other didn't.  In spite of that, we had pike for dinner, frozen from a few days ago -- frozen in water really does a good job of keeping it fresh.

Sandy continued cleaning; I did a dump run and finished up most of what I've got to do.  Today we'll organize to leave and might actually leave, depending on how we feel.  It's supposed to snow today -- we'd prefer to leave tomorrow a.m. but that puts us at risk of not getting out of here. 

The Cruz got me to the dump and Pat's yesterday.  My car and/or snow tires and I'd scoff at 10 cm.  We might not even get that much.  We'll see.  I'm betting that the X5 won't be ready tomorrow anyway, so no rush except that we'd have to rearrange Sandy's appointments.

I did some more research on the frozen PCV thing and it seems that it's an affliction that can occur across car makers, doesn't depend on age and doesn't even need extreme cold to trigger.  I read about an aftermarket over-pressure valve that can be installed, forget on which manufacturer's car.  In extreme cases, crankcase seals can be blown.   Often oil gets sucked into the air intake and really messes things up.  I was "lucky ?".  The only real solution is parking in a warm garage ...

Onward ...