Jan 7 - long, long day

... for us and for the two riders !

Our drive was relatively short.  We left Orangeburg around 7am and arrived at home a little after noon.  We didn't stop.  Apparently the SPOT is still running in the driveway, having tracked us here and then twice to Publix and to the SYC for dinner.

It never takes long to unload here, no matter how much we have, since we're basically on one level -- us and the car and our living space !  That's a treat compared to up north.

I'd gotten emails the day before that our thermostats weren't communicating, which can occur randomly and with a power outage.  Well, I checked the router and the modem and rebooting didn't fix anything.  I called Brighthouse and setup an appointment for today, then did some internet catch-up using my cellphone hotspot. 

I decided to check outside and found that the landscapers next door had dug up and broken our cable.  Right, that would do it !  I put connectors on both ends and used a male-male connector and voila ... nothing.  I called Brighthouse and they still couldn't communicate with the modem.  Rats.

A little while later, this bugging me, I went and tugged at the cable that went into the ground towards our place ... right ... six feet came out of the ground, another break.  Oh yes, I'd also checked the street junction box and it all seemed ok there. 

I prepared to dig and find the break and decided that I'd simply run a wire along the ground.  I joined a couple of pieces together and voila ... nothing.  I called Brighthouse again and still nothing at their end but the girl must have decided that I'd been trying so hard that she'd put a supervisor on the line to see what could be done. 

So ... they scheduled a same-day call, to happen in the next couple of hours (by this time it was after 4pm). 

In the meantime,  still annoyed, I cut a new piece of cable and joined wire coming out of the street junction box with the box at the house which in the meantime I'd opened.  Nothing.  Why ?  I checked the connectors that I'd added and found that I'd been sloppy -- one had a single hair-diameter strand of wire shorting to the center wire of the coax ... went inside ... we're live !  Great !  Wait !  We just went down again !  What ?

Well, the Brighthouse guy was already here and had disconnected the wire ... ha !  It only took him 15-20 minutes to run a new wire and we were live while he buried it.  Good job !

I went over to Publix and picked up milk, eggs and a couple of other items.  That was the first trip.

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My plan had been to take Vincent Muoneke and John Pearch out to dinner once they came riding through.  They're doing the Sunshine 1200k route and of course it passes along Riverside just by our house.  I'd been checking SPOT for their progress and figured that they'd be touch-and-go for restaurants.  Monitoring their progress they'd stopped at a Control for a long time, approaching an hour.  That Control is about 55 miles south of us.

So ... I called John's number, got vmail. I then called Vinny's and he answered. 

Long story short, a couple of calls with John discussing food options, another trip to Publix, dinner for us at the SYC, they crawled here ... no, crawling might have been faster. Vinny had pushed too hard and couldn't even eat once they got here.  He had some tea with honey.  John gobbled up soup and alfredo pasta.  All this was around 11:30 p.m.  Remember that they'd had a shot at being here by 8pm ?  That gives you an idea how slow that ride was for them.  I watched the miles count down on SPOT on their way here and met them on Riverside.

Headwinds were the main issue along with sun.  You'd think that Vinny being from Nigeria would do well in the sun, but no.  Perhaps he'd lived too long in Seattle !  He's a strong, very experienced rider.  In fact I think that one year he did over 20 of these things, but Florida knocks him flat (no pun intended).  He DNF'd the ride in May and is determined to get this one behind him. 

They're riding again this morning, I see from SPOT.  They got into the hotel in Daytona around 1:45 - that's only 16 miles from here - and are now west of us on the way to Lake Wales after a couple of hours sleep.  It's raining so that should make them feel right at home !  Hopefully they'll do better today although it looks like the wind has shifted and they have a headwind again.

As for us ... Cassie is happy to be here, I guess.  She doesn't get unsupervised time outside any more like she did up north.  There's no bounding up the hills, tackling the deep snow; it will be a challenge to get her equivalent exercise.  I'll try taking her for a walk once the rain moves through.

If the rain does move through, I hope to get out on the bike.  Sandy was talking about walking the causeway but she'll be slow moving this morning as well.  It was a late night; the boys left around 12:30 a.m.

Everything looks ship-shape here, other than the garage which is still a mess of piled wood, bikes everywhere, summer rims and tires, outboard motor .... ugh.

So ... visitors ...

--  we hear that Sheryl & Jim might head out on the 10th, which means that they'll stop with us for a couple of days before taking over their rental, I think. 
-- Shortly afterwards we'll likely see Jason & Lorraine & Kim (not sure about Kim) who have a couple of separate weeks booked in Florida. 
-- I heard from Randy Walsh, from Smith's Bay Road at the cottage, who'd staying in the same condo complex as Sheryl; he and his wife Debbie are already here in Florida. I'd told him to get hold of me and we'd go fishing; that's on the agenda for next week, date TBD. 
-- Sara has nailed tickets for the five of them for just over $400 -- what a great deal ! -- the first week of March. 
-- Sandy is going to try and get Nancy and Ron down; Ron is still in recovery mode so they didn't take their rental this year, unfortunately. 
-- Marda will likely come down again.   
-- At the end of March, I think, we'll see Carol and Alister before they head north. 

Is that it ? That looks like a long list but we will be here for over four months.  Oh yes, hopefully we'll see Wayne and Doris ...

Onward !