May 13 - the day before the day before

It was mostly a packing and putting away day for me.  Dock furniture and the boat are away ... the boat turned out to be an adventure ! 

The tide was low so mud was exposed.  I lowered the boat just enough so that there was some slack in the sling, intending to then pull the tarp down past the sling and raise the boat up again, but as soon as it hit the mud, the boat started sliding backward.  I almost lost it !  At that point it was way far back and I got it secured, pulled it forward on the mud, raised it a little and awaited the tide. 

I got the trailer mostly packed, save the second bike that I'm riding today and tying down, since I need to do that once both bikes are in place.  I sorted my bike clothing, which always turns out to be most of my packing.  It's not just the clothing, it's all the add-ons for cold weather and odds and ends.  There's still a little work to do as well as throwing some clothes in a small bag for the trip, but that should be quick. 

I did some computer backups, so that's square, and sorted out some papers to bring with me.

I also closed up the upstairs bedroom shutters and the small wing nut shutters over the front door.  That turned out to be a pain as the painter had quite nicely painted the tracks but that left no room for the tight fit bolts.  Ugh.  Eventually I got that in place, 5 minutes turning into 30.

The car hasn't been loaded.  I'll do that after I get back from my intended bike ride today.  We had BIG RAIN yesterday, so the weather has cooled and the wind is from the north.

I got a call last evening with an odd name on the display, figured that it was a crap call but it turned out to be a friend of a rider in NC whose spouse hadn't heard from him since 4pm who was doing a ride up there.  I tracked down the ride organizer, handed off that telephone number and made a couple of calls myself.  Art (the friend) called back while I was on the phone saying that he'd talked to the organizer, who was actually on the ride, all was likely well and he would sort things out.  I heard from Luke, the organizer, later on and the MIA rider's cell phone had died, he ran overtime and taxied to the finish.  DNF but safe.

Art found my name on the RUSA website.  I wonder how many numbers he tried first or did he just think that "Treasurer" was the person to call ?  Perhaps my Florida address was the closest physically to where the ride might be -- I'm guessing that might be the reason that he called me.  Interesting anyway.

Onward, Ho !