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More Beach Stuff!

Last time we saw how a train could interfere with a Beach Trip. But there are more potential hold ups than that.
Here's another.

In this shot, it's closed. But of course, that is not always the case. In fact as we approached The Island, it was open, which means a long line of automobiles, and a long wait. There is another bridge, but it is on the other end of The Island. This is not a long bridge, but since our car is not amphibious, we opted to wait. We finally made it across, and out to the Beach House, where the rest of the family was already enjoying their Beach Experience.

One of the "Boys" found this thing, whatever it is.

Here's a look at some of the Beach Houses from the marsh area out in the Sound. The Fuzz likes to paddle around over there in the canoe. This time he had his camera.
The real beach is on the other side of the Island. It's just a short walk to the wind and surf, but The Fuzz spends more time over here.

Complications in Travel

It's a tale of fun,
In the surf and the sun.
There's no reason to grieve,
Even though we must leave,
So it's homeward at last,
This vacation is past.

Last year as we left our Beach Experience, Troubles arose. This year, they actually arose the evening before the exodus.
You may notice the size of the load which has been placed on this puny rack on my puny truck. It should be noted that this rack was hastily constructed for the purpose of carrying only a Kayak. The Fuzz must take responsibility for this. That seems to be what people do these days when there is trouble. Maybe he could refer to this as an "error in judgment" or something. In reality it is more like a bungle. This rack was actually constructed quite flimsily on the foolish assumption that it would not be under much stress. This is actually rather uncharacteristic of The Fuzz who has historically overbuilt everything. It may have something to do with the "Downsizing" of his Truck to this tiny Oriental Thing, and the desire to travel "Light".
Be that as it may, on the evening before the exodus, a Heavy Duty Son, decided in his youthful exuberance, to use this Light Duty Rack, for what may be referred to as "playground equipment", with some disquieting results. You may notice that this inferior weld in this inferior design has failed. This is not a good thing. This has happened many, many miles from the Home Base. While these things were transpiring, The Fuzz was blissfully unaware, peacefully laying in the air conditioned beach house reading "The Brothers Karamazov" (which is pretty good if you have the time). There, he was approached with the words, "We have a mechanical problem". This might not have been entirely accurate, but it was a problem nevertheless.
There is, I suppose, some advantage to not knowing about your problems in advance. The Fuzz would probably not have enjoyed this seaside excursion so much, knowing he would have to drive hundreds of miles beneath a canoe which could fall off the truck at any moment. This was a mercy.
So the canoe and kayak were gently placed on the now somewhat unstable rack. Then, The Fuzz, with the assistance of the Sons, strapped it all together, very tightly. Those straps with the ratchet things on them work very well. The Fuzz highly recommends them for times like this. The theory was, the canoe and kayak would keep the rack from collapsing on it self, and some other straps would keep it from falling apart. It was The Fuzz's Sweetie that recommended lashing the paddle to the rack in the hope that if it did come loose, it would at least stay in the truck.
And so, the next morning the rest of the stuff was loaded, and the trip began.
The first leg was over secondary two lane type roads. This was good because of the low speeds, but there were a lot of bumps. By the time he got to the Interstate, The Fuzz noticed that the canoe seemed to be moving around more than he liked, so he pulled over.
Things were beginning to get interesting now. The Fuzz discovered to his dismay, not one, but three defective welds. This is 3 out of 4, not good at all. This seemed to be some sort of "domino effect" due to the extra strain. Back into his bag of tricks. This was a little army surplus pack crammed with straps, ropes and stuff like that. The Fuzz highly recommends carrying these sort of things on trips, when it is inconvenient to bring a welder.
Now the strapping, tying, cussing and praying began in ernest. The State Troopers stopped to see if things were all right. They left on the assurance that there were no mechanical difficulties. They probably would not have been happy with the condition of the load. The end result was an incredible web of strapping and ropes, that fortunately held up the whole way home.

And so, the Beach trip is over for another year. Once again the Return Trip was a bit traumatic for The Fuzz. But once again all is well. It's all just the grace of God.

A Little bit of Rain

Finally, a little bit of rain. Not much, but anything will help. It rained (sorta) all night. Not much more than a sprinkle, but it is wet.
Well, this is the last week of school. Not that they're doing much anymore. Tests are over for the younger ones, I think they mostly watch movies.
Scholarly Son, while not graduating himself, got the honor of being an usher for all that stuff. This requires all those fancy clothes and all. Not having his own Monkey Suit, he had to go rent one. I had to do that once for a wedding.... but I digress. I had to take him over to get the thing the other day. The place was full of fancy dresses hanging all over the place. There was not much room to walk around. I think this must be some kind of feminine thing. I guess they hide all the guy stuff in the back or something.
I tried to remember how to tie a tie for him. We're not real sophisticated here, but we managed to fake it. Now he is over there doing what ever they do even as I write this. It's not always easy, growing up in this family.

Roofing

Just came home from a family roofing event. I am also a little bit tired and sore. So.... I'll go into more detail on this next time. But as can be seen, this was a necessary job. When things like this come up, it's good to get all the help one can get, so our son set up a Shingle Shindig, complete with food and beer. Maybe it's not good to drink beer on a roof, but no one fell off, so maybe it's OK after all. We all worked hard, except the dog, and there's another job well done.

Here At Last

Here it is, our first Daffodil. But lest we think too springy of thought here, the NWS has us lined up for all of 19' F tonight. They say the price of gas went down ( a little ) because of a mild winter. That may be so here, but it sure looked like it wasn't the case up north. I guess I'll never understand economics. I think they just get as much as they can mostly. And since we mostly drive, we mostly pay.
We did make it out to cut wood today. One of the advantages of a small truck is you can fill it quickly. One of the disadvantages of a small truck is it don't hold much. But the old back is acting up, so I guess it was a good thing to minimize the work. In this case the minimization was maximized. We brought strong, athletical son along, and an extra chainsaw. And then, those country boys were so inspired by young daughter's beauty that they loaded most of the wood for her. Daughters can be a good thing, you know. But so not to offend the tree huggers, what was cut was standing deadwood, nice dry oak stuff. Just what works best on those 19' mornings.