Problems

Sunday morning and it’s already quite warm, 62° and rising. I’m awake at a later hour after yesterday’s long and grueling practice session on the Bizz Johnson Trail near Susanville. We did 19+ miles, making it all of the way from the Safeway store at the east end of town, up to the signpost at Devil’s Corral.

The trail is certainly not up to its marathon condition; it still has lots of ruts in it and the off trail detours for the tunnels make for slow going. Hopefully those will be fixed before the marathon in October.

We made one serious error yesterday; we didn’t have a plan as to how far we were going to walk and we didn’t bring any water with us. Dumb! But the good news is the fact that we didn’t die…we were simply uncomfortable for the last 7 or 8 miles. That tells us that we’re in pretty good shape, physically. Mentally? That’s a different story.

The short weekend started off with problems/irritations galore. First were the many traffic detours we had to put up with. Highway 32 is a disaster area from Orland to Chico and then there is a monumental road project on Highway 36, about 5 miles from Lake Almanor. All of these projects require waiting for a “follow me” vehicle to lead you through the mess. Then we heard from Bill as we got close to Susanville. Their water heater had just given up, and could we stop at the hardware store and buy a few supplies that would enable him to bypass the heater and get the water (cold) flowing again? After arriving at the house, Bill and I had to remove the old water heater so that the plumber (arriving on Saturday morning) would be able to install the new one. Unfortunately, the old heater had been the first item to be installed in the utility room. This meant that all of the things, like the furnace, the water softener, the well tank, etc…were now in the way of any easy removal. We would have to lift the tank straight up, turn it and snake it out between all of those obstacles. And the tank was heavy, dirty and wet. What fun!

On Saturday, Bill was able to start his framing project and Jill and I went walking. After a great dinner, we headed home and arrived here about 10:30 and greeted the cat, who had been stuck in the garage for the day and a night. I was wondering what kind of reception I would get from her? But she was distinctly happy to see us and held no grudges. In fact, she has been hovering around my ankles this morning, nudging me for some attention.

It’s time to see what’s in the newspaper…if it has arrived?