This is a story about me, a technician's technician, mechanically capable and an absolute perfect gentleman. Any resemblance to real live people, places or things is purely intentional and is completely ridiculous and absurd. My name is Tom. Oh yeah. Also in the story is my kid sister, Barb. Okay, she's only ten minutes younger than me, but I am the older child in our family.
We're almost 20; and y
es, my sister and I are twins
;
but if you didn't know it, you wouldn't even think we were related. I got the height, at 6'4"; she's only 5'2". She might be a hundred pounds wet and with rocks in her pockets; I weigh in at two hundred and fifteen pounds. She got the looks; I got the muscles. She has the easy tan skin of our Greek mom; I got the fair skin from our Irish dad. Even our hair is different, mine is the red that is almost orange and I keep it really short; hers is halfway down her back and the deep auburn that is almost brown, just red highlights in the bright sunlight.
This part of the story picks up on the sixth day of our vacation. That first day had been a real bummer, all about traveling to the cabin for our planned two week stay. The second day seemed to start out bad, but turned around pretty well shortly after lunch time. The third day, actually I learned a lot more about my relationship with my sister. The fourth day, I was in heaven all day; the day started well, pre-lunchtime was fantastic, afternoon was stupendous, and the day ended in the best way that a day could. The fifth day had turned out to be pretty good, in fact, it was wonderful. For today, I'd probably have a lot more activity but not with Barb, but I think I may get to enjoy some of my quiet time today, too, hopefully.
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Good, I had remembered to reset my watch alarm to 7:00 a.m. I jumped up and hit the bathroom before Dad got up and was moving. I guess he had to give Mom a kiss or two before getting out of bed. I went ahead into the kitchen and started making enough scrambled eggs and sausages for all of us so we'd have time for breakfast before Dad wanted to hit the road into town. Dad always remembered to plan in everything, except time to eat, in the schedules he made for us.
This morning I'd get to bang on Barb's door to wake her for breakfast and to hassle Mom and Dad to get up and get out here to eat. I warmed up the second half of Mom's dinner roll instead of making toast; that would taste just fine, and besides, that would mean she'd make another either today or tomorrow. And of course milk and hot water for tea or coffee finished up the meal.
We ate and cleaned up and were out the door by 8:30, a half hour ahead of Dad's schedule. Huh, maybe he did include time for breakfast today. Anyway, it only took us about five minutes to hook up the trailer and we were on our way. We were headed to Creekford, a thriving metropolis that consisted of the courthouse, a post office, two gas stations, a grocery store with a café attached, the Farmer's Co-op, one office building and about eighteen houses for the various business owners and employees.
Oh yeah, I almost forgot the museum. Creekford is located at the official headwaters of the mighty Creek River; don't sweat it, I never heard of it before Dad started hunting here either. The museum was located on the point of land between Big Creek and Little Creek; it was originally the home of the toll ferry operator here before the bridge was built that runs the state road through the pass of the western mountain range; it exhibits ferry related information and natural history items, a very exciting half hour. The next pass through is about 75 miles away to the south; to the north it's about 150 miles and that's where the closest interstate highway goes through.
We arrived just after 9:30, still almost a half hour ahead of schedule. Since Dad was the unofficial go-between for the property group and the county, we all went over to the courthouse and met with our agent there. Dad had scheduled in almost two hours for that since there was a question about some road improvements on Big Creek Road, the one that ran by our property. Somebody had purchased a bunch of land further up the road and wanted the county to improve it and we didn't want to be stuck with some kind of big bill for their convenience. It turned out to be a non-issue anyway since the improvements were only required on the section after the road had passed our property.
Our agent was going to be his agent also and he only wanted the road improved for about a mile and a quarter; he had bought all the property on both sides of the road above that. He was setting himself up a country/mountain retreat where he could live without any close neighbors. He was able to because he had won one of those big multi-state lotteries and could afford it. The county was still getting its sand and gravel from a quarry that covered the mile and a quarter or he'd have bought everything down to our property line also. His land did share the property line for a distance of six miles with our valley; between our land and his below that; were two small valleys that were too rough to use for anything. The quarry itself was opposite those two valleys along the county road and that's why he decided not to bother to get that land too. Since he was in town, Dad decided to meet him.
Mom and Barb went with me over to the Co-op to check for the windmill parts and we could take care of that while Dad was still at the courthouse. I also went ahead and filled the gas cans for the generator while we were taking care of things. Then we went to the café to wait for Dad to meet us for lunch. We'd eat then do some grocery shopping and be at least an hour or so ahead of schedule for getting back to the cabin. Mom asked if we would be able to have a satellite connection for TV and maybe the internet once we had the windmill installed and I told her we'd know in less than a week. I wanted to check how well the windmill worked, what wattage we could generate before we tried to put any more than basic household appliances onto the system. Dad and I had planned to have some extra capacity for things like that but there is always the possibility that it wouldn't work as well as planned.
After Dad had returned and we had eaten lunch, I reminded Barb to pick out a couple magazines or books to bring back to the cabin since I'd be busy installing the windmill parts and the appliances for a couple days. So probably no trips to the waterfall during that time; she'd have to entertain herself at the cabin. She and Mom took the meats and fresh foods parts of the shopping list and Dad and I took the staples like canned goods and bulk items to obtain. That should save us another fifteen or twenty minutes, but shopping, at least with the ladies, is an art and they could easily spend the extra time.
We did start back almost an hour early and I was thinking that I might have enough time to hook up the windmill and the battery connections still tonight rather than having to wait until tomorrow to finish. With the system up and running tonight, we'd have electric lights any time night or day without running the generator. I'd also get a start at finding out how much juice we generated even at night when the wind usually slacked off some.
