Our Gang....

Sunday marked the end of our shift work for the month of September, and also marked the end of Chris and Cherie's stay here at Cape Blanco.....more on that a little later.  Acknowledging it is the END of September causes me a little cognitive dissonance.....that it will be my 65th birthday this Friday only increases that dissonance.....lol.  This month has just flown by.....it "feels" as if we have just arrived.

But, as is my want, I get ahead of myself......Sunday morning I got up to find my phone charger had bitten the dust, and did not charge my Samsung Note3 overnight.  This is the second Verizon charger that has bit the dust since I got the phone back in February.  To bring a little perspective to this situation, I have never had a phone charger go bad in all the years I have owned a cellphone.....not one!  Now I have gone through two in 7 months.....I love my Samsung....it is the best cellphone I have ever owned, but what is it with the chargers?

Okay, so what to do?  The nearest Verizon store is up in Coos Bay, an hour's drive each way, which is out of the question, because we work the "top shift" and don't get off until 1 pm, and come on now, there is NFL football to be watched and enjoyed.....I need a charger because my phone battery, at this point, is on life support.....the little virtual battery is glowing RED!  It is so low that plugging the USB cable into my computer won't even work.   

Any who.......there was nothing I could do until after our shift ended, so I turned my phone off to save what little charge was left.....I wasn't sure if the problem was the charger, or the USB cable.  I had to use TLE's iPhone hotspot to create yesterday's blog entry.

So we arrived at the lighthouse around 9:45 am to begin our shift along with Chris and Cherie who had the "middle" shift.......they had originally planned to be here for the same two month stretch that we were, but due to business commitments and workload (yes, some of us still work for a living out here in the Nomad world)  it was just not working out for them, so they will be departing by the end of the week. Near the end of our shift all six of us (Paul, Nina, Chris, Cherie, TLE and I) got together for a farewell "usie".....picture courtesy Chris!

Left to right: Chris, Cherie, Paul, Nina, TLE and moi

There will, no doubt, be a lot more hugs given, received, and "until next times" spoken before the end of the week, but this will be the last picture of "our gang" in uniform this time around.

We left directly from the lighthouse to drive to Bandon......we both thought we had seen a Verizon store in town, so we agreed amongst ourselves to drive at least that far.....I did not want to drive all the way to Coos Bay for a battery charger.  We drove to the northern city limits and found no Verizon store, which only confirmed what Verizon's website was telling us......NO Verizon store in Bandon.   So, we turned around intending to head back to Flat Rock Creamery for some icecream when I remembered that the local TruValue Hardware store had a Radioshack inside the store, and they sell universal chargers, so we pulled in to see what they had.  I was able to take my charger and USB cable in, and with the help of the clerk troubleshot my problem to isolate the culprit......was it the charger, or the cable?  As it turned out it was, indeed, the charger.  They, Radioshack, had generic chargers with a USB port in stock that were compatible with my Samsung phone for $4.50 each, so I bought two giving me a spare the next time the charger fails. Won't it be just a tad bit funny if this $4.50 charger outlasts the two previous Verizon chargers?

From there we made a beeline for Face Rock Creamery and a couple of $1.50 cups full of our favorite ice cream.  TLE chose the "Civil War" (caramel, peanut butter, chocolate and vanilla), and I chose the Bordeaux Cherry.....triple yum.....this has got to be the best ice cream deal ever!  Before we left we also picked up some of their cheese.....they allow you to sample every single cheese offering they have, which makes it easy to decide which ones you really like.

We were home by 3:20 and shortly thereafter I was ensconced in front of the TV and watching the NFL while my phone charged......life is good.....yep, you're right, it doesn't take much to put a smile on my face.

While we were in Bandon we made a "quick" stop at Ray's Food Place for some fresh Coho Salmon, and some steaks.....of course, there is no such thing for us as a quick stop at the grocery store, and pretty soon our smallish basket was full of food items.  I started the Sea-B-Que around 6 pm and grilled the Coho Salmon to perfection (8 minutes at medium) and TLE added saffron rice and broccoli/green beans.....a wonderful cap to a great Sunday.

In the Sunday Night Football game the Cowboys dominated the Saints winning 38-17 (it wasn't that close), so I know my Dallas friends will be happy for another week.....I don't know if they can handle being this happy for three straight weeks.....:D

Thanks for stopping by!