'Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future......'

6:07 am - Tuesday - August 1, 2017 - 48º F, humidity 63%, wind 3 mph out of the east southeast.....clear skies.....sun is just beginning to crest the eastern mountains.  Forecast high in Gardiner is 87º F today (83º in Mammoth Hot Springs).  Up early as we are going hiking this morning before it gets too warm!

Once again we come full circle to our 'Friday' (Monday) and the 'MID' shift (11 am to 7 pm).  While I love having bookend 'MID' shifts (Thursday and Monday) I always come up short on those mornings as we have to begin getting ready for work at 10 am so we can be ready to leave for work at 10:30......I get used to getting ready to go to work at 12 pm so we can leave at 12:30 pm.....I really like having those extra 2.5 hours in the morning.  Ah well, you can have it all, but I would like to have it all.

I'm sitting here looking at my wall Cedar Key, FL Sunsets calendar (RV sized) that we buy each year from Chris and Cherie at Technomadia through their Zazzle Store wondering how we got to August 1st so quickly.  It was just the beginning of April when we began our 3 week trip up the California coast on our way to South Lake Tahoe for the summer.   On April 23rd we arrived in South Lake Tahoe at Tahoe Valley Campground for what we thought was going to be the best summer at TVC ever, only to see the death of that vision within 5 short weeks.  That was just 4 months ago, but it seems much, much longer.  That is the wonder of this lifestyle, is it not?  We have wheels on our home and can move our home at a moment's notice.....well, maybe a few dozen moment's notice.  Nonetheless, we can change our view and circumstances without going through escrow......we just give our notice, find a new circumstance and go!  We have recaptured our desire for the 'new'......the unexpected, new vistas, new friends, new experiences.  We once again relish the thought of exploring by foot new trails taking us to places we always dreamed of visiting.

  

The weather trend, as I have written previously, is for cooler temperatures over the next two weeks......below you can see the forecasts for Tuesday through next Monday......

August 1-7

.....mostly 70's with a couple of 80º days......then the next 7 days with all 70º days.....even a little rain perhaps

August 8-14

.....the night time temps are getting back into the 40's again, and by the time we depart in October they will be back into the 30's no doubt......yup.....'Time keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future......'!

Monday the General Store was rockin'........from about 12:30 pm until we left at 7 pm the customer line at the 'Fountain' was non-stop.  I worked a 1.5 hour stretch as cashier (1:30 to 3) where I was processing one customer every 10-15 seconds for the entire time.  Then the stretch from 3:30 to 6 pm where there was never more than a 60 second break in the line for 2.5 hours.  The typical transaction runs from $3.47 (one scoop of ice cream including tax) to $6.94 (2 scoops of ice cream plus tax).  Customers are tendering $5, $10 and $20 dollar bills and I am making change at a furious pace, or they are presenting credit and debit cards to cover their small purchases.  You get the occasional large group of 5-10 folks on one bill, but it is mostly one, or two people at a time.  You are counting out change for one scoop.....$1.53 ($5 tendered), $6.53 ($10 tendered), $16.53 ($20 tendered).  You must keep track of your dwindling penny, nickle, dime, quarter inventory, and make sure to call a floor supervisor for more change before you run out, while continuing to process one customer after another.  At times you feel like you are in a 'high wire' act, and one false move will send you tumbling.  Actually, I find that kind of exhilarating!

All too soon, once again, we were on our way home in the Beetle at 7 pm......we sat out side for about 90 minutes enjoying our cocktails, and then headed inside to watch a movie on Netflix entitled 'The Imitation Game' (2014) about a group of 6 British mathematicians who spent the early days of WW2 trying to break the encryption code of the 'Enigma' machine the Nazis used to send coded messages.   They were, of course, successful.  It was a very good movie and we both highly recommend it.

We were in bed a little after 11 pm dreaming of hitting the hiking trails once again Tuesday.....thanks for stopping by!

P.S. - Just a reminder, we do derive some income from our blog.  The first source is via Google Adsense.  You have probably noticed various ads in the right hand column of our blog, and in between the daily blog entries.  If you are interested in any of those products and click on any of those ads we do get a few cents for each click.  Secondly, we have an Amazon Affiliate account through Amazon, which means if you click on this link (Amazon Affiliate link) and do your Amazon shopping using that link we will receive a small commission on each completed purchase.  Using this link does not add one penny to your purchase price, nor does it affect your Amazon Prime account status.