'The lasts.....'

6:08 am - Friday - September 29th - LPG&RVR - 36° F, humidity 68%, wind 2 mph out of the southeast.......partly cloudy today, with rain this evening, and a forecast high of 67° F. On this date in 2013 TLE and I had just arrived at the Fairgrounds in Sydney, MT to work the Sugar Beet Harvest.....one of the hardest jobs I have ever done......↴ 

Thursday was the next to last day I'll be staging, cleaning, and stowing golf carts this season.  It is also the second to last day I'll be making rounds of the golf course, and raking sand traps.  I raked the sand trap at #15 for the final time.....it is weed free, and looking the best it has looked all season.....

....it was a day of 'next to lasts' for me.  It has been an enjoyable 6 months.  We have watched Spring turn to Summer, and Summer to Fall, and if we were here a couple more weeks we'd hear Winter knocking on the door.  Time to head south with the geese to warmer climes.

We had frost on the greens at 7:30 am, so the start of play was delayed to 9 am....not good to walk upon frost bitten greens.  Initially I staged 8 golf carts, but we eventually rented 13.  I expect we'll do even better Friday, Saturday and Sunday...the last three full days when all 18 holes can be played.....green punching begins Monday, October 2nd in earnest.

As I made my first round of the day I could see the tee boxes for which I am responsible are mostly looking good, so I won't be mowing all of them on Friday....that is a first.  I will be mowing the employee lawns for the final time, however, on Friday.

For the first time this season, and really for the first time in two seasons we had a Yamaha fuel injected gasser breakdown on the course (11th hole).  I got the call around 2:30 pm from TLE about the issue, and enlisted Dennis, the owner, who happened to be in the Clubhouse, to help me get it back to the Clubhouse.  It tries to start, and we think there is an issue with the shifter (forward and reverse) electrical connection, because if you shift it back and forth several times it will finally start, and run normally.  Dennis managed to get it started, and drove it back. In the mean time I ferried the customer back to the Clubhouse to pick up a substitute cart so he could finish his round.

I also cleared the driving range of golf balls for the final time this season.  It took about an hour and fifteen minutes to do so, and I filled four 5 gallon buckets with the garnered balls.  I got them soaking, and will probably finish cleaning them Friday....another of the 'lasts'.

TLE and I were home by 5:10 pm, and by 5:30 pm we were sitting on the 'lido deck' to watch one of our last sunsets.....there will probably be no sunset to view Friday evening as it should be raining by then.  We sat outside until almost 6:30 pm before heading inside for the night.  We've been putting our plants in the trailer overnight the past few days as the overnight lows are getting down to freezing.  I turn on the small electric heater to keep the temperature above freezing inside the trailer.

We're down to our final week here at LPG&RVR, and, as always, are beginning to get those bittersweet feelings.....glad to be close to rolling our wheels once again, but sad to be leaving good friends,  and the beautiful LPG&RVR for another 6 months.

Thanks for stopping by!