Artificial intelligence........

8:05 am - Sunday - September 9th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 51º F, 71% humidity, wind 8 mph out of the north with a forecast high today of 62º F.  Today is also TLE's birthday.....she is celebrating the 20th anniversary of her 49th birthday.  Happy birthday my love!

I say this often, and I will repeat it once again.....I love spending time with visiting friends and family....I love it.  BUT, it exhausts me!  It didn't used to be that way, but over the last 7 years, or so TLE have spent the majority of our lives with just each other as we travel, and when we do have visitors I can almost feel the energy levels dropping day by day even though I find it also exhilarating at the very same time.  It is a true conundrum.  Nonetheless, I was looking forward to sleeping in Saturday morning, and I made it all the way to 7:30 am......9 hours of sleep with no obligations whatsoever on Saturday.

Ever since the beginning of our 4th season at TVC (Tahoe Valley Campground), which was the second year we had the use of our wonderful artificial turf I have wanted to repair it properly.  The first year we had it we made some cuts in it to allow it to fit around the permanent concrete picnic table in our site.  We had that crumbling concrete picnic table removed at the end of our 3rd season, so when we returned we had to patch the one small section of the turf back together.  I used Gorilla tape to do that and it worked pretty well, but over time it would pull loose.  I repaired that repair a few times over the intervening 12 months, but it was never 100% effective.

In this picture from 2016 you can see how we had to cut around the concrete base of the old, crumbling permanent table.....it was those cuts which needed repairing.

Before we put that turf back inside the trailer for our journey to Campbellsville, KY I wanted to really fix it, and had decided the only way to do so would be to buy some heavy duty, marine grade nylon sail thread to stitch up the few sections we had cut, then cover that stitching with my silicone caulk, then reapply the Gorilla tape.  It is fortuitous that we have access to a West Marine store right here in Southwest Harbor where one could hope to find such thread, which is used in stitching sails.  TLE and I pulled the turf out to a section of the yard where we would open it all the way, and get it all dried out for my repair efforts.  Then we drove over to West Marine to acquire more Gorilla tape, and the heavy duty sail thread.....

Turf laid out upside down and ready to be worked upon

  Sail thread

Gorilla tape

Silicone caulk

....we were in and out of West Marine in about 10 minutes.....it is so easy to find what you need there.......in addition to West Marine we made a quick stop at Sawyer's Market for some salad greens for dinner before heading back to the Newell.  Sawyer's caters to the sail and power boat set, which arrive in Southwest Harbor without surface transportation and are able to walk to the store.  They are a little pricey, and we normally do 95% of our shopping at Southwest Food Mart, but for stuff like salad greens they are comparable, and probably have a little better selection.

We were back home by the time the sun had been beating down on the rubberized backing on the artificial surface for about an hour making it much more malleable, and easier to penetrate with the large needle I would be using to stitch it.

The work went quickly, and smoothly.....the hard part was standing erect once again after sitting on the ground cross legged for an hour at a time......that didn't used to be so difficult!

 The stitch work

 About 1/2 done with one seam

The first section stitched, caulked and taped.....almost as good as new!

I took a break after finishing each seam, then began to caulk over the seam and thread to protect it and make it easier for the Gorilla tape to do its job.  It came out nicely.  I finished about 90% of the work Saturday, and will complete the work on Sunday morning.  Once the caulking is cured, and the tape is applied we will then refold it so it can be inserted in the trailer on Monday.  Why Monday when we are not leaving until Saturday?  Well, there is a 100% chance of precipitation on Tuesday, so it needs to go inside before it gets wet again.....now I have to get the trailer organized enough by Monday to do so!

The temperature began to drop quickly by 4 pm, and by 5:30 it was too cold to be outdoors.  The overnight low was projected to be 47º F, and as you can see by the temp I reported at the beginning of this post it got pretty cold last night.  We both turned on our electric blankets around 4 am.

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Sticks, leaves, BBQ's and refrigerators.....

6:57 am - Saturday - May 19th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 41º F, 84% humidity, wind 1 mph out of the east by northeast......clear, blue skies with a forecast high to day of 55º F.....40% chance of rain in the late afternoon, continuing into Sunday with a 70% chance of rain.

The extended weather forecast

I reported for work at 8 am Friday.  For my four hour shift I did a little of everything.  Each of the 14 cabins here has its own gas BBQ.  After a couple of seasons they begin to wear out, and must be replaced.  Along with Todd, Alex and I helped inspect each one, checking to see if it had a full propane tank, and if it would light.  About half of the BBQ's failed the test and were loaded in the back of Todd's truck and taken to the barn where we will, in the future, remove some of the common parts saving them to repair the remaining ones, if and when they need repairing.  In the mean time we will be taking delivery on 7 new BBQ's later in the week.

Once that was done Alex and I headed for the group area to finish the cleanup which had been started a few days earlier.....picking up big sticks, and then using leaf blowers to  corral the leaves into large piles so they can be transferred to the large leaf compost pile in the back of the property.

We loaded all the sticks and stick debris into the 'dumper' at the rear of the electric 'Club Car'.  In all we hauled two cart loads of sticks and debris to the stick pile.  In between the first and the second load Alex and I helped Todd move a few refrigerators around before returning to the group area clean up to haul the second load of sticks.

Once the sticks were removed we each donned a leaf blower and began to 'herd' the leaves into large piles.  By this time it was 11:20 am and I had just 40 minutes left on my 4 hour shift.  The last 40 minutes flew by quickly and I left Alex to finish creating the leaf piles which will be moved Saturday, or Sunday.  We have just one week left until the official opening of Smuggler's Den for the summer season.

Speaking of 'summer'.....the weather right now is anything but 'summery'.....while we are getting our fair share of sunny days the temperatures have only climbed out of the 50's one day since we have been here, and over the next 14 days it looks like there may be another 4, or 5 days which may creep into the low 60's, but there are at least 7 days with rain forecast.  Personally, I'm enjoying the cool weather.  I know it will get warmer soon enough, and there will even be days later this summer when I will long for these cool, bug free days of May.  

TLE worked until 2:30 pm Friday cleaning cabins with Sam, and that is where we (TLE and I) will be working on Saturday.  They managed to deep clean 4 of the 14 cabins with just two people....we'll have four people, hopefully, on Saturday so we should get a lot further along in the process by the end of of the day.

When we were in Ellsworth on Tuesday we bought a couple of filet mignons to grill later in the week, and 'later in the week' had arrived.   It was a very nice evening with no wind so while I heated up the Sea-B-Que I also laid wood for a fire.  While the steaks grilled we sat by the fire sipping some Pinot Noir.  About the time I flipped the filets two of our neighbors for the summer, Linda and Terry, came over to introduce themselves.  They keep their 5th wheel here at Smuggler's Den during the summer and come most weekends, and on occasion will stay a week at a time.  They are very nice people and we will enjoy interacting with them throughout the summer!

The steaks came out wonderfully.....a perfect medium rare.  TLE added a side mashed potatoes.  We sat by the fire eating our dinner......our first meal outside.....enjoying the early evening air.  A nice way to end our first week in Southwest Harbor!

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Workaday man......

6:15 am - Friday - May 18th - Southwest Harbor, ME - 46º F, 53% humidity, wind 11 mph out of the north.....clear, blue skies with a forecast high for today of 58º F.

Work day 2 began at 8 am for me Thursday, while TLE began her day at 9 am.  Day 2 was a much better day for me physically.  My ribs hardly bothered me for my four hour shift.  My job was to spend the morning cleaning all the chaise lounges (10) and chairs (14) in the pool area.  They had been kept inside the restroom during the winter, but there is still cleaning which needs to be done.

In order to mold proof them for the summer Todd had me use an air pump sprayer to apply white vinegar to each chaise lounge and chair.  None of the chairs had any mold on them, but the white vinegar apparently not only will remove mold, but when applied will prevent mold from growing.  When you live in a cool, humid environment mold is an inevitability, so preventative action is important.

Once the white vinegar was applied I took one of those 'Magic Erasers' to clean all the surfaces (vinyl and metal).  The vinyl was pretty clean, but the metal (coated in white rubber) had stains, and paint scuffs which the magic eraser removes so easily.  It's obvious these chairs have been taken care of over the years (they are 5 years old) as they still look almost new.  Apparently at the end of each season in October they take time to clean all the suntan lotion off the vinyl before they are put into storage for the winter.  If I hadn't been told so, I would have thought they had been purchased within the past few months.

After cleaning all the surfaces I then rinsed each chair with water so they would not smell like white vinegar.  In all it took me almost exactly 4 hours to finish the job.....Alex, and Tony came over about 11:30 am to help me finish the chairs, otherwise there would have been 5, or 6 of the 14 chairs left to clean.   We knocked out the final 8 chairs in about 15 minutes.

I was off just after 12 pm and on my way walking back to the Newell feeling much better than the day prior.  Hopefully after 2, or 3 more four hour days I will be ready to move up to 8 hour days by the time the park opens in a week.  

According to Todd and Rain (our employers) we will be busy over Memorial Day, but then things will quiet down until the 4th of July weekend when things will get very busy, and it will stay very busy until after Labor Day.  A very similar pattern to Tahoe Valley Campground where we spent 3+ years working.

I needed to buy some rubber boots for when we are power washing the bathrooms, and other situations, such as cleaning the pool chairs, where regular shoes would get soaking wet.  I had been told there was a West Marine in town, and that they had rubber boots, so TLE and I headed over there about 1 pm.  As it turned out they had several brands ranging in cost from the high $40's to over $100.  The ones I chose were the West Marine brand which happened to be on sale (40% off) for $47....they don't have to last forever.....just 5 months, and I think these will last well beyond that........

.....TLE and I owned a Columbia 26' sloop rigged sailboat from 1992 to 2004 which we kept in a marina in Long Beach, CA during that time so I very familiar with West Marine, as most boaters are.  While in town we noticed a lot of businesses are now beginning to open, or have signs up advising they will be open sometime this week, so the summer is beginning to get underway here in Southwest Harbor.

For dinner TLE had me grill up some pollo asado for tacos (yay for me!) around 5:30 pm.  I believe we've used the Sea-B-Que at least 4 times since we arrived here at Smuggler's Den.  I think the last time we filled up our 5 gallon propane bottle was back in May of 2017 while at Tahoe Valley Campground.  I am amazed we are still using that same propane almost one year later.  We have a propane company coming to fill up our 60 gallon tank on Friday, so I think it would be a good idea to fill that 5 gallon bottle, too!

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