That Looks Like Work

Today was shopping day. Carol had doggie duty and found the duty had been done before she got to dog center at her appointed time. I was headed for Lowe's with Lynne to shop for a deck.

First I had to cut some large plastic barrels in half to make planters for the property. These barrels are about 36" tall and 20" in diameter. Lynne gets them from someone in South Carolina. When cut in half, they make large flower pots. Great second life for barrels that were used for shipping olives, or banana peppers, or even olive oil. These are much thicker than the plastic pots you find in the garden center. After cutting they got rinsed well, then the bottom halves got large drain holes so water will drain out. I'll get some photos posted tomorrow.

Lynne and I headed for our shopping trip at Lowe's in Jacksonville. The plan is to buy the structural material for a 8 X 14 deck. Lynne will get the deck boards after the foundation is in place. The composite deck surface is the most costly component of the deck, generally about 50% of the total material cost. Hopefully there will be a sale on the composite material in a week or two.

We finished making adjustments to the material list and had Lowe's pull parts. Lynne needed to get back to Maysville so I drove back her back and picked up Carol. She wanted to get some grocery shopping done today. Back in Jacksonville now, we headed to Starbucks for some liquid refreshments for us and diesel for the truck. I dropped Carol off at Food Lion so she could grocery shop while I went back to Lowe's so they could load the parts they pulled for our deck project. FYI - Lowe's and Food Lion are about 1/4 mile apart on the same road. For our Corpus Christi readers, this is like Home Depot and HEB in Moore Plaza.

After I picked up Carol I had one more item to get - a 6' X 10' outdoor kennel.  Once this got loaded, we headed back to Maysville.
    
When we arrived, The other workamp volunteer was there to help off load the kennel. The deck material will come off the truck tomorrow as we start the project.

 

The cabin in the background is where the deck building will take place. I think I need to turn in early tonight so I will be energized to get this project started tomorrow.

   

Thanks for stopping by.

Day Trippin

After sleeping late and having home made Egg McMuffins for breakfast, we went day trippin. Headed north to New Bern for a quick stop at Lowe's to get a gas hose for our Weber Q, Walgreens for drugs, and Starbuck for coffee for the day trippin. From New Bern we headed South on US 70 aiming for the southern part of the Outer Banks. Essentially we drove the perimeter of the 160,000 acre Croatan National Forest. We did stop in Havelock to visit Miller Saws and Supplies a Husqvarna dealer.  I am looking for a chain guard for Safe Harbor's chain saw. This store keeps weird hours. They are closed on Monday, Wednesday and Sunday. I'll call them before going back out there.

 
As we continued our trek south, Carol notice the sky was getting smokey. Apparently the forestry service was executing a controlled burn. It must have been a pretty big burn. The smoke was thick and dark. It made us aware of the fires that burned through Texas last year.
   
We made a stop at Bestbuy in Morehead City so I could pickup a 300mm zoom lens for my camera belated. This is birthday present from Carol. I was looking forward to using it later in the day.

We were getting hungry so it was time to hunt for a place to grab a bite. We found Sanitary Fish Market and Restaurant near the eastern end of town. Meal consisted of Fried Shrimp, Flounder, Oysters and Scallops. Food was excellent. Shrimp was smaller than what we would have gotten at Snoopy's in Corpus Christi but was just as tasty. Oysters were larger and very good. Flounder tasted like it was just caught and scallops where super. Only way to make this a better tasting meal was to have fresh cut fries. Sorry no photos here. While the food was really good and the ambience was on the water, we both agreed the food at Tony's yesterday was better.

It is time for us to head out to the Southern Outer Banks if we are going to get back home. We crossed the Atlantic Beach Bridge and headed West-Southwest on NC-58 for the 21 mile trip to Cedar Point. As we drove along, I kept waiting to see some of the atlantic ocean. Beach access is very restricted along the route. Instead of open space, the Outer bank is packed with residential and commercial housing for the entire 21 miles. This is certainly a sharp contrast to the open beach and generous beach access found along the Texas coast. Instead of seeing the Atlantic Ocean we saw front yards of some pretty fancy homes.

   

We did find a few public beach access like this.

   

We finally found a place to park where we could also access the beach. I took off down the stairs, through the soft sand of the dunes and finally arrived at the beach.

   

Finally,  I get to play with my new lens. First looking West-Soutwest then back the other direction. Both shots are zoomed out to 300mm.

   

For a stretch of 20 miles of 2-lane highway there are two bridges that access the mainland. I thought of the folks who evacuated when Hurricane Irene was about to make landfall. Traffic had to be horrendous.

We finally got back into Maysville. I wanted to stop for fuel but decide to to that tomorrow. There was a line at the one diesel pump. Our fur babies were glad to see us. We walked them and played ball with them. After resting on the front porch for a bit, we headed inside as the night time temperature was starting to drop again. Tuesday we have rain in the forecast. Carol has early doggie duty and I have to cut some olive oil barrels in half so we will have new planters on the farm. Then we need to make a trip to Lowe's for deck material.

Thanks for stopping by.

Adopt-A-Thon and Other Stuff

In addition to today being the first DST day of 2012, it was Adopt-A-Thon. It also was a day that started off cold again. Yep, that's right. The white stuff on our truck is frost. Know I know why I kept the ice scraper.
   
We got the adoptable doggies loaded into their crates in the van and headed out for Petsmart in Jacksonville.
   
Our station would be outside the main door of the store. This side faces north east so we would have sun for part of the morning. Then we would be in the shade for the rest of the day. Carol and I had the 1st shift along with Lynne. Being outside was not such a bad thing because we would be visible to the vehicle traffic driving past the store. The small doggies all wore a sweater of some sort so they would stay warm in their crates. The three larger dogs shared a pen. We had a lot of people come by to check out the doggies meaning there were several adoption inquiries that will require followup. These doggies where amazing. They were on their best behavior meaning they were calm and not stressed, they were quiet and not disruptive.

    

We stayed bundled up most of the day. Being in the shade meant we had no warmth from the sun. It was apparent the locals thought today was warmer than us. It was amazing to watch people come by in shorts and tee's, flip-flops or sandals. Most of the locals were dressed as if it was summer weather. The high temperature today barely got above the mid 60's. Perhaps we were still chilled to the bone from last night.

Carol woke me around 2AM to let me know the heater in the RV was not coming on. I checked our indoor thermometer - it read 54 degrees. Now I did not need a number to tell me it was cold in the RV. I knew it was cold. So I flipped the thermostat control from heat to cool then back to heat. Viola, we have heat. Now I can go back to bed. When I woke up at 6AM DST, it did not take me long to realize the RV was rather toasty. The thermometer now read 73 degrees. I adjusted the thermostat to a more reasonable temperature. It is a good thing I filled both propane tanks yesterday.

Back to our day, we ended our shift at 3PM and headed for Tractor Supply to by a couple of pairs of jeans. Unfortunately they only had one pair. Carol was also hunting for jeans but found nothing suitable. Our next stop was dinner. We were hungry and had no clue where we would go. Our technique to solve this dilemma is called, "Ask a Stranger".

We approached a young lady in the parking lot of Tractor Supply and asked for recommendations for a local sea food restaurant. The best she said was about 45 minutes south and a good alternative is just up the road a short way. We decided to go the closer place - Tony's Seafood and Oyster Bar.  Carol ordered Crab Cakes and I ordered Pan Seared Scallops. We found another winner. We will be back to this place before we leave for Georgia in 3 weeks. Not only did the food taste wonderful, the presentation was something else. And the best part was the reasonable price.

    

Tomorrow is our day off. We have a trip to New Bern for Walgreens planned, then we will make the loop around Croatan National Forrest and a ride along the Atlantic Ocean on NC58.

Thanks for stopping by.