#182 - A day with no schedule - June 28, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: After 2 months of diligent work, the pool is clean.  The water has been pretty clear for about 2 weeks, but the last couple days I've focused on the bottom of the pool, and the green is finally gone.  There's some fine gravel in the deep end, but it's CLEAN!!  It is lovely to finally go out there, skim the new leaves and bugs for a couple minutes, and then just enjoy it.

We relaxed today - Libby and Jake worked on their bedrooms, I did some woodworking, we spent some time in the pool, and in the evening, we watched Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull and ate choco-chip mint ice cream.

On Tim's recommendation, I've started reading a book about introverts called "Quiet".  It's a good read, highly recommended so far, even though I've only read the (lengthy and relevant) introduction.

#181 - Weighing the trash - June 27, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: we drove with my brother to pick up his old car from the dealership.  We means me, 3 kids, and him.  I just listened as he and the kids bantered.  He's so generous with them - with his time, his patience with taking teasing, and his kindness with giving teasing.  I'm jealous of my kids in this way: I wish I had had an uncle like that.

In other good news, my Boy Scouts are coming together.  We had a great time on our hike, and we had a contest for the heaviest garbage bag.  I brought the bags to our meeting tonight, and we weighed them.   We ended up with a unanimous decision on the heaviest bag.  And then the cool part - we raised, lowered, folded, and unfolded the US flag 3 times, so each boy would have a chance to participate.  These boys showed proper respect to the flag, and had fun at the same time.  It was great.

After the scout stuff, I dropped the boys off at home and Libby and I made a run out to the church camp to deliver fresh fruit to Katrina and the girls at camp.  By the time we got home (9:37), the boys were both in their rooms trying to sleep.  They had watched an episode of My Little Pony while we were out.  That's their new favorite show.

Yeah, me too.  I don't get it, either. 

#180 - The simple life - June 26, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: My wife is gone to girls camp.  So is Aria.  I love them both dearly.  And when they're gone for a few days, I have to admit, I don't miss them.  I'd miss them if they're gone for longer, mind you, but for a few days, it's a very simple life I can lead.

We got the older ladies out of the house at 9 to go to girls camp.  I then took stock.  I had no food in the house (nearly true), dirty clothes to deal with, needed to cook for the 4 of us for the next 4-5 days, and my legs were really tired from the hike on Monday.  I got some laundry and dishes moving and left the kids to do the grocery shopping.  3 hours later, we were moving forward.

I cooked tuna noodle casserole, spaghetti, waffles, pancakes, and extra bacon (for BLTs).  The kids had chosen these meals.  My plan was to cook them all at once and then not cook again for 3-4 days.   Once I was done, I told the kids what the dinner food was and where it was, and they were all quite happy.  I started on my long list of things to accomplish.  I had a significant amount of cleaning on my list, some car maintenance, pool maintenance, and a couple other miscellaneous projects.

My goal for this time period was simple: accomplish much and make time to relax and play.  I started 4 projects immediately.  And I made time to play in the pool with the kids after they cleaned up all the junk they had left outside for the last few months.  In the evening, we watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.

Jake made a city of houses of cards.  They are
so sticky with jam and other 7 year-old grime
that he could probably pass an earthquake inspection.

It was, in many ways, a perfect day.  And I was beat.  And I went to bed.

#179 - The Big Hike - June 25, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: Completed the hardest hike of my life.   I think my knees are actually ok after all!

The gray at the top is the Hudson River.  I'm looking
down the "trail" we just came up.  The line running
across from the upper right corner toward the lower left
corner is a train line.  We're about 900' up.
Yes, it's that steep.

I met my brother at the Mt Beacon trailhead (yes, that place again) at 8am.  He wanted to finish the hike before the rain came in the afternoon.  I had told Katrina I'd be home by noon.  Perfect alignment.  I figured, we had 6 miles to hike, 3 hours to do it in.  We could certainly average 2 miles an hour, couldn't we?

The hardest ascent complete.  Time for a little break.

The hike starts near sea level, and it's almost a rock climbing exercise getting up to the trail proper. It's marked with white paint spots on the rocks, but it's a 1000 ft vertical gain in about half a mile of horizontal travel.  Pretty crazy, but great views.   I followed Tim most of the way up, and early on there was a place where he put his shoe just above my eye level and he wedged it in a crack of the rock.  The picture and the sound it made belonged on the Discovery Channel or something.  It's something you'd expect to see on TV, not 25 minutes from your house.

6 miles of this deciduous forest broken by rock formations.

I had thought that we'd go up, and then it would be relatively flat from there.  Not so.  Not at all.  We climbed to 1000', dipped a bit, came back up.  We missed a trail marker somewhere and had to follow the blue blazes for a while.  "What in the blue blazes??" came to mind more than once.  It's really easy to lose a trail in the woods here because there is so little underbrush, so trails are marked with paint or little colored plastic disks nailed to trees.  The blue blazes did not have any trail associated with them.  Nothing at all, just a lot of blue markings that we followed.  We were lost (on a trail that was not the one we wanted) for about 20 minutes.  Then Tim recognized the terrain, we found the brook, refilled water bottles, wiped off the sweat, and got back on our way.  The trail took us up to the fire tower again.  This time it was not opening day, and it was a week day.  So we climbed to the top.  The breeze was magnificent, cool and gentle.  Exactly what we needed on a day that was headed north of 90 degrees.

Straight down from the top of the fire tower.

Once we were that far, I knew the rest was 2 miles, and really no up hill any more.  So the hike was great.

It was really fun to spend 1:1 time with my brother, though.  We've done things together over the last year or so - we've moved him twice, and maybe done something else.  But not much.  This day was just natural and easy.  We're getting used to each other, norming in a way that we hadn't before.  And we kinda decided that we'd try to do the Tough Mudder together this fall.  Look it up - it's a 10-12 mile serious obstacle course.  Looks crazy and fun.  I used to think I couldn't run, but now I know better.  I just have to be careful on the down hill., and I can cover a lot of ground without any problems.

The landscape unfolds from this height.

I got home an hour late from that, and spent the rest of the day finishing what I needed to do for Katrina and starting to prepare for my days home with the other kids.

She got home at 10.  I helped unload the car, and cooked 4 lbs of ground beef before konking out for the night at 11.

#178 - Girls Camp Preppers - June 24, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: the church choir sang something I kinda arranged for the first time.  I'll never make a living out of music, but I can certainly make a solid hobby out of it.

Today was mostly a recovery day.  I woke up at 7 on my first official vacation day from work.  I usually have some work responsibilities on Sunday mornings, and it felt soooo good to shirk them.  Or to not have them to shirk, I suppose.  I got some laundry done (Christian needed church pants), and headed off to choir practice.  We finished preparing and then sang a compiled version of Simple Gifts and Be Thou Humble.  I found an arrangement of Simple Gifts that I really liked, but it was too short.  So I found another arrangement of the 2 songs together, but I didn't like the other arrangement of Simple Gifts.  So I made some changes to the piano so I could splice the 2 arrangements together.  And then I wrote a 2nd verse to Simple Gifts.  We've been working this piece for ages, and it was nice to see it take flight and be done with it.  In addition, the original Simple Gifts is out of copyright, and both arrangements I used were with the public domain copyright, so no laws were broken.  I feel good about keeping up with that.

After dinner I got a list of camping supplies from Katrina and I started to assemble them in the laundry room.  I know where all the camping gear is, and she needed it.  I ended up needing to put up the tent but it was dark, and I only had 1 thing left on my list for Monday.

And that was it.  Time for bed.

#177 - We're Flying! - June 23, 2013

Warming up the cold air before take off.

Cool thing from the last 24: I worked on a hot air balloon.  Riding in a balloon has been on my bucket list for 30 years.  Being on the ground crew never was.  But it was a blast!

We got up at 4:30am.  The kids had gotten to bed around 9.  We got back from the drive-in at about 2am, so I'd say the kids were fresher than we were.  We arrived at the balloon's residence (the owners have a large flat lawn, so they launch from home) at 5:15 and got started.  There was a reporter there from the South Hudson News who wanted to write a story about them.

Landing in a random field

I held the balloon open while a gas-powered fan pushed air into the envelope, and once they had taken flight (Aria rode in the balloon) I drove the chase car.  They landed in a field at about 7am.  It took us about half an hour to tow the balloon back close to the road, take it down and package it up properly.  Cool experience.

Christian and I came home and finished preparing for our hike.  We met at the bottom of Mt Beacon at 10am.  There were 3 boy scouts, me, and another dad.  We had a great time.  It was not an easy hike - the first mile is nearly a 1000 ft climb (20% grade, for reals).   Then we had reached the old casino.   We took an hour then to clean up garbage (mostly broken glass).  We stashed it along side the trail, and continued on our hike.  Our highest point was the fire tower, at 1600ft elevation, nearly a 1500 ft rise from the base.  The views were incredible.  We happened to be there at the tower's opening ceremony - city council people, Marines, steel workers, and a news crew all drove up there in Jeeps.  By the time we finished, we had hiked 5.35 miles and covered over a half mile of total elevation gain/lose (over 3000 vertical feet).  We all ran out of water by the end, and it was about 80 degrees, but nobody got hurt, and we all had a great time.  Boy Scouts is awesome.

no hike is complete without frogs

Katrina was napping when I got home, so I stayed up and grilled some burgers.  She woke up, and by 7pm I was in bed.  I slept for 12 hours.

The wild blueberries on top of Mt Beacon were ripe

As expected, the views from the highest point in the
Hudson Highlands are amazing

Lunch in the shade at the fire tower.  

We are the Vikings!  Strong and Tough!

#176 - Superman Returns! Again! - June 22, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: there is a diner in Hyde Park called ED.  When you walk in the place, there's a 10-ft statue of a guy and a 4-ft coffee cup with ED written on it.  The Eveready Diner has good ice cream.  We got the Big Eddie with some minor modifications.  It was great.

We had started the evening with a visit to the annual Cub Scout Blu and Gold Banquet.  The menu was hot dogs, pasta salad, lemonade, and conversation.  We're in this odd transition place with 1 boy in Boy Scouts and 1 boy who is not in Cubs yet.  We went without kids, and did it because I had a boy turning 11, and there is a little "Crossing Over" ceremony when a boy leaves Cubs and joins the Boy Scouts.  When that part was over, we took off on our date.




Then we went to Hyde Park, parked at the drive in and walked up the street to the Eveready Diner and got ice cream. I'd do that again - well worth it.  Dinner and a movie doesn't always fit into our budget.  But a $6 5-scoop banana split?  Yep.

The double feature was World War Z and Man of Steel.  World War Z was the first zombie movie I'd ever seen.  I enjoyed it immensely.  It was very tense, well-written, and surprisingly human.  I had heard that people go to zombie flicks to see "silly gore" and that was never my style.  Man of Steel was disappointing.  For Superman origin stories, I prefer both Superman 1 and Superman Returns.  The 3rd try was too much story crammed into 1 movie.  And there is a lot more Superman story to tell than where he came from.  Again.  Come on!

 We walked in the door at 2am and laid down for a long sleep.  Until 4:30am, anyway...

#176 - Songwriting in Anarchy - June 11, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: Tim stopped by in the evening.  We had just started Family Home Evening, and he need a little help to finish off his car.  So Katrina took over running FHE, and I helped Tim.  I asked Tim if he had plans for the evening, he said he was going to call dad.  It just so happened that we were going to record a blues song (with Libby on electric guitar) for dad.  He thought that might be fun.  We finished the car as Katrina was finishing the lesson, and then it was time for activity.

So the 8 of us (Tim, us, and Aria's friend) sat in the living room writing a song.  Aria was typed it up as we went, using the TV as our monitor, and Tim led the musical part.  After about an hour, we had a 1:45 song with 3 verses and a bridge recorded and in the can.  Tim left to get some dinner, and I edited the recording just a little and emailed it out to family.

Lots of fun - funny and heartfelt and warm and good.  Perfect evening.  I love these times.  I really do.

#175 - A cliche Sunday - June 10, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: We did the church thing, and when we came home, Tim was there, working on his car.  He had to finish his car stereo after a few weeks of the job being half-done.  I got the grill fired up and BBQd some chicken while helping him as needed.  Eventually, the chicken was done, so I took it off the grill and hopped in the pool with Tim and the kids.  It was not a warm evening, and the water wasn't wonderful, so we were out soon enough.  Katrina nuked some potatoes and boiled some corn, and that was dinner.  Then we sat down to eat and relax.

Tim gave the girls their guitar lessons while I went to bed.  It was a nice day.

Exercise milestone: 2.5 miles. 6mph straight.  Probably should have gone a little longer.

#174 - Girls and Technology - June 9, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: going tech shopping with my girls.  We worked on the house in the morning.  The kids focused on laundry while I worked on the basement.  Katrina had been out late with a friend, so she slept while we got busy.  At noon, we left for Best Buy.  We found a phone that would work for her, and a tablet that would also work.  The price ranges were similar, both got good reviews on Amazon.  In the end, video chat (front-facing camera) was the selling point, and she got the tablet.  It's a Lenovo, 7".  Nice little piece of equipment.

Libby joined us, and got bored pretty quickly.  But it's time with my girls, and that's the key thing.  A little silliness (although I refrained from skipping, we did talk about which of us would be a better meal for the other 2 to eat) always makes the trip more fun.  And we had NPR on, listening to a story about some letters to Ella Chase that someone had found on the roadside.  It was interesting for all of us, so we sat in the car for it to finish before getting out.  Those kinds of things fascinate me - Studio 360 and This American Life - and I'll almost always sit and finish the episode before getting out of the car.

And of course, since it was a beautiful day, Christian mowed the lawn.

#173 - Wildlife in the Rain - June 8, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: It was pouring rain, and I'd had a day filled with meetings.  Some days I'm largely free to work on projects, some days I'm scheduled for meetings all day.  I hadn't had a break, and need to step away from the computer screen, so I took a walk outside the office.  While out, I checked out the cherry trees growing next to an abandoned factory, and then I noticed a snail.  And then another and another.  They seemed to enjoy the freedom to travel across pavement that was soaking wet - as partying as I've ever seen a snail do.

Aria has really wanted a tablet/iPod/laptop thing for a while now.  She's very responsible with technology, and after a lot of discussion, we agreed that such a thing would be okay within limits.  So she has been scouring Craigslist for sellers, and found a couple.  But in every case they had gone too quickly.  Today she found one in the morning, mailed me the link, and I texted the seller.  Yes, they still had it, and we could pick it up at 5pm.  This was at 3pm.  So I left work early, grabbed Aria, and we started driving down to the town where the person lived.  We didn't have an address, just the town.  They had asked that I text them when I left so they could send me the address.  I texted, not response, but I wanted to meet my 5-6pm obligation, so we started driving.  After half an hour or so of driving, we pulled over to get an address.  I didn't want to go much further without an address.  The person texted back - he had sold it, forget about it.  Sorry.

I was frustrated.  Trying to do a good thing didn't work out.  So Aria and I discussed alternate possibilities - an Android device, whether a tablet or phone, might do the trick.  And at half the price.  We got home, very disappointed.  The evening was not a total loss, however.  After dinner, Aria, Libby, Katrina and I played Puerto Rico.  Libby was on my team, learning the game.  I'm sure she'll beat us all pretty soon.  I ended up in last place, but it was pretty close.  I think 12 points separated the winner and loser.

#172 - Wow. My wife is back! - June 7, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: Katrina sat on the couch with me and watched a basketball game.  It's very different watching the game in the same room with her, but her watching a different screen vs watching it on the couch together.  It has broken a wall of silence.  And the Heat lost by 4 after leading almost all game.

On the same topic, she spent the afternoon working with our neighbor to fix up the little patch of ground by our mailbox.  It's been full of weeds and gravel, but the weeds are gone, the anti-weed fabric is down, the tiger lilies are transplanted, and it's ready for barkdust.  It looks great.

I'm really excited to have her back.

I learned something in my workout this morning, as well: it's probably a good idea to separate my long runs from weight training.  Yesterday I did some weights, ran, and then did some weights.  My run was very difficult, and I gave up at just over a mile.  By contrast, this morning I did only a run.  My legs were a little sore, but I was able to get through it and keep a solid pace.  It ended up at 2.25 miles, 6mph, and I could have gone longer if I didn't need to get the kids to school.  I walked off the treadmill and dove into the pool for 10 minutes, and it was FANTASTIC.  Never done that before, and it was perfect.

So I think weight training days will be running fast days (7 mph, .5 mile is where I'll start), and my long distance running days will lack weights for now.  Interesting to split the two, and I'm curious what it will do to my training regimen.

#171 - Plugging out - June 6, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: My wife has plugged out.  I'll admit - I just invented that term.  At least I haven't seen it before.  But she is no longer plugged in - she said her goodbyes on FB, finished watching her TV shows, and logged out.

This is interesting because she's very much a technology feast or famine kind of person.  A few years ago, she blogged for a few hours every day for a year.  Now she won't be doing any of that.  It's about finding balance between trying to drink and digest the entire world of available information and letting it come to you.  And it means I'll get to spend more time with her, which will be great.

Exercise milestone: another step up in weights.  Added 10 reps to my heaviest weight set, and feeling really good about it.

#170 - Harvesting the weeds - June 5, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: Christian was out on a field trip for 2 days this week, and he learned about something called "lemon sorrow".  Which I figured out was "lemon sorrel".  I thought it was analogous to mountain sorrel that grows above 400ft elevation in Oregon, but I was wrong.  Different species, certainly, but likely the same genus.  Christian took Libby out to the pool and started to harvest the lemon sorrel in our pool area.  Who knows?  Maybe they'll harvest dandelions next!

After harvesting, they dried them, expecting them to get even more sour as they were concentrated.  By morning, it was done.

Jake wasn't up for swimming last night, and Aria got stuck doing homework, but the 3 of us were able to be out at the pool.










This week is a week of long workdays - 5am starts and meetings until 4 or 5.  Thur and Fri should be significantly better.

Less than a month before school ends, and summer vacation begins.  So much to do and plan.  My summer list of tasks includes:
1) removal of 2 40' trees from the property.  One is dead and stands next to our power line, and the other is dying and is next to the house (but leaning away from it).  I'll hire someone to cut them down, and then cut them up myself.
2) patch the paint on the exterior of the house (and fill in the woodpecker holes again)
3) trim the branches that brush the power lines along the driveway
4) Complete the clean up of the pool area - misc weeds, leaves, and twigs all sit there now
5) repair the broken pipe in the pool filter system.  This is buried beneath paving stones and a foot or so of dirt.
6) repair the kitchen overhead lights
7) camp a lot with the boys
8) maybe get a week off to go somewhere with the boys and Katrina.  Have to figure that one out.

#169 - Our Nature Preserve - June 4, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: walking out of the house this morning, on my way to work, it was just after 5am. I walked out the basement door, and saw this creature eating my lawn.

Summer mornings here are loud - bird calls are everywhere.  We spotted some foxes walking through the snow during the winter, and there's a raccoon or badger den in the forest out back.  And sometimes we have visitors like this deer.

Monday was a typical long workday: much accomplished, much still to do.  I was home relatively early, to the kids' dismay.  Aria wanted to babysit (read: watch TV with the other kids and eat popcorn).  So I told her that was fine, and I went to the basement to relax and then run.  The workout was my first ever 2 mile run in my life, I think.  Nearly every day I make some progress - a little longer, a little faster average, trying to take my max pace up from 6mph to 7 or 8.  Good challenge for me, and as I'm able to find a rhythm to it, I find that it's much the same mental game as cycling.

Katrina had gone with Christian on his big year-end field trip.  They got back about 5pm, while Aria was cooking pancakes for dinner and Libby and I were in the pool.  I sent the kids off to bed and watched the Heat obliterate the Pacers in the 2nd quarter.  Then I napped a little during halftime and woke up midway through the 3rd, which I watched until the end of the quarter.  Finally, feeling drained and feeling safe that my team was headed to victory, I went to bed.

#168 - Fire! - June 3, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: our house did not burn down or sustain noticeable damage from a kitchen fire.  Dinner after church in a late year is always a challenge for us.  By the time we walk in the door, it's 4:45, and none of us eat lunch, so we're all very hungry.  Yesterday was Fast Sunday, as well, so some of us were more hungry than usual.

We had agreed before church that we'd grill burgers and hot dogs for dinner, so I walked in the door, changed my clothes, and got the grill going.  Dinner worked out fine, but afterward we still had some residual "I want fried tater tots" sentiment going around.  So Katrina put our pot of frying oil with a lid on the stove, set it on med-low, and came out to chat with me on the porch while it warmed up.  Eventually, she figured it must be hot, so she went in, took the lid off, and it smoked a LOT.  She put the lid on, the pot "poofed", the lid came off, and the oil lit.  That's when I walked in.  She put the lid back on, turned the burner off, and we opened every door and window in the main floor and basement.  Oil smoke is heavy - it'll make you cough even if you can't see it.  It was terrible.  So we sat outside for an hour while the smoke cleared, no problem.  This morning, the house smells fine, no damage.  One more close shave.

Exercise milestone: 1.5 miles yesterday on the treadmill, and upped my max weight by 10lbs.  Starting to find my zone while running, and feeling overall much more fit and stronger than a few weeks ago.

Jake and I spent a lot of time together camping this weekend.  Here we are, arriving at the fireside on Friday night.  Whaley Lake is behind us.

 Our little camp site.  Christian had his own tent.  Jake and I shared.  Jake claims I rolled over on him.  I claim he snuggled up next to me, so I didn't have any room.  I suppose we're both right.

 After breakfast Saturday morning, we raked leaves around the Nurse's station.  It started with just Jake and me, but this gentleman soon joined us, as well as 5 more men.  We got the entire place cleaned up in about an hour.

After the service was done, there were activities set up for the boys to do.  Christian went on a scavenger hunt, and won!  This is his team and the other team reporting back to the referee's desk.

After a day of camping, running around, and not snacking much, we were all hungry.  Off to Beekman Square Diner.  The boys really like it.  Christian finished that massive burger and his fries and ice cream.

#167 - My super-social kid - June 2, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: Jake made friends with everyone.  Saturday morning, we had breakfast, and then Jake and I raked leaves together.  Toward the end of the raking, he wandered off, in search of something more interesting.  I looked for him for a while, confident he was safe, but not knowing where that was.  I found him hanging out with another family eventually, and took him to the bathroom to change into his swim trunks.  I let him change in there.  When I walked into the bathroom to check on him, I heard his voice coming from the stalls.  On the right was a man's shoes, shorts, and ankles, obviously seated.  In the left stall, I saw Jake's bare bottom, sitting down so he could pull on his shorts.  He was telling his neighbor about the movie "Wreck it Ralph", who was dutifully saying, "Uh-huh" at regular intervals.  The boy has no inhibitions, and will make friends with anyone, at any time.

We stayed there until about 12:30, swimming from 10-noon or so.  By that time, we were all hungry, so we went to the Beekman Square Diner.  Christian ended up with a huge cheeseburger, fries, and ice cream.  Jake had an order of pancakes.  Both came with ice cream, and they picked chocolate chip mint.  We got stuff, and were very satisfied.  I had a Greek burger, which was both interesting and tasty.

When we got home, the girls were gone, so we watched "The Princess Bride" together.  It's a slow start for Jake, but the boys enjoyed it.  It really does stand up well.  And then I watched the Heat lose.

Busy, wonderful day.

#166 - There. I did it. - June 1, 2013

Cool thing from the last 24: I fixed a car for the first time in my life.  This is a big deal not because I haven't been involved in car repair, but because this time I diagnosed the problem, bought the part, installed it, and it worked.  All of my previous car repair work had been done with my dad.  So that chapter is now closed.  Yes, I can repair a car.  In limited ways, but I can do it.  And Katrina has driven it, so that makes it better.   I'll still consult with my dad on car problems, but I know I can do this myself.

I got home from work - it was 90 and the kids had been in the pool - changed into shorts and a t-shirt, and got to work in the garage.  The part had arrived in the morning, so I picked it up during lunch.  Katrina and the girls were set to go out in the evening, and we were headed out camping, so I had a deadline to finish the repair and get out the door.

I used the new part to see how the tabs worked to hold it in, removed the old one, taking pictures of the wire attachments first, and installed the new one.   I reassembled the fuse box, bolted it to the frame, mounted the battery and its cables, cleaned my tools out of the engine block, and started up the car.  No problems.  10 minutes later, the girls were gone.  Car repair accomplished, deadline met.  This, I can do.

The boys and I finished packing, and off we went.  The camping details will be for tomorrow.

Pic below: the iPhone is a wonderful tool for car repair.  I took pictures of the electrical connections on the fusible link before disconnecting them.  When I installed the new one, I just had to make sure the pictures matched.  Thankfully, Toyota had also marked the cable ends with sharpie in a certain way so I could identify it in the photos.  One terminal is green, the other has the sharpie marks.  The cables on teh other side were also distinguishable in this way.