June 29 - July 2 Another Long 4 Days at Ft Pulaski

One of our regular visitors

June 29 – Back to work!  It was a great weekend so I really can't complain too much.  I was scheduled to be at the entrance station for the morning but one of the rangers was out for the day so ended up being there all day.  It's not bad when you have the laptop but I kinda waited too long to go to the bathroom and then it was starting to get really dark and thundering.  I called in and asked if someone could come and show me how to close out for the day as I really had to go to the bathroom and as ugly as it was getting I knew there wouldn't be any new visitors.  It was only about 15 minutes early.  So once we did the register tapes I headed up in the golf cart and he did the rest of the closing of the booth.  Then once we got inside the sky opened up.  Bill had gone to the truck thinking I would only be a few minutes but neither of the rangers left knew much about the end of day paperwork and it took over 45 minutes.  It would have been faster for me to just figure it out.  It was not rocket science, that is for sure.  They were making it much more difficult than it was. Next time I think I can handle it myself.

I ended up getting drenched getting to the truck and then again getting to the RV and opening the door.  To our surprise the tomato plant had not blown down.  It was more rain than wind and it kept up til after 7.  Bill finally had to don his rain jacket and take Xena out when there was a lull.  It was about stopped at 11 when we went to bed and I took Xena out for the night.

Good thing I had not planned anything fancy for dinner.  Just leftover roast beef in gravy, instant mashed potatoes and steamed zucchini.  I was pooped and had planned to do a load of wash but knew I couldn't get to the dryer without getting drenched again, so let it go til tomorrow.

We just watched some TV and I did some paperwork that Kerry sent me to work on.

June 30 -  Can't believe we are ending our first month.  It really has gone by pretty fast.  Now I am thinking we might not get to all the things we had planned to see and do.  I was in the Entrance Station for the morning and the VC for the afternoon.  Pretty hum drum day, not nearly as busy as yesterday was.

I heated some of the rotisserie chicken for dinner with corn on the cob and some slaw, then I headed to “town” for my Weight Watchers meeting, then stopped at Walgreens and Kroger on the way home.  We were totally out of fruit so I pretty much loaded up.  Bill called while I was at the grocery and said to stop at the bridge and ask the GA Power guys how long the power would be out.  We knew that they were getting ready to work on putting in new lines for the island.

The only guys I saw on the way in were in trucks so didn’t get to ask.  Eric, our neighbor, and Bill were sitting out at our place with no lights on and Bill had opened all the windows.  They said the  GA Power guy had stopped by and said the power would be out 2 – 3 hours. While the guys were sitting out a possum came and walked around under the steps of the RV and then it walked all around and never paid a bit of attention to them sitting there.

 At least with the propane the fridge and water heater stay operating, so I was able to get my evening shower.  However, the power was off about 5 hours and it was pretty warm sleeping.  Bill closed the windows early in the morning so it was nice the last couple of hours.  We didn’t do much but read.  Bill was bummed he didn’t get to watch “Burn Notice”.

July 1 -  The  power was still on when we got up, but after Bill showered it went off for about 20 minutes.  They are going to be working still on the lines today. We stopped by the admin office to take some mail we had to go out.  They aren’t terribly diligent to get pick up from the VC so if we want it to go Monday – Friday we need to take it on the way in the in the morning.

I spent my half day in the entrance station and it was pretty busy.  People were starting to come to the island for the holiday weekend.  It slowed down in the VC in the afternoon.  It really starts to drag.  I started reading a new book from the bookstore about two white and black boys with the same father just before the Civil War started.  I’ll read it when I work the VC and it’s not busy.

Since the tire on my bike is totally flat we can’t do any bike riding until we go get a new inner tube for it.  So after dinner of spaghetti we walked Xena, then we just settled in for the night.  I did a load of wash and we read and watched TV.

July 2 -  Yee ha, one more day and we have 3 days off!  Was scheduled in the entrance station all day and it was super busy until about 3:30.  The cannons were fired today at 11, 1 and 3 and after that things slowed down.  Also there was a really bad accident on 80 over the bridge in Tybee so I sat and watched the traffic at a dead standstill for a long time.  Then a Savannah police officer stopped as he received a dispatch of a vehicle break in some where on the island.  No one at the VC knew anything about it so I sent him to the Bar Pilot house since they have 12 guys on duty 24/7 and their cars are parked out there.  The officer showed me photos of 2 guys he was looking for who they have reported for break ins, but they didn’t look familiar to me.  I never heard if he found the car or the guy.

Patty sent Tramus out to relieve me around 4 as he was scheduled to be there anyway but she didn’t know that, so I went back to the VC and help price items for the bookstore.  The ladies who run it are really nice.  We get a 15% discount, which isn’t a lot but it’s better than paying full price for our Ft. Pulaski souvenirs.  We left at 5:30 for home.

Bill walked Xena and I changed and we left for dinner and some shopping.  We had planned to go to a place on Tybee but the traffic in that direction was still backed up so we went to Cancun Café again instead.  I tried the shrimp cocktail to compare it to Taquitos and I think it was better.  The tomatoes were chunkier and the shrimp were bigger.  It was so good.  I was stuffed.  We stopped at the post office to put a letter in the mail for Tuesday, then to Kroger, Wal-mart and Publix.  We got inner tubes for my bike and some things I needed to bake my desserts for the “cook out” at the fort tomorrow.  The traffic going back looked like it was going to be bad, but once we got over the bridge it wasn’t as bad as we expected. 

Bill took Xena for a longer walk and I put the groceries away and got to baking.  I made ginger cookies from a cookbook in the bookstore.  They were Eli Whitney’s favorites.  I wasn’t too thrilled with them.  Too blah for my tastes.  Bill liked them, so I foil covered a small box and put in 4 – 5 dozen for tomorrow.  Only kept about a dozen for Bill.   Then I put an almond cream cheese pound cake in the oven.  We watched some NCIS and Burlesque with Cher.  The cake was done and ready at just about bedtime so it timed out well.