a frustrating trip into town

Amazon’s shipping estimate was wrong (again), leading to an unexpected trip into town for a package pickup.

Since I was in town I stopped in at Smith’s. Their store brand was out so I ended up buying a loaf of Bimbo for $3 (!) on sale (!!). I cruised the manager’s discounts aisle and saw half-price steaks at $27 (!!!). That physicist money must be good if their about-to-expire discounts are still out of my budget.

While I was there I gassed up and tried to get water at the Smith’s gas station. After 6 years of duty and abuse my potable water hose developed a split large enough I couldn’t make a field repair with gorilla tape. I kept a brass repair kit in the van for such an eventuality. I cut out the damaged section but could not get the repair coupling in; the inner lining of the potable hose made the ID slightly too small. Heating and stretching didn’t help.

I’d seen a hardware store on the way in so I went in to get a different brand repair kit. The section was fully stocked except the size/type I wanted. I got a plastic female end repair kit and hoped it would hold (it did).

While I was in the hardware store Muffin climbed up on the counter and found the deli hot dog I had planned for my lunch. I thought I had it out of reach but she is a climber.

Got back to camp and took Muffin for a walk since it looked like it might rain. We got caught in a sleetstorm. Wasn’t too bad until the sleet (hail?) got up to the size of marbles. At that point it wasn’t fun anymore.