Friday, February 5, 2010

Ten Days With Three Tomatoes and a Chicken Leg (Part 1)

2:00 am is almost before breakfast and a bit early to rise but we were on the road by 2:30 (Jan 23) headed for McDonalds, coffee and a wee breakfast. Alas no breakfast served until 5:30 am so we settled for a (thanks to the lady who sued McDonalds) barely warm coffee and were off. Stopping at a McDonalds in Burlington we were too early for breakfast there as well - no breakfast served until 4:00 am. Third try, success! Breakfast and a coffee (yup barely warm again) at McDonalds in Marysville.
With plenty of time to spare, we arrived at the airport in Seattle around 5:30; our flight was out at 8:15 supposedly arriving in Phoenix at 12:10, but we landed a half hour early. After collecting our bag, munching a snack, we settled in to wait for Gary (George's brother) who was to arrive at 1:50. His flight was on time; we met his new girlfriend Ginny then made off to pick up the rental car; we were off from Alamo by 3:00 (three vegetarians and a carnivore).
Some folk were hungry so we went to 'Sweet Tomatoes' to eat; an excellent restaurant if you like salad (huge salad bar); delicious! Wish we had this restaurant up here!
Next stop for groceries at 'Whole Foods' and we were outa there and heading for Ajo. We arrived around 8:00, checked in with the local police (we had them keeping an eye on the place) to let them know we were in town and staying a while. After stopping for popcorn and Dairy Queen (I know strange combination) we got to the house around 9:00, found no water and no propane. Oh JOY! We had arranged before hand for the propane and water to be turned on for us........the gas company didn't make their trip to Ajo as scheduled because of storms & rain.........the water folk in Ajo just turned on water at the wrong address. We did attempt to get the water guy to come out without success so with nothing much more we could do at that late hour we hit the sack (now around 11:00 pm).....and tired we were!
Sunday, Jan 24; water promised by 9:00; by 11:00 we still had no water; another call revealed that the man had again turned on water at the wrong address; third attempt successful & we had water by noon; still no propane to heat the water though (and no way to contact them until Monday) so no shower! The rest of Sunday was spent with more sorting, bagging donations for the church, bagging more garbage for the dump. I was surprised (after our work in July) that there was still so much to go through. Another long day!
Monday, Jan 25; off to Tucson to see the lawyer; had lunch at 'Sweet Tomatoes'; while there we arranged by phone to have the gas turned on so we would have propane by the time we got home; we did, however the pilot light on the hot water tank for the main house wouldn't stay lit so STILL no hot water. By now we had discovered also, a plumbing problem with the toilet in the summer house so the search for a plumber was on (Tuesday morning Jan 26). The pilot to the hot water tank for the summer house though was lit & working so we at last had showers out there. Yahoooooooo! Another busy day sorting, cleaning, loading (someone from the church came to load up the donations), plumber arrived, & the Real Estate people came. The plumber ran into problems when he didn't have the part he needed so he would have to finish the repair the next day. After a trip to Dairy Queen that evening soothed our wearies, we were off to bed to get ready for another day!

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