August 12, 2024
Slept in. No long drive today.
Went to meet Susan’s uncle for lunch at a restaurant he goes to every day. It was nice to visit with him. The last time Susan saw him was six years ago, for me it has been 26 years.
After lunch, I dropped Susan back where we are staying with one of Susan’s relatives and ventured out on my own.
Driving around Grand Island is kind of like driving in a city, without skyscrapers. Well, I mean it is a city, but to me, living on the east coast, it looks nothing like a city. Anyway, the roads are mostly laid out in grids, so any wrong turn is easily corrected. If I make anymore left turns, I’ll be qualified to be in NASCAR.
I spent some time driving in left-turn-circles, eventually finding a car wash to turn my poor car blue again. After that, I walked around in a Walgreens (twice) looking for plastic travel containers for soap. Not having any luck, I had Miss GPS navigate me to WalMart. I guess she is not upset for the previous day, as I had no difficulties getting there.
Once in WalMart, I picked up some of the soap containers, picked up some duct/duck tape, and looked for a six-pack of my coffee drinks. Oh, why duck/duct tape, you ask? I’m glad you asked…
I didn’t like the container my body wash was in, so I emptied out a almost-empty shampoo bottle and peeled off the label, then filled it with the body wash. The outside turned very tacky in the car and I had to peel off the plastic bag it was in. I tried scraping and washing it, no good. Didn’t find any big bottles without sprayers to buy in WalMart, so I got the tape and covered up all the sticky bits. Problem solved.
While I was in WalMart, I was pulled into the electronics area and spent time drooling on the shiny, new laptops with USB connectors. Okay, I know what you’re thinking, but I didn’t literally drool on them, although in WalMart I am sure I wouldn’t be the first… I don’t like shopping there, but they DO have most everything, so… Anyway, my tablet doesn’t have a way to read SD cards, and I have had many issues trying to get the photos off my digital camera to my tablet to do this blog, so I was just thinking how noice it would be … .. . They had an HP laptop for a decent price, but still — it was WalMart and I don’t like to shop there, not to mention giving the Waltons more money…
Then I remembered seeing a Best Buy. Back out to the car, got Miss GPS to show me the way, and into Best Buy I went. Found a laptop that, with a USB card reader would work perfectly — and it was $250 off. I decided to “replace” my eight-ish-years-old laptop with a new one. For justification, I decided it would be my birthday present. I reasoned that might work with Susan, at least that and the fact that my evenings on the trip would be less stressful due to not having to go through the ordeal of getting photographs from point A to point B without a direct route, since my tablet only has a plugin for power.
So tomorrow sometime, I hope to get the new “toy” up and running and will be better prepared to take massive quantities of photos and use some of them on the blog.
While I was practicing my left-turns in Grand Island, I stopped and got my haircut, which was not sorely needed, but it sure is nice to not have to bother with it the length it was. Even though a lot of it has disappeared over the years, it still is annoying when it gets to be of any length at all.
Cooked dinner of pasta in oil and stuff (tomatoes, artichokes, feta cheese, chicken, kalamata olives, spices). After we ate, Susan and I took the bed apart and fixed it, as the frame became unattached underneath and the bed was wonky and I thought we would end up plunging one-foot to the floor sometime during the night.
Thanks for reading.
Kevin