We fully intended to get a bunch of mundane, if boring, tasks completed around our tow vehicle and trailer today. We were partially successful in that we did perform some work although production was poor. My estimates of the times required to do seemingly simple tasks were woefully inaccurate and very few tasks on our fun charts were completed. Peggy scrubbed furiously in the interior of Charlotte and she looks better. We acquired some bird seed because the black sunflower seeds we bought in Texas are not haute cuisine with the local guys. We shopped for some fruit and made an appointment to take Charlotte to the Ford dealership to get the air conditioning lost in Santa Fe back on line. We put the new vehicle registration on the Barbarian Invader’s rear plate and I demolished and reinstalled a new battery compartment vent and cover. We purchased, filled and enjoyed a new kitchen window-mounted hummingbird feeder. Charlotte also got a washing which made her more handsome.
The car wash that we patronized in downtown Jamul near our campground was of a unique, hybrid type. We paid $9 and only expected the usual run through the whirly brushes and spooge squirters before hitting the big air ducts at the end. However, this place was different. Two guys first soaped the whole truck with brushes and then clear water. The gizmo behind the tire then pushed us through a roofless array of whirling brushes and spooge squirters then more brushes and water squirters before the big ducted fans. At the end, we were directed around the front when a very diligent yet strangely non-verbal guy started cleaning the windows with a blue spray and fuzzy cloths. It was quite warm today and we had some trouble synchronizing the window operation with his tasks. I rolled my window down due to frying and he signaled that I should roll it up for cleaning. Before I could get the window up, he sprayed me with the blue shit, missing the window. He then wiped the dry window until he thought it was clean. Once he got to Peggy’s driver’s side window, he sprayed the blue stuff through the opening where the window would have been if it was up and then threw the fuzzy rag through the open window onto the ground. The truck ended up being quite clean although I was moistened with spray and Peg’s window had marginal results.
However, the best part of the day started while we were reclining in our chaise lounges outside under our shade canopy while reading and bird watching. Some neighbors arrived and they seemed to be Girl Scouts or something similar. The big kahunette of the group promptly split the six girls into two groups of three for tent erection. The tents appeared to be identical. We started our timers.
One group of three girls exhibited amazing prowess by making scant headway in the first five minutes but by the end of ten minutes, they were done. They were good sports about it and soon pitched in with the other group of three to get the second, identical tent up by the twenty minute mark. Everything was going quite well until a squad of boys and men arrived to take charge of the tent erection tasks.
Production soon dropped to nearly zero as the brilliant male counterparts discussed, implemented and soon abandoned numerous schemes to get the two girl-erected tents onto a ground cloth tarp. From a distance, it appeared that the erected tents were actually enormous ladybugs hustling about on the lawn except when the wind came up and blew them across the campground. Chaos reigned until the girls corralled their tents without any expert help.
Forty minutes after we started timing, the later-arriving male contingent managed to install the girl-erected tents on top of the tarp only to have another near escape occur. More conferences were held and ultimately a plan to stake the tents in place was implemented. Within another 45 minutes, the experts had erected two more tents and stationed them almost on top of the much-discussed tarp.
With the tent erection finally completed, the kids dispersed from the general tent area and started having a good time. If I was one of the girls, I’d leave the boys alone. The hummingbirds and song birds have found our feeders and have begun putting on their colorful show. Although our production today was poor, we still had a pretty good time.