Pitter-patter, part 2

Rain on a popup is a special kind of noise. What hits the bunkends is a nice pitter-patter sound, actually quite soothing. What hits the roof in the middle is anything but soothing: it’s somewhere between a pop and a snap noise. And that’s what we contended with for much of the night.

The Starflyer’s A/C isn’t working, despite my replacing the starter capacitor, so we had to make do with fans. I claimed the fan/light combo, since Mason swiped it last time. He groaned, but didn’t press the issue. Fortunately, it never got out of the low 80s (F) for highs each day… I guess the rain helped with that.

Staying dry on a wet night

With the awning and the EZup, and no wind pushing the rain around, there were dry spots to take a chair and a beer outside while Mason was zorched out (or doing late-night iPad sessions while pretending to be asleep). The EZup framework also provided a convenient place to hang swim suits and towels, to get them a little dry, anyway.

So this was our routine, the first few nights. Charlie has his therapy sessions on Monday and Tuesday, and the wife was going to have some fun with her sister on a long weekend starting Thursday, so we went home Wednesday afternoon.

The foot improved with (not enough) rest. By Thursday morning, I could walk on it almost normally for an hour or two before it started giving me grief again. Extra-strength Tylenol helped to extend the time I could use it, and propping it on a pillow at night made it less cranky in the mornings. We took a brief bike ride on Wednesday, and it was okay. Our campsite is at the bottom of the hill, so we could coast back “home.”

Thursday, Charlie had a neurological evaluation scheduled at ENEC in Decatur, so I drove us down there. In the vein of combining trips, wife had her bags packed and in the back of the van, and all we had to do was figure out where to get lunch and meet the sister-in-law. We settled on a place called Grub (Burger Bar), that served up what the wife described as “the best burger I’ve had in a long time.”

So they tossed the wife’s bags into her sister’s vehicle, Charlie told them “bye-bye,” and away they went. We also went… back to the manor, to get Charlie’s stuff and get Mason while we were at it. M.O. the B.B. chugged on back to the campsite, and we did manage to get about 40 minutes at the pool before it closed for the evening.