15 July 2014

The Goose Creek crew (Sean, Ian, Luther, and Ty) and Perry continued building the roof structure, putting up the doublers for the king common rafters, then hoisting into place two of the eight 1¾″ x 18″ x 40 feet LVL hip rafters… which weigh 360 pounds apiece.  Does workman’s comp insurance cover hernias?  With each of those rafters costing over $300, Sean did all the cutting himself.  The daily 3 o’clock thunderstorm finally put the kibosh on the fun and games.  First thing in the morning, I went off to Martin’s Hardware in Middlebury, which also houses a Radio Shack, and procured another Cannon Powershot camera. Shortly after I got back to Fern Lake, Ron “Bugger” Warner from Goodro’s arrived with a dozen donuts from a local bakery… a token of appreciation for the megabucks Goose Creek and I are spending at the lumber yard this summer.  With Dolores tucked in for a week-long nap (the slide-out continuing to function perfectly), the dogs and I hit the road headed south at 9:30.  In a new land-snail record, took us 10½ hours to get to Springfield, with a first stop at the Vermont DMV in Rutland to turn in the paperwork and plates from the Ranger sale, several stops to batten down the tarp securing the gipsy-caravan load in the rear of the Tacoma, a couple of stops to dewater the dogs, assorted slowdowns due to rain “showers” that reminded me of the downpours we used to get in Samoa (i.e., step outside for two seconds and be wetter than if you’d dived into the ocean), and major rush hour delays in Philadelphia and Wilmington, DE.