In Which Our Heroine Goes on a Road Trip
As previously noted, Liz and I broke some oars. Through the joy of the internet, we managed to locate new oars. But they were in Chattanooga, Tennessee, which is no where near here. Hartmut could bring them to Princeton, NJ, which is closer to here than Chattanooga, but still not that near here. The answer was obvious: it was time for a road trip. So leaving at the crack of dawn on a Saturday morning, we headed off. Seventeen hours later, we returned. Sounds onerous, but really it wasn't that bad until the last hour. We stopped along the way a bunch of times, ate great food, ate bad food which tasted great, managed to hit four states (most of them twice), and arrived in Princeton on all but a whim and a prayer. The rowing community is an amazing place. We don't know Hartmut, and Hartmut doesn't know us. But before even receiving a cheque from us, he brought the oars to Princeton, and left them with Sean. Sean, in turn, wasn't in Princeton when we were there, but gave us directions via cell phone and said "you'll find them lying under a Filippi double." The oars were indeed there, $750 oars lying under a $7000 boat, not locked, not anything, just out to public view. And we walked off with them. Alarms did go off, but they were less about stealing the oars, than they were about the fact that Liz and her brother had swapped Volkswagens as her car was a little too small to fit long oars inside. Turns out if you open the boot and then subsequently open a side door, the alarm goes off. This fact being slightly obscure, we didn't know about it, until we had to figure out what happened and how to turn it off. Amidst visions of hauling back up I-287 for hours with the alarm going, we did manage to stop the noise. Total errand time in Princeton: 7.38 minutes. So we made a further stop for ice cream, and headed back north. Calls to Julia helped us listen to the Sox game on the radio (Julia knowing how to do this in every major city on the eastern seaboard.) and we hit Massachusetts in good time and in a good mood. Until we got to the Newton tolls and waited over an hour for no reason just to get through the tollbooth. Crankiness and petulance soon ensued. But once through that, it was home safe and sound, and very very very very tired.

Next post: how to bring about good weather by deciding to move out of your fourth floor walk up apartment.
Love,
Anne