Missed meeting

Today was our monthly travel get together and we missed it.

As the weather has (somewhat) changed from winter to spring I needed to make sure my lawn equipment was prepared for the upcoming mowing/gardening/fighting the annual weed war season.  It has been over a year since I had performed a tune up on our lawn tractor and this year I just didn't feel like doing it myself.  So, we loaded up the beast and took it south to a reputable small engine repair business.

All of that appears straight forward but, this is me and nothing is straight forward for me.

You see, to load the great mechanical marvel that shears my tender grass (weeds) I have to back the pick up truck into a culvert in front of my house.  This effectively lowers the bed of the truck to just about 8 inches from street level.  Obviously, this makes loading much easier.  For those that will ask the inevitable question, "why don't you just use ramps?"  The answer is simple, I don't have any and I don't load the beast often enough to warrant having any.  In fact, this is only the second time I have loaded it in the truck, the first being when we brought it home a few years ago.

A week later, the reputable small engine repair business called and said they were done.  My wife and I have both been a tad under the weather so we waited until last night to bring the beast home.  Once home I maneuvered the truck back the culvert to unload our cargo, being careful not to go too far in the culvert as I didn't want to risk getting stuck.  I should mention, while Betty and I were feeling under the weather, the weather was doing its part to provide natural moisture to the ground.  I'm sure we've all heard the saying, "April showers bring May flowers".  Well, April has been showering us for quite a few days.  This led to my concern about getting stuck.  But, I made sure I stayed above the truly wet part of the culvert.

And that didn't help at all.

Once we had unloaded and stored the beast I discovered the truck had zero traction on the wet grass.  Try as I might, this truck was going nowhere.  I left it for the night and only returned to it the next day when my youngest son arrived in his four wheel drive pick up.  Long story, short (as if I haven't made this long enough) 30 minutes later the truck was in the driveway and I now have a set of spinning tire tracks through my front yard.  All is good in my world except, we missed our monthly travel meeting.

We are disappointed as the meetings gave us an outlet for our excitement for our upcoming trip.  Also, we have garnered several great travel tips and suggestions on what to do, see and where to eat.  This meeting was also the last one for a couple of months as several members are leaving in the next couple of weeks to their own travels.  One trip in particular is being taken by three members, a photo safari to Africa.  Another is leaving today to enjoy London and Paris and yet another couple leaves soon for a trip through Italy.  By the time everyone gets back Betty and I will be just two weeks from leaving on our trip to Paris.  We may try to squeeze in a meeting before we leave.

We are getting closer, just 69 days left and our adventure begins.