People Suck

Those words echo through my head after hanging up with our son the other day. As a parent we try to protect our children from the realities of life and even though he is 35, it still breaks my heart to hear him say it. People do suck. Putin sucks. As a matter of fact, pretty much all politicians suck, some just suck less than others. 

Living in the country, I feel like there are less sucky people here, maybe it is because there are fewer people. Maybe it is because we are not working and are not forced to interact with sucky people. But they are still out there. Forrest's situation was a simple one but just another reminder. He found a 5th wheel hitch on Marketplace that would be perfect for their truck, so he called the woman, they settled on a price and set up a pick up time. When he gets there later that day, she had sold it to someone else. Frustrating. Frustrating that she did not keep her word and frustrating that there are so many people out there who don't show up that she felt the need to sell it to this guy before the time she arranged with Forrest. 

The great part about retiring and hitting the road or moving to a new area is that you can basically start fresh. Leaving all the sucky people who entered your life behind yet maintain contact with those you like. In our 5-years fulltiming, we only met one or two people who suck, but then we moved on and did not maintain contact with them. 

How we were raised has a lot to do with your personality, how you react to certain situations and sometimes your general outlook on life. A friend of ours (a non-sucky person) recently posted something on Facebook that resonated with me. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% of how you react to it. Truer words have never been spoken and I try to remind myself that in the scheme of life those little setbacks are really minor. 

I don't know what my point is behind all this, maybe just a reminder that God is good, treat every day as a blessing and don't let the little things control your life. Those, my inspirational words of the week for you Dino.... you are welcome. 

Speaking of little things, this is a picture of Barb's finger. 

This story starts over a year ago when Barb got a sliver in her finger when we were at Forrest's. We both thought it would work its way out but over the course of the year it didn't and continued to hurt. She has been to the doctor twice trying to get it out. The first time the doctor dug around but had no luck. The 2nd time, they numbed her finger and put a scalpel to it. They sliced her finger open and although the doctor could feel it, she could not get it out. She now has 3 stiches and a referral to the general surgeon.... for a sliver!

We have not been real motivated to work on projects this week. Barb finished grouting the dog wash and it is just waiting for me to install the faucet before the girls can have their first showers!

My projects included finishing the construction of the dresser drawers (not picture worthy yet) and installing the camper tie downs on the new truck. We went with Torklift tiedowns. All the other tie downs we had on our other trucks we had installed. This time I was going to install them myself! Should be easy right? Well, not quite as easy as I hoped.

Front set of tie downs

Rear set

All was going well until the directions said "Disconnect and sperate parking brake cables and pull back through frame" No problem I can do that! Then I saw the nut I needed to remove. No matter when I tried, I could not get a wrench on that little nut wedged into that crevice. 

I've got to back that tensioning nut all the way out of there. 

If only I had a thinner wrench! I don't have a thinner wrench but I can make one. But I don't want to ruin one of my good wrenches.... Wait! Barb has a cheap wrench set! With the use of a sidegrinder, about 5 minutes later I had just the tool I needed! Genius!

Sorry Barb.....

Once I had that nut off, I pulled back the cables, install the new bracket, rethreaded the cables through the new backet and reconnected everything. Not easy, but doable. This is what the bracket looked like all done with the cables back in place.

That first one took me about 2 hours, the remaining 3, I had done in an hour as there was nothing in the way. 

We are one step closer to putting the camper on the new truck!

Sunday afternoon we hit the road with Kevin and Cheryl to do a little Jeeping! 

We hit the Forest Service Roads. These roads are unmaintained during the winter. Some area used fairly frequently, others not so much. We started out on a fairly well used road but it eventually became less and less traveled until we were driving in a couple of ruts in 4 wheel drive. Then we came upon a Suburban in the ditch.  

Upon closer inspection we discovered that the truck had not one, but two occupants! A husband and wife from Rapid City who had already been there for a couple of hours and were waiting on a wrecker they had called in from Rapid. 

"No, problem we will get you out!" I was going to pull up and around Kevin so we could hook our Jeeps together and pull them back on the road. I had to go through a ditch to do it but I had a Jeep so it should not be a problem. 

Now we had two vehicles stuck! At least there was a wrecker on the way! Kevin was able to pull me back on the road so we decided to hook our Jeeps together and pull him backwards onto the road. 

We were able to pull him backwards along the ditch but not back onto the road. It just was not going to happen. We were just packing up when a group of 7 Jeeps pulled up from the other way and were going to give it a try. We had had enough so we left them to their fun and headed on our way. By the way, two side notes here. The guy said the wrecker that was coming was going to charge him $185 for the tow, $5/mile (each way) in travel and a $70 chain up fee because he was on an unmaintained road. Since he was about 50 miles from Rapid, the milage alone was going to be $500! The second thing was that his wife never made an appearance. We were there for over an hour dragging his truck down the ditch and we never saw her. I finally asked him where his wife was. "Laying down in back". Somehow we got the impression that she was not a happy camper!

From there we headed to Hill City for supper. We went to Desperado where the food was just okay but the desserts were incredible! Kevin got a brownie with whip cream, ice cream and sprinkles. Kevin told the Server that he deserved a really big dessert because he did his good deed for the day. This is what she came back with!

And he didn't even share!

With the warmer weather, the snow is melting, and the turkeys are getting really active. Spring is their mating season so the hens are clucking, the toms are gobbling and strutting their stuff. They are pretty much here constantly, even hanging out in the trees when they are not eating. 

             

I think the hens hang out in the trees so the toms will stop chasing them. 

Zoey is really enjoying this warmer weather. She wanders from spot to spot in the house seeking areas where the sun is shining though the window looking for the perfect nap spot. Funny how dogs learn to find these. (Nancy, do you like the quilt in the background?!?!?)

The remainder of the week we have something going on everyday so it is going to be a quick and busy week. Now Barb needs to proof read this before I post it and find out that I took a sidegrinder to her wrench. Remember Honey, it is not what happens, it is how you react to it, please react gently!