September 4, 2021: A quiet day alone with a little too much fiddling with the stereo.
Saturday was supposed to be a Detroit shore day, spent visiting museums closer to downtown. But I’d given a lot of thought to the possible activities and the challenge of getting into town and back. I also thought about how far behind I was on the blog and how I longed for some alone time, which I really need to keep my sanity. So, at breakfast, when Paul started planning, I told him and Dianne that I preferred to stay at Nano for the day.
I while later, I watched them leave, headed for a bus stop about a mile away. Other than writing, I had no idea how I would spend the day or even what I might eat for lunch — the nearest restaurant was also a mile away. But I figured things would work themselves out.
Writing
I did do a lot of writing. I wrote and uploaded blog posts for Days 20 and 21, Day 22, and Day 23. That put me within 3 days of being caught up — about the same as I was when my computer died about 10 days before.
It wasn’t easy to write a relatively detailed description of each day so long after the fact. I had to rely on photos (when I had them) and my Nebo logs to jog my memory. By the time the third post was being drafted, I was pretty sick of writing. Fortunately, I did not do them one after the other. I took breaks in between.
Fooling with the Stereo
On my first break, I made some lunch — sardines in olive oil with finely chopped onions on wheat crackers — and started messing around with the stereo. This would have ramifications the next day that none of us could imagine.
Nano had a built-in Fusion stereo system. They’re apparently standard equipment on Ranger Tugs. Like most modern stereos, it had multiple speaker zones and could accept input from a variety of sources, including Bluetooth. I have Bluetooth on my phone (of course) and a huge library of music ripped from my CDs or purchased online. I thought it might be nice to enjoy some of that music since I was there all by myself that day, so I went about trying to pair my phone with the stereo.
This isn’t the first time I’d tried this. I tried once before, early on in the trip, and just couldn’t figure out how to get the pairing done. As someone who is a techie at heart, this was frustrating. But that day, I was determined.
And I did manage to figure it out. After a bunch of button pushing and menu exploring, I got my phone paired with the stereo. Soon I was playing my music through Nano’s speakers and it sounded a hell of a lot better than listening to it through the phone’s tinny built-in speakers.
But there was a problem. Every few minutes, the speakers would go dead as if the stereo had lost the Bluetooth signal. This happened no matter where I placed the phone in relation to the stereo.
I went back to the stereo and started fiddling with it. I must have some settings set wrong, I figured. I dug deep into the menus and tried changing various settings, including a few that meant absolutely nothing to me. No matter what I did, I couldn’t get the long pauses to go away. It seemed that the stereo was determined to frustrate me.
Little did I know how much frustration it would deliver.
Cleaning Up
I know I’m in full procrastination mode when I clean when I should be writing. That was another one of my breaks.
I washed all the dishes in the sink and then washed the sink. I wiped down the counters and table. I cleaned accumulated dust and dead gnats from various surfaces in the cockpit area. I reconfigured hooks in the galley, adding two of my own, to hang the scissors and pot holders. (I’m still trying to figure out why a space this size has five potholders, especially when we rarely use the stove and have yet to use the oven.) I stowed items we didn’t need that had been lingering out on the countertops. I cleared questionable food items out of the fridge, took out the trash, and found a bin for the recyclable items. I even got out the Simple Green, scrub brushes, and hose and washed the floor and steps out in the cockpit.
The inside of Nano is so similar to the inside of the camper I spend my winters in, escaping the northwest’s dreary days. (But no, I don’t share my camper with two other people.) I know that keeping it clean and organized is important to my mental well being. I also knew that whatever cleaning and organizing I did would be short-lived. But for a while, it was nice.
Finally, sometime before the end of the afternoon, I took a shower.
The Walk
I had seen on Google Maps’ satellite view that there was a park adjacent to the marina and decided sometime in the afternoon to go for a walk. Sitting on my butt all day is never a good idea.
I tried first to reach the park by walking out on marina property toward the river. That dead-ended on the river with a chain link fence stretching out into the river to prevent people from cutting between the two properties. I walked back along the channel we’d motored in on the day before and got a picture of where Nano was parked.
You can see Nano parked at the end of the dock. A huge Sea Ray was parked behind us for most of the weekend. A long row of McMansions were lined up across the channel; each home apparently had access to the dock wall there, although there were only a few boats.
Then I walked around out the main entrance to the marina, which was inside the park. There was a guy zipping around on a riding mower cutting grass at an amazingly quick pace. I followed a paved pathway along the water, over a little pedestrian bridge where two people were fishing, and on. The weeds along part of the path really needed trimming back. I emerged at another little bridge, crossed that, and watched a heron fishing alongside a pond there. With no where else to walk and the heat starting to get to me, I walked back to Nano. I certainly wasn’t going to get my 10,000 steps that day.
The pond and gazebo in the park adjacent to the marina. The place was nearly empty, which I thought was strange for the Saturday of Labor Day weekend.
Return of my Ship Mates
It was mid-afternoon when I got a call from Capt Paul. He wanted to know how many eggs we had.
I took the carton out of the fridge to count. “Seven,” I reported. I also knew that we hadn’t used a single egg in well over a week. The lack of fresh vegetables on board and lack of time in the morning to cook had prevented me from making the scramble I usually ate for breakfast at home in the morning.
He reported that they were in a Whole Foods, shopping. (It’s a good thing I wasn’t with them; I tend to go a little nuts in that store and the fridge is small.) I reminded him to get milk, which I needed for my coffee and cereal. In the days leading up to this, both he and Dianne had discovered fruit and cereal as a breakfast option and the milk had gone fast.
They returned a little over an hour later, just when I was finishing up the blog post for Day 23. They were laden with groceries and tales of hitching rides and riding buses. Dianne showed me photos of the Model T factory I’d missed. It sounded as if they’d had a great day and I was glad. I’d had a great day, too.
Later on, I cooked up a package of Zatarain’s Red Beans and Rice mix, doctored up with the addition of andouille sausage Paul had brought back. We had that for dinner. It was good enough, but I think a side salad would have made it better.
In the evening, we watched the parade of huge neighborhood boats go out again. This time, I slept right through their return.
