The last day of March we drove to Edmonton, Alberta for a short -term contract job starting on April first. It was nominally 12, 10-hour days in a row for a maintenance turnaround in a chemical plant.
One goes into a turnaround knowing it could be shorter or longer than originally billed. Work gets cancelled. Stuff gets discovered and they run a bit longer. In this case it was a day shorter. The client moved some of their people back to day shift and we were done all the work they wanted us to do.
We had disconnected control valves and other instrumentation for removal at the beginning of the turnaround. As things came back together, we reconnected everything. Similarly, we disconnected the monitoring probes on some rotating equipment and installed new ones when the mechanical people had done their thing. Some of the valves and piping had been changed. We tubed and loop checked those.
Eleven days. Short and sweet.
Even in those eleven days the sunrise was noticeably earlier in the daily forty-five-minute drive to the work site from Edmonton. Won’t be long before the sun is in the eyes of the people making that daily drive.
I won’t be one of them.
I am retired.
Again.
Until I’m not.
As far as that site goes there is nothing scheduled that is likely to be offered to me until late August. I’ll be looking for some work before then, but there doesn’t seem to be much out there. Might be a summer back home. That would be doable.
In the meantime, back among the living, I took a course to keep my qualifications current on what they are currently calling Mobile Elevating Work Platforms. Then we spent a couple of extra days in Edmonton. I kibbitzed with Ezekiel as he worked on his latest snowblower. We went to church with the family in Edmonton and did lunch and coffee with various people. With some of those people it was about twenty years of catch-up to do on our visit.
It was getting close to time for an oil change on our little Nissan Rogue. The dealer was booking a week out. Early Saturday morning I lurked outside their gates until they opened to be first in line for the Express line. Two things due were a cabin air filter and an oil and filter change. The day before I had changed the cabin air filter myself. The Napa Gold filter is a more substantial option than the OEM filter and about two thirds the price. Unless, of course, one ham handedly breaks off the little plastic tab on the cover door. Then it’s a wash when the cost of a new plastic door is included.
If you do go the Napa route allow more time for the buying process than they indicate online. Maybe a couple of days. They are not up to the standard of an Amazon for online stuff. Who is? I thought of devoting a couple of paragraphs to a write up of the experience, but it would sound whiny. Just remember when dealing with any organization these days, competence cannot be assumed.
We drove back to Meadow Lake on the seventeenth of April. We had packed the covered cargo area of the car the day before. We planned on leaving quickly in the morning as soon as one of us woke and then woke the other. I woke at O dark 30 and looked at the snow. Left Juanita sleeping and settled in to surf until it was time to cook breakfast. No sense heading out before it was light out.
I was still in the kitchen in my dressing gown visiting after breakfast when I realized Juanita was dressed and ferrying the remainder of the luggage out to the car. By the time I had dressed and brushed my teeth she was mostly done loading the car. She had swept the snow off the car and had it running. I love it when a plan comes together.
Once we were beyond the city and the crawling, sliding, bumper to bumper rush hour traffic the highways were not terrible. Not good but not terrible. There were a few cars in the ditches and an overturned semi but normal winter roads otherwise.
We stopped at Vegreville and I did some walking in Walmart to work on the 10k a day steps. Getting 10k steps during the turnaround had not been a problem. Only one or two days where some additional steps had to be found at the end of the day. Most days were well over 10k without particularly trying. Now it’s back to requiring some focus.
When we came out of Vegreville the highways were now in good winter driving condition.
Our grid road and driveway were snowy but not deep. Only two days ago the gravel was showing in the doorbell cam pictures. A couple of inches of snow is no problem. We unpacked the car into a toasty house. That was not planned. Normal drill is to leave the thermostat set at 10 degrees C, arrive back, start the woodstove, unpack the car and go to town for groceries while the house warms up. I had left the thermostat at 20. Oops. Can’t wait for the next power bill.
In town we picked up the mail. Juanita did some grocery shopping in the two supermarkets while I added to the step tally. On the way home she dropped me near the highway. I completed the 10k walking the grid road home.
After supper it was still light out. I flushed the antifreeze out of the water lines and installed new water filters. We have water again.
That’s the month until just after the middle. Probably won’t do a daily blow by blow of life as rural retirees but might post the odd thing of interest to me. It might even be of interest to you. We’ll see what happens. Now I’m off to do the chores that have piled up since last fall and before. C U.
