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camping and chaos
Jul. 9th, 2024 09:04 amZ's train got in 2.5 hours late on Friday morning. for a 2.5 hour train journey. womp womp. But we had flexibility, so it was fine. We went out to lunch at our local queer cafe and ate tasty food which was good. I don't think she brought snacks and hadn't really eaten breakfast, so the delayed train was not great.
Headed back home and then packed all the food up with ice packs and loaded the truck up. I had loaded most stuff, included some popup tents and cinderblocks, plus chairs, tents, etc.
The drive up was lovely, it was a beautiful day. We got up there around 6pm and the campsite was busier than I'd ever seen it but it was a holiday weekend. I love this campground, it's awesome. Almost all of the sites are far apart from each other, it's quiet. Putnam Pond. Main downside is that it's got hella bugs. But they mostly both you when you're out walking and not while in the campsites, so it's not the worst. There's a very pretty lake.
We mostly sat around and read books, I spindle spun cotton, made food. Z slept a bunch. I made risotto for the first time over the fire which was fun and turned out extremely delicious. I had cooked a whole chicken on Thursday and brought along cooked meat and stock for the risotto. We also ate hot dogs, s'mores, cookies, fruit and other munchies. We went for one long wander around the campsite, looked at the lake.
The weather was not terrible. It definitely was warm on Saturday, but there was a good breeze, we were in a fully wooded area and then there was a brief pouring rainstorm that cooled us down a lot. Turns out I had grabbed a popup tent that was just the frame, but I always have a tarp in my truck, so I made a tent and it lived over our food table. So during the rain, we just hung out under it and the storm moved through within a half hour. We also went out and got ice cream and checked our phones since there was no cell service in the campsite.
I slept decently and I slept in which was nice. I dozed in the chair by the campfire sometimes.
Sunday we got up, had a relaxing morning. At that point, everything was damp, so we just kinda ate and then packed up. There was a ton of traffic on the way home, I'd never seen that much traffic that far north. But I had to keep reminding myself, it was a holiday weekend and to be expected.
We got home around noon, fully unpacked the truck and laid our tents and the tarp out to dry in the sun. I hopped in the shower real quick, then Z hopped in. I went down to the basement to empty the dehumidifiers and discovered that our main septic line had clogged and water was coming out the basement toilet, same as it did in fall 2022. But clearly we caught it very fast this time as the water had barely spread around. So I got on the phone and called a plumber and he came out within two hours. This time we paid for the expensive plumber with the waterjet thingy and he cleared the line. Then he put a camera down the pipe and oh boy.
There was multiple major problems with the line. I expected this since twice in two years indicates a big problem. There was a slightly disconnected PVC section, where a tiny bit of dirt was visible. Then in the cast iron pipe section, there was a big wobble in the line and a mat of roots growing in it, then at the intersection where the pipe goes into the septic tank, there was only about an inch of open pipe leading in because that intersection had dropped so much that the pipe wasn't even vaguely connected. Also full of roots. The plumber was really awesome and cleared out as much of the roots that he could but he couldn't fix the problem at the septic tank which will continue being a huge problem
He estimated it would be probably 10-15k to fix and said their company could do that kind of work but that we should take the video he took and get a couple of quotes from a couple of companies. Sigh. Oh well. It's clearly more important than the windows, so we'll make it happen soon. The guy said it would be much cheaper if we could get an excavator to come or if we knew someone with a backhoe. That may or may not be something we could manage but we'll see.
Headed back home and then packed all the food up with ice packs and loaded the truck up. I had loaded most stuff, included some popup tents and cinderblocks, plus chairs, tents, etc.
The drive up was lovely, it was a beautiful day. We got up there around 6pm and the campsite was busier than I'd ever seen it but it was a holiday weekend. I love this campground, it's awesome. Almost all of the sites are far apart from each other, it's quiet. Putnam Pond. Main downside is that it's got hella bugs. But they mostly both you when you're out walking and not while in the campsites, so it's not the worst. There's a very pretty lake.
We mostly sat around and read books, I spindle spun cotton, made food. Z slept a bunch. I made risotto for the first time over the fire which was fun and turned out extremely delicious. I had cooked a whole chicken on Thursday and brought along cooked meat and stock for the risotto. We also ate hot dogs, s'mores, cookies, fruit and other munchies. We went for one long wander around the campsite, looked at the lake.
The weather was not terrible. It definitely was warm on Saturday, but there was a good breeze, we were in a fully wooded area and then there was a brief pouring rainstorm that cooled us down a lot. Turns out I had grabbed a popup tent that was just the frame, but I always have a tarp in my truck, so I made a tent and it lived over our food table. So during the rain, we just hung out under it and the storm moved through within a half hour. We also went out and got ice cream and checked our phones since there was no cell service in the campsite.
I slept decently and I slept in which was nice. I dozed in the chair by the campfire sometimes.
Sunday we got up, had a relaxing morning. At that point, everything was damp, so we just kinda ate and then packed up. There was a ton of traffic on the way home, I'd never seen that much traffic that far north. But I had to keep reminding myself, it was a holiday weekend and to be expected.
We got home around noon, fully unpacked the truck and laid our tents and the tarp out to dry in the sun. I hopped in the shower real quick, then Z hopped in. I went down to the basement to empty the dehumidifiers and discovered that our main septic line had clogged and water was coming out the basement toilet, same as it did in fall 2022. But clearly we caught it very fast this time as the water had barely spread around. So I got on the phone and called a plumber and he came out within two hours. This time we paid for the expensive plumber with the waterjet thingy and he cleared the line. Then he put a camera down the pipe and oh boy.
There was multiple major problems with the line. I expected this since twice in two years indicates a big problem. There was a slightly disconnected PVC section, where a tiny bit of dirt was visible. Then in the cast iron pipe section, there was a big wobble in the line and a mat of roots growing in it, then at the intersection where the pipe goes into the septic tank, there was only about an inch of open pipe leading in because that intersection had dropped so much that the pipe wasn't even vaguely connected. Also full of roots. The plumber was really awesome and cleared out as much of the roots that he could but he couldn't fix the problem at the septic tank which will continue being a huge problem
He estimated it would be probably 10-15k to fix and said their company could do that kind of work but that we should take the video he took and get a couple of quotes from a couple of companies. Sigh. Oh well. It's clearly more important than the windows, so we'll make it happen soon. The guy said it would be much cheaper if we could get an excavator to come or if we knew someone with a backhoe. That may or may not be something we could manage but we'll see.
