Thursday, June 4, 2009 -
It is sunny and clear this morning, without the need of a fire to warm up the cabin. My weather station is indicating a drop in barometric press, but NWS isn’t predicting any storms for this morning. The afternoon has a slight chance of a thunderstorm, but a slight chance usually means no rain.
I’ve been told that although we had more snow than usual this past winter, and thus more run off to the creeks and lakes, we have had very little rain. Usually the end of May and first part of June produces several thunderstorms that produce rainfall to help green things up.
I had my morning coffee and then got ready to head into town for lunch with Greg and my dentist appointment. I had awoke at 8 AM, and got up as I had so much on my mind I couldn’t go back to sleep. We headed down the mountain at 9:35, to meet the follow me truck for the 10:15 trip to Lincoln Road. We got there with 15 minutes to spare and I let Zack out to sniff around while I listened to the news on the radio.
As the follow me truck brought a few vehicles up the road, a truck turned to come my way and I had to move the Jeep to let him by. It turned out to be Jim Wilcox, the person that built my cabin and sold me the property. We visited for a few minutes and then he went up to Old Bald Butte City, where he is building another small cabin to sell. While we were visiting, a van pulled up behind me and just as Jim was leaving, a guy got out of the van and walked to my car. It was Mike from Colorado. I wrote about him two summers ago. He is slowing building a cabin over on Lost Horse Creek and comes up every summer to work on it. We visited briefly and then the follow me truck flagged us to come follow her.
I drove to Greg’s office, arriving a little before 11 AM. Greg was finishing some paper work and when he had, we left for lunch. We went to Montana Hardware Café, in Montana City, which is just down the highway from Helena. We had a good lunch and nice visit and headed back to his office. Zack was waiting in the car, so I let him out to sniff around while Greg and I visited some more.
My dentist appointment wasn’t until 2 PM, and I had about an hour and a half to go price water heaters. I haven’t completely given up on the tankless water heaters, but it is looking like I may end up just replacing my LP heater for another like it. Between Home Depot, Lowes, Power Townsend, and Ace Hardware, my choices for an LP water heater are slim. Most of the ones they carry are electric or natural gas, so unless I want to buy what is available, I’ll have to order one, which may take even longer than I wish. I have gone without water and hot water before, so other than being inconvenient, it isn’t a big deal. I can do my laundry in cold water and although I prefer to use hot water to do the dishes, it isn’t really necessary.
Prices for an LP water heater vary between $319.00 to $438.00, all being 30 gallons with 6-year warranties. All but Ace Hardware had them in stock for immediate purchase, but I am still hoping to get online and do some research before I make up my mind.
I stopped to pick up my mail and then drove to the old downtown, where my dentist’s office is. I found a 2-hour parking space, hoping that would be long enough, and parked. I made sure Zack had water and left the windows down as it had warmed up to 74 degrees. As long as the windows are open and he has shade to lay in, he is content. With the windows down, any passersby could remove him if they believed he was in distress. Also, they would realize that with the windows down, I knew the dangers of leaving him in a car on a hot day.
I walked to the dentist’s office and checked in, waiting to be called. The entire office takes lunch from 1:00 to 2:00 on Tuesdays and Thursdays, so John had to prepare the room for my root canal. It turned out to be more difficult than he thought, as the roots on that tooth are curved and difficult to clean and fit with the posts. The tooth already had a crown on it and John drilled through it, rather than remove it, which would save me the cost of a new crown.
It turned out that there was decay under the crown, which is what made the tooth become infected and abscessed, so he ended up having to remove the crown to get all of the decay and finish the root canals. This particular tooth can have four roots, but often has only three and he said some have only two. Two is all the x-ray shows, so he wasn’t sure until he opened up the top to discover I had three.
An hour and a half later, he finished and made me an appointment to have a crown fitted next week. He is also going to put a filling on the broken wisdom tooth to help it last longer. I paid for today’s procedure, $783.00, and will have to pay that much again for the follow up crown and filling. Maybe I should ask Obama to help me out and send him the bill for all of it.
When I came out of the office, it was overcast and much cooler than before, so I was glad that Zack had been comfortable. We drove to Lincoln Road RV Park and I went in to the lounge and got online to send the updates and check my bank account. I also called Bill Adams, the person the set up my internet satellite in the motor home, as he told me that I wouldn’t have any problem switching the modem back to the cabin from the RV. He managed to explain what was happening and told me that if the RV was within a few miles of the cabin and I put the modem back in to allow it to range for the location, I should be fine. He also told me how to change the zip code so the dish could get the new longitude and latitude.
We headed back to the cabin and was happy to see that there was no road control, as they had finished the paving all of the way to Marysville. Now they just need to finish the guardrails and paint the lines and the road will be finished. What a relief not having to deal with the follow me truck and times to come and go.
We stopped at the motor home and got more things to take back to the cabin, and once I unloaded them and got the modem, we headed back to the motor home. I had a little problem starting the generator for power, but managed after four tries. I got the dish up and while it was searching for the satellite, I unloaded the refrigerator and put the box in the Jeep. Once the dish found the satellite, I tried all of the things that Bill told me, but still couldn’t get it to range and allow a connection. After almost an hour, I gave up and disconnected the modem and the wireless airport, stowed the dish, shut down the generator and drove back to the cabin.
Zack was being particularly difficult, whining and fussing, so I made him ride inside rather than run part of the way home. It is a good thing I did because just before we got to the creek crossing, a very large black bear ran right in front of the car. He was moving fast and Zack almost tried to go through the closed window to chase after him. I am reasonable sure that once Zack caught his scent, he would have recognized danger and stopped trying to chase it, but was glad I didn’t have to deal with it. The bear quickly disappeared up the mountainside and we continued to the cabin.
It was late and I fed Zack and built a fire while heating up some left over pizza. The numbness of my mouth and jaw had worn off, and surprisingly I had no pain. I ate and watched some television, finally going to bed at 11:30.