Thursday, August 27, 2015

Aut 27th - Early Morning Update from TN

All is well in TN, well almost all, Kathy's Dad is not doing so good.

Last Saturday's trip here was relatively uneventful. The only issue was a traffic jam in Lebanon, TN. We like it when our travels to or from here allow a stop to eat at Demo's, a restaurant in Lebanon, TN. Saturday afternoon, as we exited the I40 in Lebanon we noticed that eastbound traffic was backed up. We were able to get off OK and had another great meal at Demo's. When we drove back to the exit to get back on I40 eastbound traffic was "parked" as far as we could see. Being seasoned travelers <grin> we weren't concerned, we decided to take route 70 to Crossville as an alternative. We headed for route 70 and learned that hundreds, maybe thousands, of others had made the same decision. When we were still miles from even getting on 70, traffic came to a standstill; we didn't mover a mile in 20 minutes. Kathy checked the travel/map app on her phone and it appeared that traffic was again moving on I40. We made a U-turn and made our way back to the Interstate. It had begun moving slowly and within about 10 minutes we were back up to normal speed. We never learned the cause of the backup.

I drove over to Lenoir City, TN Sunday afternoon and stayed in a motel Sunday & Monday nights. I stayed at one of the motels I used to stay at 25 years ago when I came down to work at the Loudon, TN plant. The eastern part of TN is on Eastern time. The central part, including Crossville, is on Central time, same as we are in MO. I had to be at the plant at 7AM Eastern time Monday morning and would have had to leave our place in Crossville no later than 4:30AM Central time to make the 90 minute drive to Loudon. I chose to stay in Lenoir City, a 15 minute drive from the plant, instead. My two days at the plant went well and I was back in Crossville late Tuesday afternoon.

Tuesday evening I did cleaned up my notes, marked up some photos I took and then scanned them and transmitted them to ARSEE's server. The people in the office will put together a report for Tate & Lyle. I still have some work (8-12 hours?) to do on one of the Lafayette plant projects and then I will be finished with what I have been asked to do. I have enjoyed doing it and would probably do some more when they get overloaded again.

Wednesday I ran 3 tanks of gas through my weed eater/brush cutter. It was some good exercise and I was tired last night. I went to bed around 8PM, which is why I am up now at 3:30AM <grin>. No doubt a nap will be in order this afternoon, or maybe even around mid-morning. I feel pretty good this morning. I thought I might be stiff and sore, but not to much.

The weather is BEAUTIFUL. We have the windows open all day but have to close them in the evening because it gets to cool. When I was out weed eating I was wearing a long sleeve shirt and was not overly warm. I'm sure not used to wearing a long sleeve shirt while working in late August.

I will probably do some more brush clearing today. Maybe a combination of some light chain saw work and heavy duty weed eating. I can cut down 2" trees with my weed eater/brush cutter (when I have the saw blade installed) but some of the trees where I am clearing are a little bigger than that. I've been cutting them anyway, but a chain saw would be a better tool for cutting the larger ones.

God is so good to me. May He bless you and yours as richly as He has blessed me.

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