Loom Rescue

A Crowdfunded Delivery and Travelogue

Day 3: Pine Bush

4/29/21

In which we drive to Pine Bush, load the loom, salvage what else we can, and leave the house in New York for the final time. This day is reasonably well documented through posts on the Fedi, so I’ll rely heavily on them here.

Again, let’s use the posts put up at the time to tell the story, with commentary where necessary.

8:08A:
WanderingBeekeeper - In motion again, left Staunton, heading north and searching for breakfast. I can't do beef or pork, spouse does keto, which makes it difficult. #LoomRescue

We found a fast food place and got me a chicken biscuit and a coffee. Tiffany doesn’t normally eat breakfast, not being hungry enough to eat until nearly lunchtime partly due to the ​keto diet. We also filled up the tank at the Exxon in Staunton, capping out at the $50 limit.

10:02A
WanderingBeekeeper - West Virginia achieved. #LoomRescue We're estimating 3pm at the house for loading, and have confirmed this morning with the realtor that we will have access.
10:22A
WanderingBeekeeper - Maryland achieved. #LoomRescue​
State border sign for Maryland
10:33A
WanderingBeekeeper - Pennsylvania achieved. #LoomRescue
State border sign for Pennsylvania

We stopped at a Sheetz in ​Mechanicsburg for gas, $43.14, and a pit stop. Food today was mostly out of the cooler and the tote bags that we brought along, as we were trying to make as much speed as we could, to have loading time before the light failed, what with the power being off at the Pine Bush house.

2:57P
WanderingBeekeeper - New York achieved. #LoomRescue
Missed the state border sign for New York, this will have to do

At this point, a friend posted: I am being painfully reminded of Hofstadter's Law: "It always takes longer than you expect, even when you take into account Hofstadter's Law." I got the washing machine unloaded and stashed in the utility room, and we started marshaling, with the loom pulled out first. We had to marshal in the dining room as the light drizzle that had followed us all the way from Staunton just was not going to let up. It seems statistically improbable that so many people have “moving in the rain” stories. Maybe this is just what we remember, and not the times we loaded on a bright sunny day. The atmosphere certainly fit. We loaded up the van and said our final farewells to the Pine Bush farm, apologizing to the land for not being better caretakers. We had such plans for the place, but capitalism.

The house as it was when we arrived

Some of the things we had intended to retrieve were gone. We don’t know if the work crew that winterized the house for the bank helped themselves, or if one came back later, or if someone else entirely noticed the place was shut down and decided to investigate. My spouse’s corner china cabinet, that was too big (too many cubic feet, we couldn’t afford it at True State’s extortionate pricing) to go on the moving truck, had been in the dining room. It wasn’t. My maille supplies, including most of my core ring stock and my findings box, had been left in the office upstairs, me foolishly declaring that I wasn’t mailling any more and didn’t need to take the stuff. Well, someone took the stuff, and now I’m still working on rebuilding, as I should have remembered that maille is the one art form I keep returning to throughout my life. We were however able to recover the knitting machines, or at least the two boxes that were at Pine Bush. The other two boxes were still at Willis at this point, and we’ll mention them again later.

Where the china cabinet should have been
17:11
WanderingBeekeeper - #LoomRescue loaded and ready to roll out. The boxes on the floor next to the loom are knitting machines, and the surrounding boxes are loom parts, knitting machine parts, and supplies.
Loom in van

I discovered some very tight code integration. I saved emsenn's toot to Notes using the Share content of toot option and then Append to Note. Notes pops up in list mode, showing me the notes I currently have. I tapped the Loom Rescue note, and returned to Tusky with a pop-up affirmation that the link and content had been added to the note. I switched to Notes, taped into the Loom Rescue note, and scrolled to the bottom, where the new text was. When I double tapped the street number to begin copying the address, the selection extended to the entire address, and a pop-up menu appeared, with the first item being Google Maps. I tapped that option and Maps loaded, went to the address, and offered me further options. I'd like to salute the developer or team who thought out this integration and made it work. Nicely done, folks, well thought out. You've anticipated the needs of the user in an intuitive and clever way.

17:47
WanderingBeekeeper - The plan at this point is to reach Scranton, maybe Wilkes-Barre, find someplace to eat, and find lodgings, as we are old and I am out of shape, and we unloaded a washing machine and loaded a cargo van of stuff, after driving 7 hours. That will put us with about 7 hours to reach Chapel Hill tomorrow. Assuming a 9am departure time, with the morning including time for breakfast and arthritis medication, that should put us in Chapel Hill around 4pm. @emsenn #LoomRescue​

21:55: At the Red Roof Inn at Wilkes-Barre, fed, showered, and medicated. Will roll out in the morning, get a hearty breakfast, and drive down to Chapel Hill.

Once again, we forgot to hit a grocery store, and had to use the Red Roof shower supplies. My hair wasn’t happy with the cheap shampoo – it smelled like and had the effectiveness of the cheap liquid hand soap they put in rest stops on the highway. The hotel room had problems with the HVAC unit and the coffee maker, one of which worked just enough to keep the room vaguely livable and the other of which was an old model that the new disposable filter baskets didn’t fit. These are small, first-world issues, annoyances, not really significant in the larger scheme of things. We slept okay, once the room cooled down and didn’t smell so strongly of mildew, and found coffee the next morning after leaving the hotel.