Tie rods and more

Well my day went just swimmingly considering that I had the car in for a routine servicing and got a call about noon time advising that I needed two tie rod ends with a total cost of $370. And that was one of the better things that happened to me. However, I was slightly amused by the hand sanitizer salesman (and yes, they are doing a bang up business with all the pandemic surge planning) who responded to my request for extra containers of the stuff by telling me that he had it in his basement and would mail it out. When I commented he was prepared for what was heading towards us he agreed saying that some folks had wine cellars and he had more mundane but practical stuff. At what would’ve been lunchtime for others I checked on our electronic bulletin board and found a posting for a dog carrier which my neighbour wants to fly her obese black lab back to BC. My quest however was unsuccessful as she requires an extra large not a large we discovered.

Well, actually the best thing was finding some strange pieces of pipe on the side of the road when I walked the dog this evening because….they were in the spot where the survey line runs to the wireless internet tower. Yeehaw! They are actually going to do this. Not in time though for me to do my presentations, which I should be doing at the moment. This was the temptation in my email this p.m. though:

Legend of the Seas Oct.11 - 23 Roundtrip Civitavecchia, Italy
Italy & Croatia - 12 nights
11-Oct Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy 6:00 PM
12-Oct Portofino, Italy 7:00 AM 5:00 PM Tendered
13-Oct Livorno (Florence/Pisa), Italy 7:00 AM Docked
14-Oct Livorno (Florence/Pisa), Italy 7:00 PM Docked
15-Oct Cruising
16-Oct Messina (Sicily), Italy 8:00 AM 6:00 PM Docked
17-Oct Cruising
18-Oct Venice, Italy 8:30 AM Docked
19-Oct Venice, Italy 2:00 PM Docked
20-Oct Dubrovnik, Croatia 9:00 AM 5:00 PM Docked
21-Oct Cruising
22-Oct Naples, Capri, Italy 7:00 AM 6:00 PM Docked
23-Oct Civitavecchia (Rome), Italy 5:00 AM

Oh, why oh why didn’t I hold out for the last minute goodies like I threatened eh? Well, I certainly can’t complain about my travel partner as she’s stepped up to the plate and found us a hotel for $41/night. We had spent the noon hour on Wednesday looking for accommodation and were discouraged by either the price ($250 min) the location (too far away to walk where we’d like) or the reviews (murder, cockroaches, filthy). So I left the research with my retired with highspeed internet partner and voila….she checked with frequent travelers who told her to stay in NJ where we’re flying out and take a cab over and back and thus the reasonable price. I’m not pleased about the leaves beginning to turn colors but I am looking forward to a fall cruise.