Marking Time

We keep our fingers crossed in high hopes this might be our last week here. Rusty has a check up Thursday and we’re hoping he’ll be taken off his steroids so we can get him back on his glucosamine to strengthen his legs. He is almost back to his elderly normal self, getting up without help, eating like a horse, and showing all the signs of being once again a happy alert dog. The cloud of gloom has lifted. Yes I know he’s old and death awaits us all but for now I’m focused on testing our new electrical systems not on contemplating his mortality. We want to test both by taking a tour of Uruguay before we head west toward Peru, land of winter sun. Let’s see how Rusty and GANNET2 do on the road. 

Winter is here with a cold front closing in bringing  rain and damp de-motivating us by also lowering  temperatures that already feel colder than 55 degrees. We want to go for a drive to see some new places and check Rusty’s tolerance for travel and to give us a chance to feel nomadic again even if we need windshield wipers and a car heater to do it.  

Saturday afternoon we celebrated the end of the work week for those not retired with an asado, a grilled meat session. Me Layne Robert Adrián and Maria- José and Rusty the hungry prednisone powered eating machine with his head under the table.

Robert the retired American businessman has absorbed all Adriáns time last week chasing electrical demons in his Toyota Land Cruiser conversion, an overlanding beast assembled by apparently unmotivated builders. Adrián spends half his time trying to convince Robert who uses a translation app, to rebuild from the ground up the wiring mess in the camper. Robert supervises and resists all suggestions until he sees for himself how hopeless it is trying to do things his way. Progress on making improvements is glacial, especially after a short burned out his alternator and a mechanic came by and replaced a burned diode.

I am not a self made man so when I find a technician who knows his stuff I tell him what I want and let him figure how to achieve it. Then I give him money and I enjoy the outcome. I never assume I know more than they do. In Brasilia my approach was not entirely successful but our solar panels and Starlink installation work and our cabinetry is good and Adrián has created what appears to be a fine electrical installation so in the end we are there. Robert is getting there but his approach is generating frustration and I don’t like to see it.  Another reason to get on the road and leave them to debate technical minutiae  that bore me.  

This next week looks to be taken up with an electrical rebuild Adrián suggested at the start that Robert resisted and has been forced to accept as necessary because the half modification of  his system isn’t working as hoped.  Or something. 

I watch the fog rise over the fields, Rusty plunks down next to me, Layne fights the oven in the cottage and Robert and Adrián discuss wiring through Google Translate. 

I carry endless arms full of firewood and dream of the open road.