Mary has consented to let us a stay a while, and it's awfully convenient being two doors down from where Emma has been taken hostage ... um, I mean, "where Emma is visiting my parents" ... so we are here for a couple more days.

We could stay for quite a while. We aren't using Mary's electric or water but since we are showering at my parents' house and not really doing any cooking here, our gray holding tank should be fine for at least a week.

I received a birthday present to myself yesterday: a new Nikon lens for the D70 digital SLR. Back in Colorado I ordered a 55-200 mm zoom to be shipped here, and I got a chance to try it out today on Emma as she played by the lake. This should be a fine addition to my camera bag, especially when we are on nature walks and Eleanor says, "Ooh -- get a shot of that bird!"

This evening after dinner we all went out to the local "creemee" stand, an old standby called Uncle Sam's. Creemees are one of the great summer traditions in this part of the country. Summer is winding down here in Vermont but it's not dead yet. The four mosquito bites I got on my feet this evening prove that.

Tomorrow Eleanor and I are going to tow the trailer up to Burlington to visit our two storage units. The plan is to park the Airstream right in front of the doors and exchange things. The clothes and gizmos we haven't used will go into storage boxes, and the items we've collected (rocks, a walking stick from Mexico, and other souvenirs) will get offloaded too. Then we'll go "shopping" among our other stored items to see what we need. It's fun to shop your own stuff.

The rule about refitting the trailer is that nothing is sacred. Everything that is in the trailer gets considered: Do we need it? Have we used it in the past six months? Are we sure we will need it in the next six months? Anything that flunks the tests gets put back into storage, to make room in the trailer for more useful things. This process also ensures that we expose all the nooks and crannies for cleaning, which is important for keeping dust under control. Other people unload their Airstream after every trip -- but as full-timers we don't get that opportunity very often.