Today we leave on an Airstream trip!   Whew — just in time for our sanity.   The house craziness has been a lot of work.

Yesterday the gas plumbers showed up to dig a new trench in our back yard.   We need a new gas line because we want to have a gas stove, and the code doesn’t allow us to to connect another appliance using the existing (small) line.   All the utility providers were called out to   mark their lines, but Cox Cable didn’t show up.   We didn’t know they had a line in our back yard, until of course the plumbers “found” it with their Ditch Witch.   Cox got a call and sent someone out to repair it.

Interestingly, they don’t actually repair the line.   They simply replace the entire thing, underground.   At first they said they’d do it when we ordered cable service, which isn’t going to happen for a loooong time, if ever.   But we didn’t want them coming back to dig up our newly landscaped yard next year, so after some negotiations Cox agreed to come back today and lay the replacement line in the same trench as the new gas line.

The gas plumbers also discovered that the sewer line that we are using for our full hookup in the carport isn’t buried very deep.   In fact it was only about 12″ under the surface.   So they clipped that with the Ditch Witch too … but spliced in a repair today.     At least now we know where everything is.

My camera is back — just in time for our trip.   The CCD is cleaned and the problem with the onboard flash is fixed. You can expect to see a lot of photos from this week’s trip, as I start to use it again. We will be on the road by 1:30 pm today, heading to the Phoenix area for a night and then west.   Time to go hitch up the Airstream!