Can I just please just get home?

Thursday’s weather was the same-old, same-old. I did hear one interesting fact on the morning news, though.  Seems like the record high in Southeast Michigan for Wednesday, July 17, of 102 degrees F. (!) was set just last year. They did say it wasn’t as humid, though (which makes sense as all I remember about last summer was the decided lack of rain).

I stopped at Home Depot on the way into work and bought four rolls of different colored wire for the trailer, as well as a soldering iron and solder.

I went to lunch at Kicker’s with a few of my co-workers. I haven’t been there in years! But, it hadn’t changed much. Slow service, pricey and so-so food, LOL! No wonder I stopped going.

It started raining at 4:45 PM (of course) and that was the start of my troubles. I got doused just walking to the car. Then, there was a train stalled at the Levan crossing. When I saw it wasn’t moving, I got in the turn lane and went down to Newburgh (Newburgh Road goes under the railroad tracks, you see). Of course, I wasn’t the only “tricky” one, so it took a while to actually get to the on-ramp of I-96.

When I did, though, I discovered my next challenge: The traffic was barely crawling! WTF? Granted the storm drains were flooded, but was that any reason to be going 20 MPH? That must not have been the only problem, though, as a State Trooper with his lights on went splashing by on the inside shoulder.

I gave up and bulled my way off at MiddleBelt (one mile short of my exit). I thought I’d take the service drive (Schoolcraft) to Inkster, instead of going down MiddleBelt to Plymouth Road. The MiddleBelt/Plymouth Road interchange is right by Walmart and Target and it is a nightmare to turn left!

But, as I approached the little intersection just past the Home Depot/Meijer’s/Costco shopping center, the traffic was dead on Schoolcraft. WTF? I guess it was people trying to get onto I-96 or something.

So, I turned into the shopping center and slowly made my way back to MiddleBelt. The intersection at Plymouth Road was as bad as I remembered. But, I finally got onto Plymouth Road and headed home.

I pulled into the driveway at 5:40 PM (in other words, a 40-minute ride home that normally takes between 7-10 minutes). On the plus side, it had stopped raining.

I treated the cats and changed clothes. Then I went outside and checked the rain gauge. The brief shower had dumped another 1/4-inch of rain on my house. So much for cutting the front lawn tonight.

Instead, I cut out all the old wire ties, wires and wire bundles from the trailer. Then I started stringing wires according to the color code on my trailer plug. I found I needed several items I hadn’t thought of, such as red wire ties, wire nuts, etc. So, I ran the wires on the outside of the frame, without hooking anything up. I didn’t have enough electrician’s tape to wrap the wires, either, so I just joined the wires every foot or so.

With all the prep work done, I quit there. I shut everything up and went in the house. It was 7:45 PM. I took a quick rinse-off shower (the rain hadn’t cooled off the temperature at all) and then went in search of dinner.

I settled on another burger (still put together the same way) and the rest of the wild rice. I ate that watching a taped show. When it was finished, so was I and I went to bed just after 10:00 PM