10:11 – We made a run down to Winston-Salem yesterday. We dropped Colin off at the old house, Barbara dropped me off at the dentist and then went on to get her hair cut. She picked me up, we made a Costco run, picked up Colin and a load of stuff at the old house, and headed home.
The only shelf-stable stuff I got at Costco was 100 pounds each of white sugar and bread flour and 20 pounds of oatmeal. That totaled $84 and about 375,000 calories, which is a 4 to 5 person-month supply of calories, although obviously not nutritionally balanced. We’ll repackage all of that in 2-liter soda bottles over the coming week.
As we were driving down the mountain yesterday, the check-engine light came on in the Trooper. It’s a 1993 model, although with only 135,000 miles on it. We called a local mechanic when we got back. He said to call back this morning and talk to Lynn, which I did. He said he was booked solid for the coming week, which is always a good sign, but he’d try to take a quick look at it on Thursday. If it’s something minor, which he suspects it is, he may be able to fix the problem on the spot. Otherwise, he’ll have to work it into his schedule sometime next week.
I’d intended to call our realtor and get her recommendation for a mechanic, but Barbara felt strongly that we should just call B&T Tire and Automotive. She’d met Bob (the B in B&T) when she was out looking for a Christmas tree and stopped there to get directions to the tree farm. She really liked Bob, who’s about our age, and said she instinctively trusted him. So I called B&T yesterday when we got back from Winston and ended up talking to Travis (the T), who told me to call back today and ask for Lynn.
The thing is, Sparta is like any small town anywhere. As a local, one can trust just about any local business, because word gets around fast. It’s in everyone’s self interest to deal honestly with other locals. So the first time we deal with a local business, I make it a point of telling them that we’ve just moved to Sparta and (more importantly) that we’re now full-time residents.