We made it from Assateague to home without incident. When we arrived home, we found that the internet and phones weren’t working. That wasn’t a surprise, because I had lost communication with our home monitoring system, and this was the most likely explanation. I called Verizon. After going through a long menu of stuff, I didn’t punch a number quickly enough and was put in the 30 minute hold queue (as opposed to having them call me back). When I was finally connected, I could hear Verizon, but they couldn’t hear me. I had to hang up and call again. On the second call, I got a loud screeching sound. The third call finally worked. Their call center equipment is in terrible shape. They agreed to come out at 9 on Wednesday, which was good enough for us. The tech showed up at 9, declared the fiber interface was no good, and that he didn’t have one on his truck. By Noon, he had installed his third interface, none of which worked. I found out that we had the “old” interface, which was over 8 years old. After 3 strikes, Verizon updated me to the “new” interface, and our service was quickly restored. All in all, it was 4 1/2 hours to get FIOS working.

I also had some unusual warnings from the sump pump during a heavy rain. My neighbor came over and said nothing was flooding. It could be that the pump was having a hard time keeping up with the water flow, or it could be that the backup pump was running. This turned out to be good news. The pump was running fine, and by the time we got home, the heavy flow of water was over.

The third issue was that parts came loose in our disposal. We aren’t big believers in disposals, but the sink is set up for one, and if you can’t run them the quickly get clogged up. That was a call to the plumber, who replaced it without drama.

I went out for a couple of bike rides this week and was shocked to see how bad the Ellicott City damage was from the flood they had recently. The damage to the historic downtown section was well publicized, but they had much more damage than I knew about. I like riding several roads that run along streams. Most of them are closed, because the streams overran their banks so much that the undercut the roads and the road is totally washed out. I have no idea whether some of these roads will ever be repaired. I’m sure glad Danita and I don’t live in one of those cute houses with a stream in the front yard and a short bridge in the driveway. Whether the house is damaged or not, it’s not very useful if it can’t be reached.

Everything is working. We’re caught up on chores and food prep. It must be time to go to West Palm Beach and start The Great Northern Loop Tour!

I hope this finds everybody doing well.