Lake Effect and Its Consequences

The S.O. and I have been planning a short trip out of town for some time. The Younger Daughter has relocated to Missouri, we're curious about her new digs and her new duty station, and we have a couple pieces of furniture she's said she'd like to have. The Plan called for us to load up the truck and hit the road several days ago. So what's the snag? Lake effect snow. The damn stuff won't stop falling. We can't leave until we've got our new carport kit completely assembled and the boats parked under it, but that lake effect snow is turning what should have been a fast and easy project into one that's taking forever to complete.

The carport is one of those adult tinker toy sets, a VersaTube "pre-engineered DIY building with slip-fit connections." We got the frame up on Tuesday afternoon in less than an hour. It really did work as neatly as the advertisements all claim. Then came the fun part: the roofing. We picked up the sheet metal on Wednesday. It was snowing, but the forecast claimed things would be better the following day. Pshaw. It was snowing on Thursday, too. Still, we managed to get about half the metal up before it started getting too dark to see what we were doing. We were sure we'd be able to finish it on Friday. Again, pshaw. There was a break in the snow -- we actually got to see some blue sky for awhile -- but we got only two pieces of roofing up. It is positively amazing just how many screws one piece of 14' x 39" sheet metal requires to hold it in place and just how time consuming it can be to put those screws in when you have to keep repositioning ladders. So we tried again yesterday. One piece in place and the batteries on the drills went dead. They drain fast when it's cold outside. Of course, considering that precipitation at the time consisted of a nasty mix of rain and snow, we weren't moving real fast anyway. It's easy to walk away from a project when you're feeling frozen and half drowned.

So now we've got three pieces left to go and theoretically we're done. Sort of. The S.O. will still have to move the Crestliner, which is going to be a real joy to do when the snow is now about 8 inches deep and super slushy, and then we'll tarp the sides of the carport. Maybe I should tell the kid to buy a turkey because at the rate we're progressing, it's going to be Thanksgiving before we get there.

You know, this is one of those projects that would have taken the S.O. and I maybe half a day to complete thirty years ago. It's truly depressing how much slower everything goes once a person achieves geezerhood.