Back to Manhattan

Well, the plan to sleep in was somewhat less than successful. A plant siren goes off at 7:00 a.m. every morning to announce the beginning of the work day, even on Sunday.

Cate called today excited to tell us about her new bike, which she used her birthday money to buy. Julie says it is large enough to fit Cate for a few years. It has both hand brakes and coaster brakes, so it should be a good transition to more adult bikes. Julie says that she is now working five days a week. Fortunately, her shift is when Cate and Sam are in school, so she only has to have day care for Jesse.

This afternoon we drove back to Manhattan, mainly to put more miles on the truck, but also to do some shopping. We stopped at a liquor store to buy some wine. In Kansas, anything stronger than 3.2 beer must be purchased in a liquor store. Besides that, the prices seemed inflated to us.

We went on to Ace Hardware and Wal-mart and then across the street to Hobby Lobby, which turned out to be closed on Sundays. We went to the Dollar Tree next door and bought a plastic salad bowl to serve temporarily until we find one we like.

We spent more time trying to get everything organized. We're actually making quite a bit of progress. We also added water to our fresh water tank using a hose from the building. It's a much easier process because we have a hose reel that automatically retracts the hose and because the valve you have to flip to divert incoming water into the fresh water tank is handily located in the utility center.

We are really enjoying our new refrigerator. Tonight we had ice cream for a snack. It's so much more satisfying when the ice cream is actually frozen instead of slushy.


On our walk this evening we saw a young woman talking on her cell phone and holding the leash of her large fluffy cat. When we passed for the second time, she looked us and said, "She thinks she's invisible." The cat barely blinked, holding quite still.