July 1
The flies here bite! Why did nobody tell me that? Terrible little yellow monsters! But, no - they aren't little! They're huge, and they swarm and gather all around, and you just can't get rid of them. Thankfully, the irritation does not linger and itch as much as mosquito bites do, but still.
Anyway, Thorin put a water filter on the fresh water hose this morning, but now the pressure is really low (I tried to flush the toilet this afternoon, and there was only a trickle). Of course, we've been doing the dishes outside, at least, so the lack of pressure to the kitchen sink isn't too much of an issue. And we have a "hose splitter" that hooks up two hoses at once to the pipe, so we don't have to turn off the water to the trailer to use the outside hose - not that it does any good to have the trailer water hooked up at all right now, with the low-flow!
Oh, and more unfortunate news! Up until now, the campgrounds we've been staying at had laundromats so we could wash the clothes - but though they also have one at this campground, each wash and dry cost $1.75. That's $3.50 a load! Now, it isn't the money that is the problem, really, but the fact that there's no change machine here to get all the quarters we'll need for it. And we are in a really out-of-the-way place, so it takes 45 minutes to get to a store where we might be able to get some change, and that uses up a lot of gas.
So, what we're going to have to do is wash the clothes by hand in a bucket outside (like we do the dishes), and hang them up to dry. We're only going to have to do that until we take a trip to the store for whatever reason (we'll need milk before long), and we'll pick up some quarters while we're there. In the meantime, though, it is going to be hot work. And, my goodness! Six people make a lot of laundry! But the boys will certainly be doing their part, as there is little else to do here at the moment.
Really, they seem to be a bit bored. There are things to do at this campground (there's a pool and horseshoes and fishing and mini-golf), but it is really too hot right now to do much of it. And, of course, there are the flies, which make working and playing outside difficult. And on top of that, there is no internet here, which seems to be Gimli's main source of entertainment. And I guess he wasn't as afraid of flies as he was of other bugs until they started biting him. So now he won't leave the trailer at all, and I really can't say that I blame him!