Knowing Ones Limitations
15 April 2012 | Portsmouth, VA
81 degrees and clear
KNOWING ONES LIMITATIONS
April 15, 2012
One attraction to us is the historical aspect of our cruising grounds. Along the way from Texas to the Chesapeake we encountered significant historical sites in small numbers. Once we stopped by the Visitors Center in Portsmouth, VA it became obvious that historical sites are stacked on top of each other from here north. Portsmouth, for instance, celebrated its 400 th year in 2007. Yesterday, armed with brochures, we drove around looking at the area and enjoying the spring foliage. The old gps was overheating when asked for history stuff. So, it is now obvious to us that there is absolutely no way we will see even half of them. Dang, we need another quarter century just to drive by them. Now I know how Scurv feels when he looks at a forest.
We started to see notations about Sears Houses. Local communities keep track of them since they were popular in the pre-depression US. What is a Sears House? It was a prefabricated house sold by Sears Roebuck. It included everything but the foundation and came by train or truck with a seventy five page do it yourself manual. There were several models and Sears offered some custom features. One such house in Wilmington was priced at $600, delivered. Sears even carried the note which came back to bite them when the Great Depression hit. They wanted to be known as “family friendly” so Sears actually absorbed the defaults. The houses were offered before Sears sold tools. That came after they recognized many folks needed tools to assemble the house. More on this subject: http://www.antiquehome.org/House-Plans/1916-Sears/
We have decided our 15 hp Yamaha is just too heavy for our needs. Besides that, we don’t really like to do 20 knots in the dinghy because it puts whitecaps on the coffee; that is the coffee that is not on the shirt. We don’t need to expose Bears back to high speed beatings either. Rowing speed is just fine. Scurv has not ridden in the dink yet and my guess is that he would not like it either as the face fuzz might be a problem. He has been “bugged” a time or two by sticking his snoot out the window of our vehicle. Speaking of bad haircuts, Scurv has actually managed to grow hair in the gaps we gave him.