Today’s tasks were a dental appointment followed by an eye exam. The dental appointment was planned (cleaning, and lectures from the hygienist that included the ‘f’ word – ‘floss’).

Monday had a church friend come over to chop down the maple that split during the last windstorm. He had a chainsaw and a chipper, so he cut down the tree, then cut some logs and fed the branches into the chipper. My job was to prepare the branches for chipping; that involved a sharp machete-type knife to strip branches, and take them over to the chipper.

That went well, we got everything cleaned up, and he got some firewood for his house (I have a propane fireplace, so couldn’t use the wood). The negative part was my regular set of eyeglasses fell out during that work, and are not to be found. Since I wear the glasses for reading (and computing), replacements were needed. They were about 2 years old, so were due for replacement anyhow.

So I was finished up with both appointments by noon (with a stop at the local Dollar store for some home prep stuff, and some cheap ‘readers’). The next stop was to Home Depot to get supplies for a garage shelving project.

Both appointments and the HD are in Poulsbo, about 30 minutes away from the house, across the Hood Canal bridge.It is a ‘floating concrete’’ bridge that has two 300 foot spans that retract under the roadway to allow passage of ships (and submarines). So I have signed up for text messages about bridge closures, which usually last about 30 minutes, along with some more time for traffic to get back to normal.

While at HD, the bridge closed. No worries, I thought, it should be OK by the time I return (there was also a grocery store trip planned). Then the bridge got stuck open due to tides; it was about 7 feet out of alignment, and would require a tugboat to get it back to normal. No ETA on the opening time.

There are two ways home from where I was. The short 30 minute ride across the Hood Canal bridge, and the long way around the Hood Canal – about 2 1/2 hours. Since there was no ETA on the opening, I decided not to wait for the bridge. Nice weather today, in the mid-70’sF and sunny, so a nice day for a drive.

So, drive I did. Headed south to Union WA, which is at the southern end of Hood Canal. Then loop around on Highway 101 back north up to home. A nice, picturesque drive; mostly along the edge of Hood Canal, so nice water views the whole way. Through the eastern edge of Olympic National Forest, so scenic that way too. A bit of construction on 101 that caused a 15 minute delay for one-way traffic, but I got home about 4:30pm.

Interesting fact: I listened to the “Classic Rock and Roll” station on Pandora during the trip. First song on the list: “Traveling Man”.

Turned out to be a good decision. The Hood Canal Bridge didn’t open until closer to 5pm, and there were tens of miles of backup to get through, so I probably wouldn’t have made it home until 6pm or later. A pleasant drive, overall.