Wednesday
I didn't think he would have any troubles on the car ride, as long as he didn't need to use the restroom. He really liked it when the windows were down because he got so many interesting smells, but otherwise was content to look out the windows.
When we got in, I put him in his harness and on his leash so my mom could watch him while I set up his new litter box. My dad was worried that if it was upstairs in that bathroom that Tank would crawl all over him during the night. I just hoped that Tank would use it and not find a random spot.
The first night Tank alternated between hiding user beds and exploring the cabin. My mom was impressed by how much exploring he did on his first night. Tank also made friends with a screw in the wall by squinting at it. Not long before bed he completely missed seeing a mouse run out of the bedroom.
At one point before we settled down for bed, he got very restless. My parents had decided to sleep in the open area upstairs, so I couldn't follow him when he went up there. I didn't hear any sounds of him digging in the litter box, so I shook his food until he came back down. He was still acting very restless and doing laps around the living room, so I tried taking him outside to see if he wanted to pee out there. He ate some grass, smelled the bush in the corner, and even decided to try a going on an adventure when he found the walkway leading from the front door of the cabin. Before too long he started to get nervous and lead me back inside.
I gave him some wet food to eat at Bill's suggestion and Tank spent some more time upstairs before it was finally time to snuggle up in bed. Bill pointed out that normally when we go to bed we do it upstairs and maybe Tank was just trying to do that here.
He was in and out of the bed all night, probably based off of the strange noises he heard all night.
Thursday
Tank went and used the kitty box for my mom in the morning, so now I can hope that he will remember where it is on his own.
While Tank took a nap on the bed upstairs, I took a walk to check the mail before helping stack the firewood. It turns out that Jake (the firewood guy) is indirectly related to the Hodges because of an aunt who married into the family.
I tried to take Tank outside after we were done, but there were too many strange sounds going on for him to want to go out. I spent some time on the porch sipping on my sweet tea and crocheting. Tank saw how much fun everyone else was having outside and decided he wanted to come out. We wondered around until my dad used a power tool and Tank wanted to come in.
I finished the sage colored shawl with only about an inch of yarn left over. I wasn't sure that I was going to win that game of yarn chicken or not. I sprayed it and put it on one of the spare beds to finish blocking. I went to get the pony beads out of my bag to work on some Worry Worms and found that I had forgotten my main bag of beads and only had the bonus bag I grabbed in case I ran out of the first one. I was worried that these were going to look a little more unhinged than the normal ones, but I think I did a good job.
My mom made some random things for my dad to eat before the VFW meeting and the rest of us waited until Bill was done with a work call before we headed to Village Pizza Too! This time we tried the white pizza with added meatballs.
Bill started a small campfire for all of us and my mom and I roasted some marshmallows. The almost full moon was even so bright at times that I had a shadow cast on the ground.
Friday
Tank decided that even though everyone else was up and even though my mom had already given him his breakfast wet food, that he had to come and wake me up to open the bathroom door for him so he could see what was going on. His litter box is not in that bathroom, so he was just being curious. He then guarded the door when I used the bathroom. He's just proving more and more that I'm his emotional support human.
Tank got toasty in a sunny spot on the carpet while I had my breakfast, my mom showered, and Bill and my dad put up No Trespassing signs along the road. So, we all had a pretty good morning.
The glitter pony beads that I added some nail polish to were finally dry. I had let them dry for a few hours the previous day before trying to use them, but they were still tacky and I ended up smearing some sticky nail polish onto the yarn. I don't know why it took them so many hours to finish curing, but at least my experiment worked. I'll get to use the lighter colored glitter beads easily and use up some really old nail polish all at the same time.
While Bill was stuck working and my dad went to hang out with some of the neighbors, my mom and I went into downtown Staunton. I wanted to go check with the owner of Made by The People For The People to see if she's received my emails about possibly selling in her shop. I talked with one of the managers and she gave me the basic rundown of the rates for sales. She also took my information to pass on to the owner because she has a different full time job and sometimes emails between her shop and job get mixed up.
Since we had some more free time, we stopped in at Staunton Books whose hours are "lunch-ish to dinner-ish" on Friday to Sunday. We then went to the Staunton Olive Oil Company to see if there was anything we wanted to go with Bill's bread. We got a dark chocolate vinegar and a blood orange oil to go with his lavender bread. My mom learned about putting vinegar in sparkling water.
Rick, one of the neighbors, came over for dinner so we could hangout some. Tank was nervous and hid when we would go back to the cabin to get things to eat in the lodge. Bill and Rick went over to Tom's to drink whiskey and smoke cigars after dinner.
Saturday
The guys waited to hear when anyone at Tom's place was awake so they would know when to head over to hangout some more. My mom and I had plans to have a fun girls hangout. My mom and I started out by going to the farmer's market in downtown Staunton. We got there a little later than we wanted, but quickly found a parking spot. There was even some live music! We got some Macoun apples. My mom got chocolate raspberry and strawberry rhubarb spreads at Rachel Jane's Jam & Berries. I got a hot chai from Chai Dhaba, it was so good once it cooled enough to drink.
There was a lady who was doing watercolor and she was with Sketch Staunton. She drew and painted one of the vendors. For a pre-lunch snack we got the Spiced Red Lentil soup from Bijou, she is planning on opening a restaurant soon and says she will offer soup flights if you can't decide on just one. My mom got a Beet Watermelon Kale juice from Wind Runner Farm. We talked with Janice from AbellaPaca Boutique about her alpacas and her yarn. A couple of the buildings in the area had bubble machines in the window.
Before we headed to a used bookstore we stopped in at the Thrift & Sips store, it is a combination of coffee shop and thrift store. I got the Bethel Family Cookery Cookbook from their free library. The girl working kept suggesting books for us to take and we somehow ended up with a whole bag of them. She also convinced me to get a Spiced Pumpkin Chai Latte with oat milk, though to be fair, that wasn't very hard to do.
The owner of the Avocado Pit used bookstore says he does most of his sales online because the shop isn't the best place for a bookstore. We were able to find the book my dad was looking for though. The owner suggested we also check out Bargain Books because they have a larger location and a bigger selection.
We stopped in at the green room to get the green room tots (manchego, parsley, black garlic mayo) and the pate + pickle sandwich. I also got a Smuttynose sour beer. This is the kind of place where I could see myself hanging out at a lot.
Once we got back, checked the mail, and put everything away, I made Tank his dinner. My mom got us all of our Girls Weekend treats. We had two kinds of crackers, smoked Gouda with bacon, lasagna rolls, Curry Kitch'n Cook's potato chips (local), orangedew melon, apples, sangria and banana pudding moonshine.
Sunday
Found out in the morning that one of the guys is a bee guy and he wanted to look at our "bee tree". He says as long as they don't become aggressive they will be fine. They would have filled the space they found with honeycomb and don't present a danger to the tree.
Tank's definitely getting used to a lot of the sounds that happened around the cabin. It's still scary when someone comes in the door, walks around upstairs, or walks down the stairs. However, he's started running into the second main floor bedroom and looking from there instead of hiding under the bed.
My mom, Tank, and I had some snacks while we waited for Bill and my dad to get back from going back to Tom's to help clean up. A short time after they got back we had some visitors to check out our place. My dad gave the grand tour to them.
On the way home we stopped at 7-11 to get some drinks and gas. When Bill ran in to get the drinks I threw away my ice cream cup. On the way back to the truck I noticed that the Subaru two cars down was running. They had a carrier and cat with them too!
Tank was so comfortable on the way home that he even took a nap. He also ignored me when I got back into the car when Bill and I were waiting for our food to be made at WaWa, he was having a good time watching the cars drive by.
It will be interesting to see if he's completely forgotten that the cabin exists when we go back or not. I'm really hoping we won't have to start all over the next time we take him there.
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