Valparaiso, Revisited

As a last minute thing, I ended up working remotely today from Valparaiso. I feel very fortunate with my job where I can do something like this with very little notice – as I know a lot of other folks don’t have the same luxury.

Woke up pretty early, and got on the road around 6:00 AM. While there wasn’t any rain in the forecast, the whole day looked pretty overcast. And in the morning, there was a significant fog all the way as I was heading East through Indiana.

One of the first things I did on arriving was to locate a big, six-gallon container in the garage and hopped back in the car to the closest gas station. With the lawn needing about 4 hours to both mow and sweep, I wanted to get a fairly prompt start in the mid-afternoon. And since I used up a lot of gas last week, I needed more.

In my rush and inattention, I filled up the container and was in the process of topping off my car when I realized I was using Unleaded 88.

I was savvy enough to avoid the diesel pump. But apparently I just grabbed the “not diesel” pump, without really thinking.

On closer inspection, I realized what I was using had about 15% ethanol. And while my car would be ok, the six gallons I got would definitely not work for the John Deere.

All this to say that my getting up super early and trying to knock this task off… ended up backfiring. As I more or less wasted a good deal of time getting useless gas. And had to grab a 4 gallon container later in the day, only to repeat the whole process over again.

That said, despite these inefficiencies… I was able to mow the lawn in somewhat less time than before. Slowly feel like I’m getting the hang of mowing a very large bit of property.

One nice bonus: after sitting on a bump lawn mower for 4+ hours, the ride home feels like gliding on clouds. Potholes and bumps in the road feel like minor tickles, and barely register. The whole ride home felt like actual flying.

Related:
Tending the Lawn in Valparaiso