Gate is Kaput

Leaving Casperia

Sunday morning we departed Casperia and drove back to Collevalenza.  We snapped a pic for our last look as we departed.  Instead of taking the A1 we headed toward Tierni and the E45.  No tolls and a much more direct route.  GPS is ok but it has several draw backs.  One being all the instructions are in Italian.  We changed the language but the written instructions suck.  Anyway, driving over the mountains to Tierni, we came across a fantastic rainbow. Surely, this was a pre-curser for the rest of our stay.

Somewhere, over Tierni

We arrived in Todi, and went to the market as everything closes at 1:30 on Sunday.  Got home and decided we would go on-line.  We had 22% of our 12Gigs and knew we were still ok.  Waiting to connect, seemingly forever, it just would not...connect.



So I made pappardelle with a meat sauce for dinner and we watched Love Actually.

Monday morning, Wind still was showing 22% of our 12 Gigs but we could not connect on-line.  Chris' phone still showed her full 3 Gigs and we were suspicious that the phone was tapping into our WiFi.  We went back to the Poker store to see what was up with our Wind.  (now that's a strange sentence)  Poker is the name of the store we purchased our device.  Not the card game.  Seems Chris' phone was stealing gigs from our WiFi and then we were told that when Wind gets below 25%, you can't connect.  "So, I said, we pay for 12 Gigs but really only get 8 gigs."  Never really got an answer to that one.  We reloaded our 12 gigs for 25 euro's, got the separation from Chris' phone so it wasn't stealing from Wifi and off we went.  Got home and no internet.  It just froze and would not open. Again, and again, and again. Monday night, we had a colossal rain and electric storm.  Hours and hours of thunder and lightning.

Tuesday the rain had stopped.  I got up early to check on the bus arrival time as we are heading to Rome on Thursday to meet up with Erin.  It was cold, so I decided to drive up to the bus stop.  We park our rental car behind the metal electric gate here at the house.  I pushed the remote to open the gate and it just stared back at me and said, "F#@$ You!"  So I walked up to the bus stop, got the info I needed and headed back.  It had to be from the huge storm we experienced.  I checked the circuits, checked the fuses in the gate panel.  That gate was not going to open.  Panic set in.  It occurred to me I could ram the gate with the car.  But the hill on the street side of the gate would only allow the gate to open about 3 feet.   Not to mention the explanation I would have to give to the Sistoni's.  And the cost!!

The Gate!

A neighbor, a fellow named Marco, came to see what I was doing.  With limited communications skills on my part, but with hand gestures galore, he understood.  I asked if he could give me a ride to Franchesco's, where I rented the car.  Off we went, seems he is a good friend of Franchesco, and after Google translating my dilemma Fanchesco called an electrician and would be at our house at 1430 or 2:30 PM.  He showed up at 1445 and after examining the circuit box, turned to me and said: "Gate is kaput!"