Disappointed . . .
We spent this morning firming up our upcoming trip.
No, not the big one to Europe next year. This one is our Florida trip coming up in October. We’ve got long-time friends down in West Palm Beach, long-time friends in Rockledge, and of course, long-time Nick and Terry Russell in Edgewater. And it turns out, the place Nick recommended for us to stay in the area, Seasons in the Sun RV Park in Mims, is kind of in the center of all that, so I made a 10 day reservation there today. They’re having a $129 per week special right now so it worked out great.
I also got going and coming back reservations at our favorite Poche’s Fish N Camp in Breaux Bridge, LA, where we always stay going east.
I had asked for Tallahassee area park recommendations on the blog last night and got several good ones. But as before, Nick came through, recommending Beaver Lake Campground in Quincy, FL, about 20 miles east of Tallahassee.
He said he and Terry stayed there when they evacuated from Hurricane Matthew in October 2016 and said it was nice. Plus, even better, it’s Passport America at $18.50 per night. The only problem is that they don’t take reservations for PPA. But when I called today they said they should have plenty of room so we’re good there.
I’m still waiting to hear back from the Escapees RV Park in Summerdale, AL, where we plan on spending 4 nights before we head further east, arriving in Mims on October 9th for our 10 day stay.
So as it stands now we’ll leave here on Wednesday, October 3rd and get back on Monday, October 22nd.
Of course that’s assuming I get the rig oil leak fixed. LOL
We headed out about 12:30 to check in with our friend Julie at the Monterey’s Little Mexico up in Pasadena.
We’ve known Julie for years when she worked at the Monterey’s down here in Dickinson, but since it’s never reopened after Hurricane Harvey, we try to get up there every month or so.
Coming back down to the Clear Lake area we made a Harbor Freight stop to pick up Security Bit Kit.
A lot of the machines that come in for me to work on have some of these ‘secure’ screws to keep unauthorized fingers out, or fingers who are trying to repair a machine instead of sending it back to the factory. So this should take care of that.
Then it was on our way to my client’s office to pick up some Amazon packages that had come in, when a problem showed up.
As I was turning onto Bay Area Blvd, I suddenly had no power steering. My first thought was that the power steering pump had cratered. But also immediately the engine temperature started climbing. So now I’m thinking broken fan belt.
Getting to my client’s, I took a look and was surprised to find, not a broken serpentine belt, but a whole one that had jumped off the pulleys. This usually means that something froze, the AC compressor, water pump, power steering pump, or the alternator. All expensive $$$
But we lucked up this time since it turned out to the be cheapest, the idler tensioning pulley. It was locked up solid. But since I had no tools with me, I decided to take it right down the block to the Firestone Tire shop, which is about as far as I could get without it running hot again.
And 3 hours later, (they were busy) and $197.65 poorer, we were on our way back down to Santa Fe.
As another example of why I try to do all my own work, when we got home I priced a new pulley from O’Reilly’s and found it was $19.99, not the $65 that Firestone charged me. Plus they charged me another $65 for a new belt. A belt that I didn’t think needed replacing. It looked fine to me, with no cracks or tears. In fact I grabbed the old one to keep as a spare. And then there’s the $50 labor charge.
What can I say? I work cheap.
But while we were waiting we walked right next door to the new Aldi’s to check it out and pick up a few things to eliminate an HEB stop on the way home. Jan found what she was looking for, and I found something for me too.
Readers know my propensity for hot stuff, and this was first chance to try the Carolina Reaper peppers. The Carolina Reaper may or may not currently be the world’s hottest pepper. Both the Dragon’s Breath and Pepper X supposedly are hotter, but there is some controversy as to whether or not they’ve been correctly rated.
Regardless, after the big buildup, and even bigger expectations, I was pretty disappointed. I tried it a small glob of it while we were still at the Firestone store, and wasn’t impressed.
It just wasn’t that hot. The label says the first ingredient is Carolina Reaper chilies, but it doesn’t give a percentage. So my guess is that it’s not very much. But I will say that it tastes really good with a nice bold flavor. Just not very hot.
Getting back to Santa Fe, I dropped off our Priority Mail passport renewals at the Post Office before finally getting home about 7pm.
A nice, but expensive day.
Thought for the Day:
Never Try To Catch A Falling Knife. Or A Gun.
asdfad
