Our RV Adventures

Not much going on today.

I would say it was cold and dreary. At least it looked that way. Or at least it looked like it should be. But it turned to be warm and dreary, with a temperature of about 73°.

Around 2 we headed up to Webster to have lunch at Cheddars once again, with our usual delicious meal.

Then we drove around for a bit before heading back down to Santa Fe and home. But of course we had to make a stop at Cowboy Coffee, but not for coffee. We each got a Ghirardelli Hot Chocolate to take home.

I mentioned the other day that Murdoch Mysteries is coming back for a 14th season starting February 20th. And while we were waiting for it we started watching the series over from the beginning.

We’re now up to Season 4, but then this week we started rewatching Season 13 again so we wouldn’t get confused when we start watching 14.

And even now, watching the old ones, we sometimes can get lost about what season we’re on, and who’s done what to who.

Also happy to see that Prodigal Son has started up again.

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Thought For The Day:

Don’t try to understand women. Women understand women, and they hate each other.

 

 

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January 21, 2011

Anyone Else Dumpster Shop?

Am I the only one that likes ‘dumpster shopping’? (Dumpster diving sounds so uncouth.)

Jan thinks it’s hilarious (and a little strange) that I always look in the dumpster before I throw our trash bag in. You would be surprised what I find in there.

I’m still wearing a pair of Crocs that I found in a dumpster in Fairbanks, AK. They still had the tags on them. And I found a brand-new pair of men’s New Balance shoes, also still with the tags.

I also once found a beautiful 7-1/2 artificial Christmas tree complete with lights and still in the box. My mother used it for several years before she died. (Of course, I never told her where I got it.)

I’ve noticed I especially find good stuff in RV Park dumpsters. It seems like when an RV’er is tired on carry something around that he doesn’t need anymore, and he can’t find anyone who wants it, he just dumps perfectly good stuff. I’ve found good extension cords, computer cables, a box of DVD blanks, and a brand-new water hose still wrapped in plastic.

So the next time you’re dumping the trash, stick your head in there first. You might be surprised what you find.

Today started out when we left the coach about 10:30am for lunch at our new favorite, the Texas Tea Room. They have really great soup and sandwiches, and a special treat, saltine crackers that have been prepared and marinated like Chex Mix. Hmmm Good!

Next it was off to Wal-Mart for what seems like one of our almost daily trips there.

Then, despite Jan mentally trying to slow down the passage of time, we drove over to the Medical Center area for her 1pm dental appointment. Poor thing!

While Jan was undergoing dental torture (her words) I ran errands, first stopping at Home Depot, looking for some new water hose quick disconnects.

Then it was on to Sam’s Club for Kitty Litter and Joint Juice. They were out of Joint Juice, but I did pick up a bouquet of flowers for Jan.

Next, since I was in the area I drove over to Brandi’s to check the mail.

By this time, it was time to head back to the dentist office to pick up Jan. She said it wasn’t too bad and so we headed home.

Now if we’re lucky, we’ll catch another cancellation and get to leave by our original scheduled date of Feb 6th. Fingers crossed!

A little before we headed over to Monterey’s Little Mexico for some Chicken Tortilla Soup. Jan’s mouth was still a little sore, so she decided soup was just the thing to hit the spot.

Our daughter Brandi while we were eating to catch Jan up on Landon’s recent antics. He’s apparently a real favorite at the daycare and they get upset when Lowell comes by to pick him up early. They don’t won’t to let him go.

I mean, how could you not love a face like this?

Coming home, Jan wanted to stop at DQ for a hot fudge sundae to sooth her sore mouth. At least that was her story, and she was sticking to it.

That’s it for today. Tomorrow it’s Road Trip time.

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Thought for the Day:

“If you can’t fix it with a hammer, you’ve got an electrical problem!”

 

 

 

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January 21, 2012

Landon and the Ostrich . . .

Brandi sent over some photos of Landon playing with the horsey we got him for Christmas. She says he gets on and off of it all by himself now.

He’s such a cutie!

Jan and I left the rig about 2pm on our way up to Brandi’s, with a quick stop at O’Reilly Auto Parts for some electrical connectors.

Then, after playing with Landon for a few minutes, Brandi, Lowell, Jan and I headed up to The Woodlands about 3pm. They wanted to show us around the Woodlands Mall and take us to the Kirby’s Steakhouse for dinner.

And when I tell you this is a high-end steakhouse, how many places do you know that have Ostrich,

or a $120 Wagyu Beef steak on the menu?

 

From the Fried Asparagus appetizer, to the fabulous steaks, and the Lobster Risotto, Garlic Mash Potatoes, and Sautéed Mushrooms sides, finishing up with Crème Brule with fresh berries, this was a meal to remember.

And somewhere there in the middle, we killed off a delicious bottle of Moscato d’Asti. And that’s all I’m saying about that.

 

Even the bathrooms are high class.

 

Afterwards we walked off dinner, sightseeing around the Woodlands Mall Outdoor Courtyard.

 

The place even has a Tiffany’s. Lucky for Lowell and I it closed about 5 minutes before we got there.

Whew! Dodged a bullet there.

Unfortunately a few minutes later, Brandi and Jan came across a Baby Gap store, and about $150 later, we were again on our way. But I guess it was still better than Tiffany’s.

After a wonderful evening, we headed home, finally getting back to the rig a little before 10.

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Thought for the Day:

“The three most dangerous things in the world are a programmer with a soldering iron, a hardware type with a software patch and a user with an idea.”

  

  

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January 21, 2013

Another Problem Fixed, almost . . .

Well, the problems diagnosed and the part ordered anyway.

Jan and I walked this morning and along the way ran into to Dick and Lillis, our dinner partners from last night on their way to do laundry. Looking forward to dinner together next week at King Food.

Afterwards we sat outside with our coffee and just enjoyed the nice weather. After the two weeks of rain we had, the sunny weather is really nice.

A little later I started working on another coach problem. Regular readers might remember that as we were in Louisiana coming back to Texas in November we lost the air in our rear airbags. Made for a bumpy ride home, believe me.

After talking with Spartan a while back I was pretty sure there was a problem with the proportioning valve that divides air between the front and rear bags to help keep the coach as level as possible.

And since my front bags were working fine, the valve was my first stop. And crawling under the rig (well, more like wiggling. I had borrowed my son’s mechanic’s creeper, but the combination of the creeper and me just wouldn’t fit. So wiggling it was.), this is what I found.

The rod that connects the proportioning valve to the chassis had broken loose and was hanging free.

You can see here where the rod had broken loose.

And this rubber bracket was where it broke loose from.

My call to Spartan led me to a great new website – RV Chassis Parts.

They carry parts for all the major RV chassis manufacturers, and products from all of these companies and more.

I was quickly able to find my part and order it online.

And it cost me a whole $1.63 . . . so I ordered two, so I’ll have a spare.

And even better, about a hour later I got an email telling me my parts had already shipped. Great service.

Next up before we leave here in February is to get my leaky rear wheel seal fixed.

 

Our niece-in-law? Laura Robinson posted some great pics of our great-nieces, Avery Jane, Ella, and new addition Annisten. A beautiful trio of girls.

 

Around 4:30 I fixed dinner for us, homemade taco salads, with romaine lettuce, chili ground beef, refried beans, picot de Gallo, pepper jack cheese, and fresh jalapenos(there are more under the cheese). Jan also added fresh avocado to hers.

 

I baked the tortilla shells using tortilla pans made especially for that purpose.

Just put your large flour tortillas in the pans and bake them at 400 degrees for 8 to 10 minutes. Easy peezy.

Here you can find the Perfect Tortilla Pans I used on Amazon, although I only paid $5 bucks for mine at Fry’s Electronics.

This is definitely a meal we’ll have again.

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Thought for the Day:

History repeats itself because human nature is static.

 

 

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January 21, 2014

I Can’t Believe She Ate The Whole Thing . . .

We had planned to walk this morning, but it was really, really windy so we decided to just have our coffee and muffins, and stay inside.

The rest of the morning Jan read and I did computer stuff for several clients. Then about 1:30 we headed up to Clear Lake, stopping first at Twin Peaks for lunch.

Our usual waitress, Lauren, had already gotten off since the afternoon was pretty slow so we had a new young lady taking care of us.

Jan decided to try a burger this time instead of her usual Chicken Ranch Sandwich. So she got the Smokehouse Burger, not realizing it was a double, It looked like this.

Coming with Cheddar Cheese, Mushrooms, Caramelized Onions, and Bacon, she said it was one of the best burgers she’s had. And it was so big that after she struggled to finish it, she was too full to have any supper tonight. And I think she was sorry had eaten it all.

I, however, stayed in my comfort zone (rut?) with my usual cup of Venison Chili and an order of the Average Joes.

These are mini jalapeno cheese sausage brats with spicy mustard and relish topping. Very, very good.

Then it was on to a client’s office for a while to check things out for some new equipment. Jan always brings her Kindle Paperwhite along for just these times.

Next I stopped off at the Sam’s Club on El Dorado to look for something, and then it was on to Chris and Linda’s to pick up our mail.

Finally heading home we made stops at Petco and Wal-Mart for a few things. I think some weeks we spend more time at Wal-mart than the rig.

I know they seem to get the largest share of my money.

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Thought for the Day:

Since Pluto is no longer a planet, does that mean that Mickey had him put down?

 

 

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January 21, 2015

A Stealth Site . . .

Today was a travel day, and if we didn’t get a last minute reprieve from the Gov . . . er, Galveston Bay RV Resort, we were heading back over to the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails for another two weeks.

Jan and I were up about 7:30, kind of early since we didn’t plan on leaving the park until around 11:30 or so (wanted to allow plenty of time for the phone call). Since we only had about a two hour trip to Conroe, we wanted to have breakfast at Schobel’s over in Columbus before we left. We eaten here a number of times and it’s always been good. We had ask our friend Randy to go with us, so we swung by his rig to pick him up about 9.

Jan had a Veggie omelet with a side of bacon (kinda defeats the whole veggie thing) and Randy and I both had the Spanish omelet. One thing I really like about Schobel’s omelets is that they pre-grill the ingredients.before folding them into the omelet. So the ham, onions, tomatoes, and jalapenos inside tasted really good.

This is probably the last time we’ll see Randy for awhile. When he leaves Colorado River, he’s heading over to Medina Lake for a few weeks, but I’m sure we’ll cross paths down the road.

We pulled out of the park about 11:30 with Jan following me in the toad since we were heading about 4 miles away to top of the diesel at the Colorado County Oil Co-op for $2.44 a gallon. On the way, we passed a Citgo that had diesel for $2.39, but I try not to use Citgo except when absolutely necessary.

According to GasBuddy, there’s an Exxon station up in La Grange, about 25 miles north of here that has diesel for $2.31 a gallon. I didn’t work it out on paper, but  the 13 cents a gallon I would have saved on the 40 gallons I bought, would not have paid for the 50 extra miles I would have traveled to get it cheaper.

After fueling up and hitching up, we were back on the road a few minutes before noon, and had a very smooth trip, with no slowdowns or traffic for the entire 125 miles. We got checked in a little after 2pm, and a few minutes later were parked in the same ‘stealth’ site we were in last time.

I call it a ‘stealth’ site because no one parks here because it looks so un-level and rough, mainly because of a big ridge of asphalt that is mounded up down the center. But if you just ignore that, and park anyway, you find that the site is almost perfectly level. All I had to do was just drop the levelers enough to stabilized the coach.

One thing I noticed as we came through Conroe was that the Kroger’s where we usually get gas has it for $1.67, the cheapest we’ve seen so far. I don’t know if we have any gas points left on our Kroger’s Card, but it would really be nice to fill up for 67 cents a gallon.

For dinner Jan refurbished our leftovers from Sealand Seafood the other night, and some of the delicious Broccoli-Cheese Casserole our daughter-in-law Linda sent me home with this past Saturday. Really Good.

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Thought for the Day:

Something done ‘quick and dirty’ usually turns out to be not nearly as quick as you’d hoped, and much, much dirtier.

 

 

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January 21, 2016

I Thought I Was In The Wrong One . . .

With the heavy rains overnight, and continuing into this morning, our walking was on hold for today. But tomorrow looks good.

I did put a call into another welding shop about repairing my screen door hinge and left a message, but haven’t heard back yet.

After a quiet, goof-off afternoon, about 2:30 Jan and I headed down to the Star Cinema Grill for dinner and Star Wars: The Force Awakens as the movie.

As I’ve mentioned before, Star Cinema Grill,  and others like Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, Studio Movie Grill, etc., put the concept of ‘dinner’ and ‘theater’ together for real.

So rather then getting a rubber chicken dinner and a has-been star from an 70’s sitcom in a bad production of Harvey, you get a nice meal served at your seats and a first-run movie.

In many cases these are older, smaller movie theaters remodeled for dinner theater use, by taking out every other row of seats and installing small tables.

Each table has a slot underneath for menus and order tickets, and a call button on top. After checking the menu, you write what you want on the ticket and then press your call button. A few minutes later a waitperson, dressed all in black, picks up your order. The menu is in the Chili’s/Applebee’s vein with appetizers, salads, burgers, sandwiches, pizza, and desserts. You can check out their menu here. Star Cinema Grill Menu

As usual, we both went with our ‘goldie-oldies’ with Jan getting the Mushroom-Cheese Quesadillas with Fajita Chicken, and I got the 3 Amigos appetizers, picking Texas Toothpicks (Beer-battered Onion and Jalapeno Strips), Chicken Tenders, and Southwest Eggrolls.

We try to get to the theater about 30 minutes early, which lets us get seated and get our food right before the movie starts. Then about half way through the movie, the waitperson drops off your check.

Another nice thing, although we didn’t this time, is if halfway though the movie, you decide you want some popcorn, a beer, or a margarita, just press your call button.

As far as the movie, we both really liked it, with a good story, great effects, some old friends, and some new faces. A Force Awakens is a worthy sequel to the first three movies, (we won’t talk about the last three) and makes us look forward to the next two.

We did change our minds about something however. We had planned to show our grandson Landon the very first Star Wars movie on DVD, and then take him see this one. But that idea went out the window in the first 15 minutes or so. Parts of this movie are just too violent for a 5 year old. So now we’ll just  show him the first one only.

I did find one thing unusual about the theater however. In fact I thought I had walked into the wrong one.

The Men’s bathroom has no urinals.

None. Just 8 stalls

What’s up with that?

On the other hand, if you want a completely different way to have dinner, check out Dinner in the Sky.

You can join 21 other diners as you’re hoisted 165 feet in the air, where you’re served a 3 star meal, in some cases, by famous chefs. You can even get married up there.

This one is in Sofia, Bulgaria.

And this one is Prague, Czech Republic.

Started in Belgium, the concept has traveled to 45 countries around the world, with over 5000 events.

And they’ve never dropped anyone yet.

I’ll treat.

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Thought for the Day:

Here’s a riddle:

During a recent password audit by a security company, it was found that an employee was using the password:

“MickeyMinniePlutoHueyDeweyLouieDonaldGoofySacramento”

When asked why she had such a long password, she rolled her eyes and said, “Hello! It has to be at least 8 characters and include at least one capital.”

What is her hair color?

 

 

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January 21, 2017

Whataburger über alles . . .

Well, after almost a week working out of my truck on the pad, today I ‘moved on up’ to an actual guard shack.

A shack sans microwave. Somebody stole it.

While Jan worked the front gate from 5am to 5pm, I worked from 6:30am to 3:30pm on the pad. Which means that I had drop Jan off at her gate and then wait an hour or so before I went on in to the pad. But luckily they closed the pad early so she didn’t have to wait for me to get off. So we were off duty at 5pm. But rather than go back to the rig we went on into Cuero for a quick Wal-Mart stop, gas, and then food.

To show you how much we like Whataburger, we first stopped at McDonald’s for tomorrow’s breakfast sandwiches. Their Bacon, Egg and Cheese Biscuits can’t be beat.

But then we left McD’s and drove to the nearby Whataburger for dinner.

Last night after our rut-filled RV Park adventure, we had dinner at the Maya Mexican Restaurant in Cuero, chosen because it was Mexican, and because it was very busy.

And it turned out to be VERY good. We split the Fajitas Regias, with beef, chicken, and sausage, which was delicious. Hopefully we’ll have a chance to go back before we leave the area Feb. 15th.

Although I now have a shack to work out of, it doesn’t mean the area is any  less muddy around the shack.

I’m not sure my boots will ever be the same.

I talked to the new Company Man this morning about getting some gravel dumped in the area to take care of the mud. Hope it works out.

As it stands, when the frack starts next weekend?, rather than Jan and I being on opposite shifts at the front gate, we will both be on the night shift, with her at the front gate and me at the pad, pretty much like we were last week. Much better.

Jan quickly discovered she’d  rather be on night shift, going in at 5 in the afternoon, than getting up at 4 in the morning for day shift.

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Thought for the Day:

95% of the spiders in your house have never been outside.

 

 

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January 21, 2018

A Close Call and A New Toy . . .

A few days ago we were running three heaters and hugging Karma the cat to keep warm. Then yesterday and today we were running the C’s in the rig.

You never know what to expect from Texas weather. And it’s supposed to get cold again in the next few days.

My new toy is a Harmony Home Hub

The first thing it does is allow you to control pretty much any entertainment device from your phone. But even better it allows you to set up ‘activities’ or schedules for your devices.

You can set up an activity called Play DVD. When you click it, it will turn on your TV, your DVD player and your audio system. Then it will PLAY the DVD for you.

Or you can set it to turn the TV, change the channel on your DVR and then start RECORDing. Pretty much any sequence can be programmed.

But the real reason I got it is because it will also interface with our Amazon Alexa. So that we can now turn the TV on or off, mute or change the volume, and change channels on the DVR and start RECORD strictly via voice command.

I’ve got the basics working but still have to assign names to the different activities.

More later.

About 2pm Jan and I headed up into Webster to have lunch at King Food. We once again both had a big bowl of their delicious Hot & Sour soup as well as an order of their Crispy Chicken Wings with Garlic Butter.

We were introduced to them by Brandi and Lowell when we were all together at King Food for our big Christmas Eve get-together last December. And now we get them every chance we can.

Finishing up a nice relaxing meal, we drove up to the nearby Wal-Mart for prescriptions and a few groceries. And that’s where my close call came about.

While I was waiting for Jan, I used my phone to scan my Wal-Mart receipt with the Savings Catcher App. Then I put the phone and the receipt in the bag with prescriptions. But it didn’t stay in the bag.

It fell out of the bag somewhere along the way and I missed it in the cart. And the reason I know it was in the cart is that I have a photo.

As soon as I got home and discovered it wasn’t in the pharmacy bag, or any bag for that matter, I got on my computer and went to WheresMyDroid.com. Clicking on my account and logging in, I clicked on S8+ and clicked on Location. And here’s what I saw.

My phone was still in the Wal-Mart parking lot. So I grabbed Jan’s phone and headed out the door.

At the first stop light I encountered, I clicked on Where’s My Droid’s camera icon and then clicked on Front. which got me a blank photo. Then when I clicked on Back, I got this photo.

My phone was still in the shopping cart where I left it.

By the time I got to the Wal-Mart lot my phone’s location had changed to inside the Wal-Mart, and in the approximate location of the Customer Service office.

And here you can see it sitting in a bin under the desk.

When the guy pulled it out from under the counter, he ask if I could prove it was mine. So I said, “How about I show you a photo of me on the phone?”

He said, “Sure.”

But  when I showed him this one,

but he didn’t buy it.

So I told him to look at the phone and I used Jan’s phone to take a photo of him on that phone.

He liked that one, so I headed home.

Where’s My Droid not only tracks my phones and let’s you take photos of its location, you can lock the phone remotely, even if you don’t normally keep it locked. And if worse comes to worse, you can completely wipe the phone of all your personal data, even if it’s turned off.

Once you set it, as soon as the phone is turned back on, it’s wiped.

Check it out.

A close call, indeed.

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Thought for the Day:

Having an opinion is not the same as having the answer.

 

 

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January 21, 2019

Very Potholely . . .

Back at work this morning, I had a lot of prices to update in both the catalog and on the website. January is the prime time for companies to raised their prices, so it’s a busy time.

Plus a lot of companies use this time to introduce new products, which is much more time-consuming, since I have to take photos for both the catalog and website. Then in many cases I have to move things around,  and sometimes even add pages.

Of course this means that both the index and the table of contents have to be updated. If the previous guy had only set the catalog up correctly to start with, Adobe InDesign would have automatically updated both when I add and subtract pages. Oh well.

We got another used machine in last week that I had to replace the power switch on this morning, and then check it out. Everything worked OK, except for the air system. Many of these machines have an extra-cost option of air cooling during the electrolysis treatment.

But this one was dead.

When I checked on a replacement, I found they were no longer made, and due to that, a new one was almost $200.

Yikes. It’s an air pump.

So checking Amazon, I found this one.

It’s slightly smaller, much quieter, more powerful, but with an adjustable output. And even better, it’s only $15.98.

Should be here on Wednesday.

When we came home from Jan’s eye appointment last Friday we found they were putting down new gravel on the road.

In the last month, with all the rain, it had become very potholely with too many to dodge around. Then today they came back through with a spreader/leveler and graded it out.

Looks and rides great.

Our son-in-law Lowell texted this over this afternoon. And I didn’t even know they were building one over there.

Another Buc-ee’s for us to stop at on our way to Gulf Shores

Yah!.

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The Headline of the Day:

“Cleaner air could mean more global warming, expert says”.

OK, what the hell are we supposed to do now?

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Thought for the Day:

A man who carries a cat by the tail learns something he can learn in no other way. – Mark Twain

 

 

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January 21, 2020

They Did It Again . . .

Jan and I are already talking about next year’s adventures. Although we got to see some New England Fall foliage when we were in the area back in 2009, but it was only as we were passing through.

We had talked about doing one of the many Fall Foliage cruises, including some by Viking Cruises, our recent European cruise company. In fact it looks like they’re dozens of them.

But they have two big problems. First, they’re really expensive. In some cases they’re even more expensive than our Viking River Cruise in Europe last year. And second, they go to a lot of places we’ve already been to. Places like Bar Harbor ME, Charlottetown PEI, Halifax NS, Bay of Fundy NS, and others in Canada, while we’d rather concentrate on New England.

So our preliminary plan is to just fly up to Boston, rent a car, and then head north, staying at B&B’s as we go along. Google says New Hampshire, Vermont, and Maine, starting in the last week in September and continuing into the first two weeks of October, is the prime location and time.

Here’s a sample of this year in New Hampshire.

And the time frame is perfect for us, since that will be around our 54th anniversary.

And of course we’re still thinking about doing a Mexican Ruins cruise, probably some time in spring 2021. But I guess we need to get our 2020 Alabama, and Alabama/Florida RV trips, and our September Alaskan cruise out of the way first.

We had lunch at Snooze this afternoon, the place that’s become pretty much our standard Tuesday spot.  Jan had her usual Bravacado Toast,

while I got my fav, 3 Egg Classic, with Bacon and a side of Greens.

And they did it once again. I ordered my eggs Over Medium, but as happened once before, each of the 3 yolks is done differently. And in order too.

The one closest to me was Over Easy, the next one up was Over Medium, and top on was Over Hard.

How do they do that in a single pan?

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Thought For The Day:

A wife is like a hand grenade. Remove the ring and BOOM! your house is gone.