Our RV Adventures

I spent the morning and early afternoon answering a bunch of questions and finishing up a website proposal for a new client so I could email it off.

Then about 2pm we headed out to take back my non-working Moen Cartridge Puller to Home Depot and get a new one at Lowe’s. But since it was in the area, we did another run at Woochi, nee #1 Eastern Buffet, over on Signal Butte. And it was just as good as last time. Which actually was just this past Saturday..

Although I had to backtrack, I first went to Lowe’s to pick up the new puller, the one that had worked last time.

Then it was on to Home Deport to take back the one that didn’t work.

I did it in this order so I could show Home Depot that I had really bought another one first so they wouldn’t just think that I had used it to pull the cartridge and then brought it back.

Getting home about 5pm, I decided it was kind of late to get back on the shower with the new puller, so I took a nap.

Funny how that worked out.

I don’t know where it came from, about about 8:45 this evening the wind really picked up, enough to really rock the coach and flap the window awnings. Then right before the rain hit, the satellite went out. But not from the rain, but from the wind blowing over the satellite stand.

But it was raining so hard for a while I waited out the storm before I went outside to set it up again. I just left it on the ground for now, and in a bit we had DirecTV again.

A little after 4pm I made a phone call that set up our road trip tomorrow. Jan had been craving a Shrimp Burrito from Sofia’s Mexican Restaurant down in Gila Bend, and I wanted to use the trip to renew my membership at the Gila Bend Elk’s Lodge.

But I wanted to be sure that someone would be there in the afternoon to renew me.

So we’re go to go.

Road Trip!

For some reason I tossed and turned a lot last night, so I didn’t get up until about 11:30, and then got coffee started.

Jan was watching an episode of Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives about a place that does specialty waffles. Jan looked over at me and said, “Waffles really sound good.â€

And my answer to this was, “Oink, Oink!†So 15 minutes later we were on our way to the Oink Café over in Tempe.

We had eaten at the Oink Café in Tucson a little over a week ago, and really enjoyed it. How can you not like a place whose slogan is “Breakfast, Lunch, Bacon!â€

And a spur of the moment trip is not unusual for us either. Years ago, early one Saturday , we were jonsing for a good bowl of gumbo. And this was before there were any good gumbo places in the Clear Lake area. So with 15 minutes notice, we were on our way to Mulate’s in Breaux Bridge, LA, 225 miles away. Any you haven’t lived until you’ve spent a Saturday night listening Zydeco music and watching Cajun dancing.

And this runs  in my family too. Back in the summer of 1963 after a late lunch, my parents started talking about doing a trip out west, and an hour later, we were on our way for a three week trip, doing Yellowstone, Grand Canyon, and even Disneyland.

Getting to Oink, we had about a 15 minute wait before we got seated, but as before, worth the wait. And of course we both went with waffles. Jan’s with Strawberries and Whipped Cream, while I went with a Waffle Combo, with an egg.

and Jalapeno bacon.

In addition, following up on my Half Flight of Bacon last time, I got another one this time, trying out the other 4 bacon flavors.

Last time I got Applewood Smoked, Honey, Jalapeno, and Pepper,

while this time I got the Hickory, Sugar Cured, Pecan, and Apple Cider.

All were  delicious, but I will say that the flavors that stood out the most, that I could identify by taste alone, were Jalapeno, Pepper, Hickory, Pecan, and the Apple Cider.

Getting home, I finally started working on changing out the cartridge in our Moen shower faucet. After removing the coverings, I used a pair of slip joint pliers to try and pull the cartridge out of the housing. But it wouldn’t budge, no matter how hard I pulled.

But I was prepared for this, having a specialized cartridge puller from my last time doing this.

But I quickly discovered that sometime since then, the screw tip had broken off, leaving it too short to screw into the cartridge handle. So it was off to the nearby Home Depot to get a new one.

The one they had was completely different, and was a Danco product,

a company I’ve not been too happy with in the past.

And getting it home and trying it out, I’m still don’t like Danco. Despite fooling with it for over an hour, I still wasn’t able to get the old cartridge out.

And in fact, I didn’t expect to have a problem getting the old one out this time since I had thoroughly coated with Plumber’s Silicone Grease the last time.

So checking the Internet, I found that Lowe’s sells the old one, the one that worked last time, so I’ll pick one up tomorrow and take the Home Depot one back.

Hopefully it’ll work this time.