Friday, March 11, 2016

Acton, CA - Crazy Otto's

Breakfast out today at Crazy Otto’s in Acton. A local joint and, judging by the number of cars outside and customers inside - it’s not a hidden treasure. Several days ago a new Journey lumbered into the campground, stopped by us to check out what site they wanted and stopped to talk with us. Seems they (Trish & John) also had a Safari motor home prior to their Journey which also fell apart on them. We’ve got a LOT in common. But their problems were much worse than ours: broken radiator to the tune of $5000, a new generator to the tune of $4000 and on and on. If we thought our Sarari was a lemon - they had a whole tree.

Today we had breakfast out with them along with some other friends of theirs (Jennie & Richard) at Crazy Otto’s. We had heard that Crazy Ottos served large meals and Gary and I decided to share an omelet. So did Trish and John but Richard ordered the pancake special. If I were to say that the portions were HUGE, I might be understating the size. Richard’s 3 pancakes spilled over the edges of his 12” plate and he gave 2 away. The omelets: 2” high, 8” long and about 4” wide: that’s 64 square inches of omelet. The hash browns: about 10” long, 2” high and 4” wide for 80 square inches of potatoes. Oh, yeah, did I mention that we each got a biscuit?

The food was good (we would know - we made 3 meals out of it), the conversation was fun. RV’ers love food and talking - I’ve noticed. Finally, though, we had to leave since we wanted to get some things done around the RV before it rained this afternoon.

Gary’s been working on our pump for a bit since it tends to run somewhat louder than our last one and seems to burp a bit. He’s looked at the plumbing under the sink, he’s worked on the plumbing lines in the utilities compartment underneath, he’s looked at the pump and nothing seems to be the solution. Obviously, before we head into Alaska and some dry camping, he would like to solve this problem. He did - and it was not something that you would think of: the faucet. You know how hard the water is in campgrounds - well, our faucet strainers got limed up and the pump couldn’t push the water through them correctly. Problem solved. We got out the vinegar and went to work.

Meanwhile we pulled in our mat, took off the orange pool noodles we put on our slides, took off the tire covers and the windshield wiper covers and other little things to get ready to head out tomorrow.

And then it rained - or should I say - it poured. We couldn’t see the tops of the ridgeline that we look at every day. In fact, we could hardly see across the campground to the 2nd row over. Glad we got lots done out side before it rained. The wind was a steady 25 to 30 mph with wind advisories. Gusts to 55 and 60. Our bedroom slide sticks out about 3 feet and, often to protect it from the wind, we rope it down. Sure enough, we heard it flapping and Gary got out a rope, threw it over the slide, tied it down and that was that. Learned that trick in Death Valley during a rain storm - one of our neighbors had his slides roped down. (And, I’m not kidding about the rain storm in Death Valley - it came up quickly, drenched everything and then moved on.)

Gary’s also been working on scanning lots of old pictures, old scrapbook items like newspaper articles, wedding invitations, you know - the stuff that gets into a scrapbook. We don’t need to be storing all this paper and stuff and, besides, it’s inconvenient to get it all out to look at it and, thus, we seldom do. BUT - if we had them with us and in the computer we might look at them sometimes. I thought I’d put a few items into this blog so you can see how we looked at various times.

I’ve first got some pictures of Gary when we were dating back in the early late 60’s and early 70’s. Since it’s MY blog, I get to put in the pictures that I want. Ha, ha, Big Gar. The first one is when we were on the beach in Newport, RI. We both lived in Rhode Island at the time: I had moved there to teach the Navy sent Gary to Rhode Island. Check out those fringed jeans. He did that himself. What a cool guy,

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And, one in his paisley shirt. Right up town, he was. Look at those dreamy eyes - can you see why I fell in love?

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But, here’s why I really fell in love: he had a black Buick Skylark with a white leather interior. Me - I had a VW Bug - any car would look good to me.

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Whoo-eee, let’s tool around town in this baby.

‘I never knew what real happiness was until I got married. And by then it was too late.

                                                        Max Kauffmann

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