FD, IA - Pie Day and Broken Dryers

We spent a few days in Des Moines, getting things from our RV put away and taking the RV to its storage spot. We noticed that lots of the RV’s in our row there were gone - probably out where we were. Our RV is going to be pretty lonely and wondering what all that white stuff is. We then returned to Fort Dodge on the 11th when Gary had an appointment with the lawyer and to work some more on the house. The more we can get done before Dawn and Cathy get there, the more they can get allocated and divided up.

On Wednesday we thought it was time for a break and breakfast out is just the ticket. We invited Barb, Gary’s father’s ‘friend’ to be our guest and we picked her up at 8:30. We all enjoyed the breakfast and were having a great conversation when I looked around and noticed people with small take-home containers on their tables as they were eating breakfast. Others were already having pie - at 8:30. Hmmm. Being the mystery reader that I am, I put together the clues and deduced: It’s PIE DAY at Village Inn. Sure enough, it WAS Pie Day and, we all got our piece of pie to take home with us also. Whoopee. Wow, what a deal. We’ll have to remember that when we are in Fort Dodge the next time.

On Monday, when we had arrived up here in Fort Dodge, we worked on Lug’s home but we also toodled over to my brother’s home to see about his dryer which he said was not working. Gary took his multi-meter, which is a fancy name for a gadget which determines if the electricy is flowing, but nothing happened and we all concluded that the 16-yr old dryer might be dead. Now what? Gary and I, of course suggested that Jack could take his washed clothes up the hill by his house to the laundromat and and dry them there. This suggestion was met with the same withering stare as our next suggestion that he hang his clothes up like we do in the RV when we wash. Jack insists that he has to have a warm towel when he drys off after a shower and that the dryer can warm his towel enough in 5 minutes to please him. Here is where Gary and I gave him a withering stare. A warm towel?

(Actually, we remember when we were in England back in 1978 with my parents, one of our B&B’s had an electric drying rack which we could turn on to get warm towels.) Jack did reason that turning the dryer on and off every time he took a shower might have contributed to its breaking. Maybe, but 16 years of use probably also took their toll.

However, we’ll probably help him find a ‘new’ dryer. And Craig’s List is the place we started. I found a place in Fort Dodge where the owner, named Howdy, who interestingly enough, is an old friend of Jack’s, fixes broken appliances and then sells them. OK. We called and told him that we’d be there on Tuesday.

Tuesday afternoon, we finally got there with Jack and looked over the selection. 2 nice electric dryers for $150, less the $20 Howdy would pay for Jack’s old dryer for a grand total of $130. Sounds good to us and we made arrangements for Wednesday at 1:00

Thus, after breakfast with Barb, we went back to Lug’s, where we are staying, changed clothes and drove to Jack’s to help him take his dryer out and then move the new one in. For $130, there is delivery and take away but no installation and we have to move the dryers off and onto Howdy’s lift into his truck. One trick: Jack’s bathroom, where he has his dryer, is so narrow that Jack and Gary will have to lift the dryer up and over the sink counter. Here, Gary and Jack are lifting his old dryer over the cabinet to take out to the garage to wait for Howdy to deliver the ‘new’ one. Luckily, it was not a washer which was broken, those are really heavy.