Hair Day, The Olympia Candy Kitchen and Lippert Motor

A Green River drink from The Olympia Candy Kitchen
Thursday, May 27, I'm up at 7:45. The day's temperature starts at 64 degrees and gets to a high of 80. Bob and I split a Pistachio Muffin from Martin's for breakfast and I hate to admit it but theirs might be better than the ones from HEB in Texas that we love. We head out for haircuts by 10:50 and wave to Don next door as we leave.

Long table of goodies at Eby's Pines Memorial Weekend Potluck

Bob goes to Scott's, parking on the street corner at Lincoln. I walk down the alley to Salon J downtown on Main and Ashley take me right away. She does a great job cutting my hair; actually twisting a clump before using the thinning shears. I've never seen that before. I also like the sculpting taffy she uses. This shop has been open since November. The downtown has recently been revitalized. I ask her about places to eat and she asks if we noticed the hot dog guy. We see him on the way to Olympia's for lunch and he has a big line around his cart with an umbrella.

Reva slices Don's Mandarin Orange Pineapple Cake

The Olympia Candy Kitchen has been in business since 1917. For a beverage I follow Ashley's advice and get a Green River (a dark green phosphate drink the color of green Jello shots.) I have a pork and olive sandwich (cold pork fixed like a chicken salad with huge green olives sliced over it on toasted wheat bread-never would have thought of it but it was great.) I follow the waitress's directions to a storm-cellar basement restroom located underneath the stairway. A lady in the backroom is making chocolate covered peanut clusters and giving directions to everyone on how to get to the mysterious restroom location.

Betty and Don use his nifty pop can lids that make a can of soda look like a bottle!

After lunch we go south on Hwy 33 to College, east to Lippert Components, Inc.'s corporate headquarters. We finally find the lobby door and the receptionist sends an email to a guy in back. he comes out and takes us back to his cube. He says he doesn't usually see people in person, just takes orders over the phone. He calls up our motor without asking us any questions-apparently they only have one model. He informs us it will be $482.36! (and he also lets us know right away that if we get the whole jack assembly mechanism it would only be $17.00 more.) We pass and just get the motor as we have no where to store an extra sets of stabilizer jacks. Yikes! We were both thinking between $100 to $200 for the motor.

Don demonstrates his 'bottle can' for Jim

We have to go around back by the railroad tracks and truck delivery entrance to pick it up. Bob goes inside the little shack there but it turns out to be the wrong shack. The guy inside makes him wait ten minutes to say he's not Casey. So we go to the next shack and find two young guys, one of them is Casey-the 'middle manager.' The other guy goes out and gets our motor right away. Casey can't get his printer to work. It spits out 20 pages but none are the our invoice. Finally he gets us a decent copy and we're outta there.



We stop at Pay & Packit in Bristol for diced tomatoes on the way home for my dish tonight. This afternoon we watch two recorded NCIS shows and a Good Wife from last week. Around 5:00 I make my microwave green bean casserole for the potluck. Don and Reva return. He got his haircut today too. And he made his famous Mandarin Pineapple Cake. More on that later.

Outside we meet Jim (and his wife, Betty, later at the pavilion) and Ginger, an aptly named poodle of that same color. At 6:30 we walk down to the pavilion. The potluck dinner is all set up. The park owners, Chris and Barry, provided fried chicken and a very long table is full of some great dishes. My favorites are a great-tasting taco salad and a macaroni salad with capers and bacon bits. And Don's cake is heaven! He has one prizes with it in baking contests and I see why! I snap a picture as Reva slices it. He promises to share his recipe. We all put our names in a hat and two of us at our table win door prizes; Sheila, a young gal and her boyfriend John, across the table from us wins a whirligig and I am a winner as well. They are locals who are camping here for this weekend for the first time. They drove in, parked their camper without setting up and came over to enjoy the potluck. He tells us about his house on 120 at Madison burning down recently and all the fighting with the insurance company.

We walk back to the RVs and see John and Sheila setting up their pop-up. I take out our trash and take a couple of pieces of Don's cake back to him. He gave me all of his leftover cake and I thought if he did all that work he should get a few pieces.

Bob and I watch a recorded Flash Forward and a repeat Mentalist. The campground is filling up with lots of campfire smoke and people. It's 10:30 p.m. and 70 degrees with j37% humidity. I hear a radio playing down the hill outside of our bedroom window at 11:30.

Our Haircuts Got Cut

Wednesday, May 26, I'm up at 6:40 a. m. and it is warm already. I have an email from my brother Mike. He liked Travis and Callie's wedding blog. Nice to get feedback once in a while so I know someone is reading, especially when I'm behind. It keeps me motivated. I surf for Lippert (our rear stabilizer manufacturer) and find them south of downtown Goshen! Maybe we can get our motor straight from the horse's mouth! Actually I saw an on-line RV chat room that mentioned a new Lippert hydraulic levelling system that works for 5th wheels (usually you just see them for motorhomes) and Bob said "Lippert is our rear stabilizer manufacturer." Otherwise I would never have looked them up and found out they were right here in Goshen.

Bob and I have Thomas thin bagels for breakfast (thanks, Debbie, for turning us on to these.) I stretch and get cleaned up. We watch weekend warriors arrive early this morning across the road and set up a pop-up, unload huge stacks of firewood, cut the grass, put up a cabana, and trim the weeds for three sites around theirs. Yikes! Don goes down to say hi as they were here last year. He has his daily fire going already this morning.

We head to Goshen. The barber downtown that we thought was closed on Mondays is actually closed on Wednesdays. Bummer! So we walk around trying to decide what to do. I find a salon and I walk in and make an appointment for tomorrow at 11:30. We'll be back and try it again tomorrow. I really wanted to go to the salon Reva recommended but I don't want to wait until after the holiday when she's back. And it seems easier to park in one place downtown and both of us get our hair cut. We can avoid trying to park near the construction on 33 where Reva's salon is located.

We cross the street to Goshen Antique Mall where we spend two hours (2-hour parking in the public lot we're in) going through 25-cent postcards. Bob goes through some other stashes throughout the store. I find 43 postcards for 25 cents and he find a dozen others or so for a total of $38.00. The guy asks us what we're doing here when he sees my Texas check. He asks if we knew about the RV Park at the County Fairgrounds.

We walk to the corner on Lincoln for lunch at Tony's Famous Italian Grill. This is a real 'joint'! Our waitress apparently has ADD but she knows everyone in here and what they plan to order. I have Eggplant Parmesan with a side of spaghetti-the red sauce is a bit on the sweet side for my taste. Bob has Tony's Giant Roast Beef sandwich. Another waitress describes Shoefly Pie (I've seen it several places in the area) as "like pecan pie but tastes like molasses cookies and is chewy." We are stuffed and skip pie altogether.

Next up on our agenda is Martin's grocery for fruit and Vege Beef Soup fixin's. Then back home to stow the groceries and make the soup recipe Bob got off the Internet. Then we have to go outside to cool off as it gets pretty warm in the RV with the big pot of soup boiling. Bob takes the burnt up motor off of the rear jacks after he finds his disposable gloves 'down under.' It's 5:02 p.m. and 83 degrees. Around 6:00 Don and Reva return and we pull our lawn chairs in the shade on the site next to theirs down the hill. It's 91 degrees inside the RV so it feels good out here. They have wood ants they're spraying for at their place. We enjoy a nice evening visiting with them.

After a bowl of Beef Vege Soup I send emails and post a link on my Facebook page to the wedding. It's 11:30 p.m. and 74 degrees with 55% humidity. The high is 84 and the low is 66 today.