Port Lavaca

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Cutting It Close

This morning, I was sad to see R and S leave for good, and a whole day ahead of schedule to boot since S wasn’t feeling well. 🙁 Caroline and her husband are threatening to go tomorrow, too. 🙁 Tonight, though, they, L, and I are heading down to Indianola for dinner and a little music. Can’t let them go without a shindig!

I went back into town this morning to reattempt to get propane as they were down for maintenance yesterday. I also needed to pickup a package at the post office and a few groceries. The plan was to do those things in reverse order as Walmart is on the opposite edge of town from propane, which is closer to the beach than is Walmart, and the post office is in the middle.

Anyway, I went to see L and we got gabbing as we do and by the time I got on the road, it was past 11. Just before the first turn for the post office, I remembered that today is Saturday and that they closed at noon! So I veered there first.

The lady at the counter recognized me from the little fit I threw yesterday so I didn’t even have to wait in line. She saw me come in and waved the package at me.

You see, I had two delivery confirmations yesterday and they only had one package for me, claiming that the other one had not been delivered even though it had been signed for not less than an hour before by the guy who was serving me at the counter!

He argued that UPS had not passed, that my package was not in the building, and that I’d have to come back today, regardless of how much mileage that was. The post office had done this before to me and I had been able to get the clerk to go into the back and pluck the package off the unsorted pile. But no dice this time and I was not shy to give them a piece of my mind since I had the friggin’ delivery confirmation in my hand!

Anyway, post office done, I went to Walmart and then moseyed on back to the propane place. I told the attendant that I was glad to see that they were up and running and he brusquely replied that he was going to serve me, but, really, they had closed five minutes before. He filled my 30lber ($23) and didn’t  put it back in the truck for me. It’s extremely rare that I don’t get that additional level of service. Anyway, no big deal; I got my propane! The on board tank is way too close to empty for comfort. The 30lbs should last me till I’m ready to pull out.

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Stuffed

I just got in from dinner at La antigua. I got the enchilades verdes again even though I had avocado for lunch AND I got L’s guacamole. I think I should cut myself off from avocado for a few days, but I have two left at home. 🙂

To my delight, my enchilades were better than the first time I had them! There was less green sauce and what was there was less cilantroey. Usually a dish isn’t as good the second time around, so this was a nice surprise.

L had fajitas and we both had a beer, meaning that with the damn chips we’re served at the beginning, we were stuffed coming out of there. Next time I go there, I will tell them, “No chips!!!”.

We toyed with the idea of going to the Saltwater Saloon for another beer and a game of shuffleboard, but neither of us was in the mood to consume anything else tonight.

I’ve decided to take the plains route back to Canada, so he and I will be seeing each other again when I drive through Wichita. I was promised the house to myself for a few hours so I can use the tub. That almost makes me want to go back to Canada. Almost. 😀

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Errand Day

I awoke to a very grey and heavy sky, a good day to go for a drive, even a short one into town, to charge the laptop in the truck. My PayPal transfer had finally landed in my inbox, so a Walmart run was definitely in order. The couple of times I’ve gone into town lately with L as well as with S&B, I was able to duck into Walmart for a few things, but I was due for a proper grocery.

Another thing on my Walmart list was motor oil, but I decided to wait to get some and just go get an oil change even though the budget is super tight. I forgot that US prices for such things are reasonable, so an oil change wound up being just $33. Woohoo! They even vacuumed the cab for that price, a nice perk.

I picked up something interesting in the produce aisle, so I now have to Google “How to cook cactus but first, how the hell do I get rid of the spines on the dang thing?!” I will report back on this.

The beach gang is heading down to the saloon for happy hour tonight, so that will be a fun mid-week activity. I may learn how to play shuffle board….

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A Treat For Lunch

I was just about to head into the kitchen to make a peanut butter sandwich for lunch when L came by and invited me to lunch. He tried to get me to vote on where we would go, but I could tell he had his mind set on something and I made him decide. He brought me to Bayside Seafood because he had a hankering for their stuffed crab.

We both ordered the seafood platter, which came with catfish, ginormous shrimp, scallops, oysters, crawfish (my second time having these delicious beauties), and the stuffed crab. Everything was delish, with the crab being particularly worthy of an O-M-G. It was stuffed with sweet peppers and I don’t know what else. If I ever go back to that restaurant, I just want crab!

L and I are happy to have found each other this winter, two single travelers with a lot in common who became fast friends almost immediately. One can never have too many friends.

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The Right Part

Neighbours B and S had planned to go into town today, so they brought me along to get the correct solenoid from O’Reilly’s.

Before that, B and L gave me their opinion about what the deep discharge did to the battery. It coincides with what Barre has to say, that an occasional deep discharge like this won’t do much to affect the battery life of true deep cycle 6V golf cart batteries so long as I get it charged up again.

So my batteries are likely okay. I know there are folks out there who would never let their batteries get below 80% who are going to chime in on that and that’s fine, but I doubt I’ll have anything to say in response.

The guys pulled the old solenoid and, in reply to NW-Bound’s comment, it was fried!!! It wouldn’t click and there was tons of resistance. It had tested fine at installation (clicked and no resistance). Also in reply to NW-Bound’s comment, there was no valid number on the old part to cross-check and the old part used to work properly; it would charge my batteries when I as driving and not drain them overnight.

The weekday manager wasn’t on duty at O’Reilly’s, but the weekend manager was. I explained everything to him and he did a search for a continuous duty model, but was unable to find one. He called NAPA while a clerk called Autozone. The latter was useless, but NAPA gave another number to cross-check and that turned up the correct part in stock.

The continuous duty solenoid was $60, four times the cost of the starting model. They did right by me and did a straight up exchange. So I’d go to O’Reilly’s again, but I’d use my cell phone to cross-check a part number instead of relying on the clerk. The continuous duty model actually had a piece of paper in it explaining that it’s for a dual battery system. The starting one had no documentation, not even a part name.

L, B, and I did a lot of research this morning trying to figure out why the house battery drained over night (or, rather, why the two banks paralleled themselves and equalized to comparable voltage). If the same thing happens tonight with the correct part in, then we’ll know there’s something else going on that was being corrected by the old solenoid going bad.

L and B are both engineers and long-time RVErs so I’m in good hands here and can trust that they understand how the part is supposed to work and that they will help me figure this out.

The expression leave well enough alone is making me feel rather bitter today. *wry grin*