3-25-09 Wednesday (Bride of Caulkenstein)

A few days ago I mentioned repairing the tub crack. Then Jim reshimmed it and the crack reappeared. He recaulked and decided to caulk the drain (just in case). The drain caulk was previously Caulkenstein. On day 4, we'll finally get to use our own shower. I called it Caulkenstein Jr. but Jim called it Caulkenstein's Bride. We'll go with the bride name.

Before sightseeing we decided to have lunch at a TGI Fridays. We got an awesome deal. Sit a the bar, get a beverage at regular price and get an appetizer for only a penny! THEN you can go sit at a table and get another deal. I've enclosed both deals below. We only did the first. We ordered sodas, had an appetizer each, all for $5.00 plus a tip. As my fabulous friend and Friday's worker Joanie might say, "Don't forget to tip on the amount prior to the discount."


Jim and I decided to buy a CityPass this time instead of a GO card. The CityPass card has just the things we want to do. Here's what we did today:

Let Starline Tours take you to where the Stars live, shop and play in Famous Beverly Hills, Bel Air, Holmby Hills and Hollywood Hills. See over 40 celebrity homes from an air conditioned minibus. You’ll see mansions of today’s superstars, the estates of Hollywood legends, the watering holes of Sunset Strip, and the elegance of Rodeo Drive. Tours depart from Grauman's Chinese Theatre, the only place where you can see the famous hand and footprints of the Stars.

All was correct except for the air conditioned minibus. We didn't need air conditioning as the weather was perfect. Below is a picture of our topless tour van.


We saw so many houses. Our tour guide pointed them out and said what star lived there or what movie/show the house had appeared in. I enjoyed the tour but I don't idolize stars. Our guide showed us famous restaurants or bars that were frequented by stars or used in a movie.

Above: Hollywood Boulevard

Above: 360 from "Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy Parkland" at the top of Hollywood Hills.

Yesterday on the way to LA we stopped at a supermarket in Palm Springs and picked up some lettuce and guacamole. We left it all in the car. Oops. I looked up a recipe online, wrote the ingredients down and stuck it in my wallet. On the way home from today's sightseeing, we were so hungry so we stopped at the store to pick up my supplies. We ate all of my delicious homemade guacamole and never even made dinner.

The video above is long. I hope it came out alright, I was very tired.

12-10-08 Wednesday (Caulkenstein)

The shower floor isn't cured yet from the latest attempt to reseal it. We went to the campground showers. Apparently Jim's shower had good pressure while mine was less than a 5 year old's pee stream.


Naturally, it's raining, but is now at the 45 degree mark. Yay for somethings, I guess. We're going to drive into Seattle for the hell of it. We think, based on weather forecasts, tomorrow may be the best day for the Space Needle. I'd hate to go up there and not see anything because of the rain, clouds and fog, or combination thereof. I looked at the Space Needle restaurant menu online and it's VERY expensive. If you eat there, they pay for the $16 per person fee for the elevator ride. That brings down the price substantially. Check out their menu here.


We're back from a trip into Seattle. It's an interesting city. They have cable trams but they aren't on tracks. I guess they're actually steered. Interesting. Lots of old buildings mixed with new. We had lunch at a Red Robin (We'd never eaten at one before) which was located right on the water - Elliott Bay. The interstate was interesting. Several tunnels, some of which houses sat over, provided a "Gateway to the Pacific" as a carved sign above noted. So many bridges we drove under were lined with trees and rich overall with foliage. I'm not sure if it was for cars or pedestrians. There were so many of them. We spent a couple of hours walking around the water's edge before we made our way to the Space Needle. We just wanted to see it for now, knowing that eventually we'll be in it. Jim said it looked smaller than expected. When we got home he found it is 25 feet shorter than the St. Louis Arch.


Downtown Seattle is so rich with business. New apartment/condos/lofts are under construction. I'm amazed there's room to build these monstrosities. As best we can tell, they probably knock down the 1-2 story buildings.


There's a sightseeing pass, called a GoSeattle Card. A coupe of years back we used something similar for Las Vegas. Basically, pay 1 price, see as many of the supported attractions as possible within 1 day, 2 days, etc. depending on the number of days you purchase. We went to the place that sells them downtown, but their price was higher. The online has an awesome price. We'll buy it on line and then take the voucher to them as a "will call". Jim picked out all the things we want to do (there's a lot of neat stuff here), added the prices and discovered the card is quite the bargain.


I've made meatloaf. 3 small ones actually. They take a long time to bake; by the time we get to eat tonight it will probably be 9pm. A late start to dinner.


I've named the neverending tub repair "Caulkenstein". You see, Caulkenstein is still not dry. Caulkenstein has a life of its own. It dictates to us when, how, and where.


I have a few pictures from today, but it's bed time. We have a big day at the Space Needle and surrounding area.

3-21-09 Saturday (Eighths of a Blah is Still a Blah)

Let me start off by telling you something I forgot to mention yesterday. As we traveled to Palm Springs, I decided to call my mom. After I flipped it open, the display started working. The exterior and interior displays both work! It's a miracle. It must have been because I was callin' my mom.

Speaking of my mom, she's doing better. Thanks to all that has asked and/or sent prayers.

I have to preface the next story with a reminder. I've mentioned a couple of leaks in the past. One of the leaks became affectionately known as the Great Caulkenstein. The other was the water heater leaking. I also have to mention that the water pressure here is the best I've seen. It's actually too high. For RVers, that can mean problems, hence most of us use pressure regulators between the park and the coach to prevent lines from bursting. Our pressure was so high that the hose and spicket vibrate when the water is in use. We turned the water down enough to stop the annoying noise/vibrations it caused.

OK now you have the information needed to better understand this misadventure. So, this morning, we had an appointment with the mobile repair guy to see about the water heater leak. When Jim and mobile guy go outside to the water heater, they see water dripping out from under the coach in many spots. Jim had bypassed the heater (with a valve) the night before so how can this be? Mr. Mobile pokes around inside the coach and finds everything wet under the tub. He can't quite see but says a pipe is leaking. Wait, gets worse. The pipe used in older coaches is a blah-blah eighths of a blah that's not used anymore. Many times when cutting this piping to install a new fitting, it spiral cracks. Wow, must have been that really high water pressure. Did the regulator fail? Now what do we do? Mr. Mobile doesn't have this type of piping but someone else may. He "feels bad" and doesn't charge us for the service call. I think at this point, Jim and I are upset. Now we can't use the water at all.

I'm not sure why I looked, but I opened the shower door and found water standing inside. Jim forgot to open the gray water valve yesterday. Gray water is non-toilet waste water. When we hookup and forget to open the valve, and when the tank fills up, it overflows into the tub. Since we've had tub leakage problems, I squeal with delight that it must be leaking again and not a burst pipe. We dump gray water, wait for the exterior leaking to stop dripping, turn the water back on and no leaks! Yay! Well, we discover the crack in the tub is what's leaking again, and not the Caulkenstein part.

Jim removed all of the wet support wood from under the tub to dry it. Jim called Mr. Mobile, explained the problem, and asked if he could come back out for the original water heater issue. He says he won't have the fitting because it's a blah-blah eighths of a blah. Fine. Jim goes under the coach, removes the leaking fitting himself, goes to an RV store, buys the new part and installs it himself. Water heater leak solved. Jim caulked the tub crack.

We can't use the shower so we use the campground showers. Awesome pressure. The kind that almost hurts to shower.... love it.

A trip to Joshua Tree National Park is all we have time for today. The park has a lot of cool rock formations. Most of it looks like someone piled boulders on top of one another. The brochure explains why it's like that but the blog entry is way too long for me to get into that. Maybe it's all the rock from when they dug out the Grand Canyon? The park is very popular with rock climbers. For us, this was a nice scenic drive but not very interesting compared to what we've seen in the past. We're jaded.

Above: A Joshua tree.

Above: Cool photo, eh?

Above: Silk worm critters.

Above: Cool boulder rock stacks.

After dinner, we met up with Steve and Tedd. They share their living/working time with San Diego. They live in an RV in San Diego and work, and on off days live in their home in Palm Springs! We went out to a few bars for cocktails. We had a great time. Thanks fellas! We'll see them again this week.

Above: 100's of windmills. I thought it was ugly, but really cool.

12-11-08 Thursday (Memory? I Forget)

Before I tell you about today's events, here are yesterday's photos.

Space Needle

Ye Olde Curiosity Shoppe. Neat store, with lots of saleable junk.

The view from our table at Red Robin.

"Gateway to the Pacific". Interesting how there's homes up there, over the tunnel.

Jim set the alarm for 7am. At about 7:40 we arose. The alarm never sounded. I'm not sure what he screwed up. Caulkenstein was still dictating our lives so off to the communal showers we go.


Into Seattle we went, found a parking spot and ventured to a mall to pickup the GoSeattle cards. I wanted to snap a picture of the cable cars and then discovered my camera memory card was missing. It was still in the laptop from last night. I was trying to get the pictures into the blog, but got tired of formatting issues and was exhausted. So, now I need a memory card. I guess I'll get one at the mall. The mall was 4 stories and very pretty. It seemed that it was high end. It was interesting to see so much, so vertical. We picked up our cards, went to an electronics store where they had a used memory card for a little cheaper. I bought it, we went to a cute French cafe and had a junkfood breakfast. The camera card didn't work. I returned it and had to buy a new one.


A few blocks away we went to another horizontally challenged mall to catch the Monorail. It only runs to the Space Needle area and back. It's a 1 mile ride each way. It was still nice to be on it and see the city a little.


Within the Space Needle area, Jim had several places planned. He had the whole day very well planned, even with a time frame as when to go into the Needle. Checking weather, he had found the best clearest time would be 12-3 today. How about that for precision?

Our first stop was to the Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. No photos permitted! I loved this place. Very well done, well displayed, well laid out. Well, it also helps to like Sci-Fi. 90% of the displays had authentic props. 10% were replicas. The sights and sounds were great. Life size robots, costumes, weapons, ship models, etc kept the senses busy.

Time to stop, and grab a beverage. We went to McDonald's and had a snack wrap and a drink. By the way, I had a Deluxe Hot Chocolate and I will tell you I was expecting much better. Oh well. Speaking of, there's some billboards in Seattle (Home of Starbuck's and Seattle's Best). It even made it into their local paper. Amusing.

On to the Experience Music Project. It was a museum about music, and it didn't thrill me. The most focus was put on musicians from the NorthWest. The most featured musician was Jimi Hendrix. A tall musical sculpture made of many instruments was very cool. Some of them played music on their own. We went through this museum fairly quickly.

Jim expected more of the Space Needle

The planned time frame for the Space Needle was upon us. It was accurate too. The skies were fairly clear (for Seattle) so we went to the Needle. There were no lines for it. It was awesome. We ate at a cafe at the very top. Well, we had a drink and cookies. Loved it. Lots of interactive displays up there. Did I say we loved it? The restaurant, which we didn't go to, sits one level below the observation deck. We had decided the cookie was good enough and we have more to see.

Onward to the Pacific Science Center. We spent a lot of time here. Here, almost every display is interactive. Live animals, Insect Village, Butterfly House, etc, were all a lot of fun. Some of the exhibits were child like but we played with them anyways.

We had left the RV park at about 9:30 and left Seattle at 5pm, so we had a FULL day. My feet hurt.

Tonight we went to Home Depot for some Caulkenstein reinforcement supplies. Jim also decided to repair another crack in the tub. Join us in 2010 when the tub will be available for use.


After Home Depot we stopped at a Fred Meyer. Basically, the same as a Super Wal-Mart only the prices weren't as good. They sold clothes, food, jewelry, electronics, hardware, etc. We priced some stuff out: $2.00 more on a 6 pack of breakfast sandwiches. Jim's Diet Coke at Wal-Mart = $1.25 2ltr. $1.75 at Fred Meyer. See, for those of you who don't know Jim personally, he drinks a lot of Diet Coke.... a lot. 16-20 2 liters a week so that adds up. Don't bother reprimanding him with all the bad things you've heard about drinking so much of that. He knows and he's heard it all before. Notice the giant cup he carries with him? That's usually a topic amongst personal friends.

8-30-09 Sunday (Udderly Wet)

It was nice to vacuum the RV with our REAL vacuum for a change.  We took our vacuum out of storage the other day.  We haven’t found a good place for it yet.  Chances are there really won’t be a good place for it which explains why we didn’t bring it on our year long journey to begin with.  All of the basement compartments are too small or we’ve got then jam-packed anyway.   I’ve photographed some possible storage solutions.

Above: Blocking the doorway into the coach.  Handy if burglars break in.  They’ll either trip over it, steal it, or vacuum our coach.

 

Above: It’s a self propelled vacuum.  Should we give it a try?

 

Above: No longer do I need to worry about dropping food while eating.  I can just have the vacuum running the entire time.

 

Above: Storing it with cleaning products does kinda make sense but it won’t fit into the cabinet.

 

Above: While this spot does make using the toilet nearly impossible, it may work as an odor displacing device.  It does have a hepa filter ya know.

 

Above: I tried the tub but Caulkenstein growled.

Something more amusing.  OK.  Up the road to Jim’s Mom’s (Ann & Morgan) house, we’d see these cows out in a field.  The field was/is very flooded from all of the rain.  We wonder if the cows are OK and if the owner knows about property flooding.  Here, property taxes are low for agricultural land so many people plop a few cows on it and there you have it.  Well, on the way to Ann’s for dinner tonight, we spotted this sign.

Above: It reads “The cows are fine – stop calling.  They have food, water + dry land.  Calling the sheriff dept is wasting tax money and unless you raise cattle – mind your own business.”

Apparently we weren’t the only ones to wonder about the cow’s wellbeing.

Dinner at the Zarbuck’s was delicious.  Homemade, from scratch oatmeal cookies and chocolate chip cookies for dessert. 

Hmmm, we ate a lot of them.  Really.

12-12-10 Sunday (Dumpster Diving)

Mom spent the day in and out of bed “recovering” from yesterdays adventures.  Jim and I went to lunch at Souper Salad.  It’s a soup and salad bar.  The food was good, many toppings and salads available.  The décor and general ambiance- not so much.  The place needs some major updating.  The restroom wasn’t as maintained as I think a restaurant should be.  I might consider giving it another try.  Maybe.

Jim lined up a bunch of houses/neighborhoods for he and I to check out.  As we checked out a neighborhood he spotted this house off in the distance.

There’s several in a row; most are empty.  We peeking in the windows.  I love it.  They’re just a bit lot out of our price range.  Here’s the website the sign says to visit which includes pricing, interior photos and the like.

Some how Jim saw a hot tub supply place with what looked like hot tub covers in their trash pile.  We need a new cover for ours or at least new foam.  Ours didn’t do well in storage so the cover sags and water pools on top of it.  With the weight of the water on the cover, it sometimes brakes even more.  Anyway, we stopped by the trash pile, and checked out an old cover with good guts.  It won’t fit in the BMW so we went home to get the Jeep and return to dumpster dive.  It was now dark and I felt like a criminal.  We got the old cover, strapped it to the roof and went home.  We removed the crappy vinyl from it and put the foam in the garage to dry out (it seemed water-logged).  An interesting adventure.

We checked on Mom again.  She declined going out for dinner but when she found out we were going to Five Guys, she requested a burger be brought back.  Who can resist their burgers?   Now remember, we’re in Charlotte, NC and came from Fort Myers, FL.  Here’s a sign hanging up in the restaurant:

Cool, huh? 

I took a picture of our tree in the dark.  Here it is:

Shit.  Sorry.   Let me put the lights on.

---

A friend I haven’t seen or talked to in uhhhh forever recently found me on Facebook.  We’ve been chatting and she scanned and emailed 2 photos of me.  These would be late 80’s early 90’s.

Yes, yes, I know I was cute, adorable, studly or whatever other terms of endearment you were thinking.  Watch it!

On this date in 2009: We went rental shopping in Charlotte.  We decide on the rental we’re in now and not the huge one with a bidet.  On this date in 2010: Caulkenstein growled at me.  We went to Seattle and did an underground tour, and then a boat tour.  We had a very busy day of sightseeing while our RV awning had a busy day too.  We lost an awning!

4-27-09 Monday (Birth of a Monster)

Jim's mom flies back to Florida today. We had a great visit! Jim is taking her to the airport. She invited us out to breakfast but I'll let the two of them have some time together. The original plan is one day they were going to have lunch and go out shopping. I guess it never happened because we still had sightseeing to do.

Caulkenstein Jr. has been officially born. For the past couple of days we've been using the campground showers because the tub is leaking. Jim reshimmed and recaulked the tub leak. Yeah, I think the tub will need to be replaced by the end of our RVing trip. Hopefully we can use our own shower tomorrow. My experience with the campground shower wasn't all that great. There's 2 restroom/shower combinations. The shower was as small and possibly smaller than our shower. The pressure seemed OK. Eventually someone used the other shower or something because my water temperature flucuated. Sometimes it went off the charts. Scauld me with hot water but then decide the best way to treat a burn is with COLD water. Ugh. All on it's own. Great.

We caught up with Gregg. Tim already had plans so we'll probably see him tomorrow. Gregg's house is beautiful. It's a 4 or 5 bedroom, and each has it's own bathroom. The master suite has a sitting area, and fireplace. The master was larger than some people's homes! The kitchen? 3 wall ovens (one is the Advantium). A HUGE Viking stove. There's more to the inside but I'll just skip to the exterior. An edgeless pool, with hottub and a dual waterfall. Peaceful. With the pretty landscaping, I felt like I was at a resort. The back patio also has water misters built into the house. In the other corner of the yard was a ramada (gazebo) complete with outdoor kitchen. That's where we ate dinner. Awesomeness. I took photos.... but of course.







Gregg has 2 roommates... a couple Tony and Levi. They are originally from Oregon. Tony has lived a short time in Hawaii. Tony and Levi are very young. The geographical conquests, career differences and age differences all made for great conversation. Gregg has 2 older dogs, Tony and Levi have 2 chihuahuas, so tomorrow we'll bring Dasher along for another day of fun in the sun. Cheers to being lazy........ {clink}

8-1-09 Saturday (Bad & Good Food)

The drive from Cape Canaveral to Fort Lauderdale went smoothly. We were to have lunch at Whataburger on the way, figuring it’s probably the last time for a while that we may get to have it. We arrived, parked at a Walmart in the same lot, and walked over to where Whataburger USED to be. I sobbed quietly. Well, OK, no I didn’t. I sobbed loudly. No, not that either. We’ll go with bummed. Bummed it is. Whataburger was gone. Boarded up. Closed. Done. A moment of silence please. No laughing.

We settled on Panda Express. This is the second time we’ve had it and the second time we’ve been unimpressed. Blech!

Where are we? Well, now we’re at Paradise Island RV Resort. It’s pretty cramped here and our site’s grass is over grown. This park has many mobile homes in it. To me it’s a trailer park rather than an RV park, but whatever. Other than that I think it’s OK. It’s home for the next few days.

Jim coordinated getting together with his ex-CitiFinancial boss, Kerry and an ex-coworker, Geri from this part of the state. They met us here at the RV where we did the tour before leaving for dinner. It was awesome to point out different things and have Keri, an obvious blog reader, finish the story about it or even remember funny little stories. She was quick too.

“Here’s the shower/tub and where we’ve…”

“Oh that’s Caulkenstein.”

I was so amazed, one would have thought we were interviewing for her to take our place, and she was surprising us with her knowledge. By the way, she’s in the lead… ya know, if it were a contest or something. I’m just sayin’.

Oh, so we went to dinner at a Jim-selected-dining-experience at a place he had went to once a long time ago when he lived in this part of the state. The Bizaare Ave Cafe was awesome for both the food and the atmosphere. The atmosphere, was eclectic. Mismatched dining chairs and tables. Some were chairs gathered around an end-table and some you sat on a couch and ate at the coffee table. Jim, Keri and me had the couch and Geri had a chair. Some of the coffee tables (not ours) even lifted up and toward the diner. Really a cool place. The food was good. For appetizers we had chicken empanadas and a white chicken pizza. Divine! 3 of us had the NY strip. YUM. Jim had the Chicken and Artichoke Crepe (pictured below). He said it was delicious. 3 of us enjoyed the steak but regretted not being more adventurous.

Above: Kerry and Jim.

Above: Jim, Geri, and Garret.

Above: Geri, Kerry, Jim, and Garret.

Above: Geri enjoying a martini.

I must admit, it was challenging at times to eat from a surface lower than my ass. I’m out of shape and my body doesn’t move as well anymore. The gut seems to get in the way. By the time dinner was over, it was like exercise. Like sit-ups or crunches. Does that count? You bet it does! Dessert time!

Above: My peanut butter pie. Awesomeness on a plate!

Above/Below: Geri and Kerry shared a molten lava cake. As the server promised, it was orgasmic. Geri started licking the bowl, we tried to take it away and she growled.

Above: Jim had the 31,586 layer (or something like that) chocolate cake. He too said his was yummy.

I forgot to put the battery in my camera so luckily Geri gave me hers to be the official photographer of the evening. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me and this camera this week. Thanks Geri for sending me the photos so quickly so I could post them.

After dinner we came back to the RV and sat around for quite a while catching up on things.

3-5-11 Saturday (Don’t Go Into The Light)

Thursday: My typical at work lunch situation is: I pack a lunch cooler with a 1/2 gallon of Crystal Lite, snacks and a turkey sandwich.  I’m the only one in the class who pours a drink throughout the day.  At lunch, I grab a large table in the cafeteria, eat my lunch and several of my teammates join me.

On Thursday I didn’t bring lunch.  I brought a bottle of salad dressing (Maple Grove Farms balsamic vinegar, no oil) and it was my intention to get a salad from the cafeteria’s salad bar.   Our trainer gave us just over an hour for lunch.  I was invited out to lunch and I caved.  6 of us went out to lunch at Boardwalk Billy’s.  They have a great menu of lunch specials.  A 1/2 pound cheeseburger, fries and drink for $5.99.  Excellent deal. 

Above: Camera phone picture of the parking lot at work.  Beautiful pink and white trees all over the place!

Saturday: We had a pretty busy day.  While we were at the RV show last week, we picked up some literature and scheduled an appointment with Bath Fitters.  Unlike the Bath Fitter location in Fort Myers, FL, this location said they do RV’s.  Today they came out to provide us with a free estimate to replace our RV shower/tub.  If you’re wondering why and have forgotten, click here to review the Caulkenstein stories.  We met an estimator at the RV storage site and received an estimate for a new shower surround, new shower floor, and glass doors totaling $3500.  Yeow.  We’ll consider it.  We’re still thinking about getting rid of the MoHo and the Jeep and getting a mid-sized pick up and bumper-pull travel trailer.  We’ll see.

While we waited for the estimator guy Jim removed all 3 MoHo batteries.  They’re all dead.  One will have warranty and hopefully the other 2 are chargeable.  We dropped them off at the parts store and should get word about them on Sunday.

For lunch we redeemed a Groupon for Revolution Pizza and Ale House (Their website doesn’t work).  I had pepperoni pizza that I thought was awesome.  Jim enjoyed his pineapple, ham, balsamic oil, concoction. 

Now to walk off some calories.  Off to the Southern Spring Home & Garden Show we went.  The convention center is huge!  Vendor after vendor.  Some of the center is old.   Perhaps it was built in phases or something because the first area we were in felt like a basement.  It had low ceilings with pipes for that “basement feel”.  We walked into other sections and it had high ceilings and seemed a lot more modern overall.  The place was packed with wine tasting, window vendors, cookware, plants, roofing materials, décor, countertop manufacturers, flooring, etc, etc.  They had a huge Ikea booth, some RV’s on site, Home Depot, etc.  There was so much.

That above was a snap shot of the “basement feel”.  I didn’t take pictures of all the other areas that were stunning.  Honestly, I just don’t “need” photos of a home show.  But below is a 30 second TV commercial of the event that will show other stuff.

The commercial

Speaking of homes, Jim called the contractor supply store that Mohawk recommended to get a sample from.  They said they didn’t have samples.  Jim emailed Mohawk again.  He told them we’re concerned about the poor service in obtaining a sample and we’re reluctant to purchase from them especially if this is any example of what it would be like to get warranty issues resolved.  Jim asked that they escalate this issue to the appropriate management for resolution.  Mohawk… you suck.

An unrelated side note.  If I’ve not mentioned it before, these Kellogg's FiberPlus™ Antioxidants Bar Caramel Coconut Fudge are yummy.  If you like Girl Scout Samoa’s, these kick ass.

That’s it, now back to my day.  We were at the show for so long that it was approaching dinnertime.  We stopped home, let the dog out and then took off for dinner to Harbor Inn Seafood… with another Groupon!  We’re never been here before.  The Groupon was for $30 and we had a hard time reaching that goal.  Everything seemed reasonably priced.  We discovered afterwards that they can do cheap when they serve low quality steak.  The steak flavor was good, the texture was strange.  Let’s just leave it at that.  The portions (we had steak and shrimp platters) were huge.  Too huge.  The dining room had huge chandeliers with compact florescent bulbs that were a hideous bright white.  The lighting was awful.  I felt like I was in some sterilized cafeteria.  Horrible ambiance.  

There were plastic seagulls hanging near the chandeliers.  We laughed about having crapping birds above the tables.  It was one big open room which added to the poor cafeteria feel.  It was so bright and washed out.  I kept staring at the lights, squinting and laughing.  I must admit, Jim and I had so much fun over it.  Looking at their website, I don’t even see a contact us link.  We still have another Groupon for this place so we’ll have to go back.  There’s hope though.  The dining room in the next area had regular yellowish lighting instead of stark-white.  We’ll be asking for a table in there next visit.

On the way home, we stopped at Walmart to get a few things for brunch tomorrow.  Oh yeah, Beth is hosting brunch at her place tomorrow!  Anyway, while in Walmart we walked by this aisle:

Above: One of these things is not like the other.

Silk plants, paper towels, Tostitos and mouth wash.  I’m sure there’s a story there somewhere.  I understand this is their seasonal area but couldn’t they have tried to make some sort of theme?  At some point I assume a member of management said, “looks great” and walked away.