Friends and Foe!

I took the entire day off yesterday.  That's unusual for me, but I received an invitation to a get together at Jan and Bill Mains wonderful place in Casa Grande.  It's not often I get to say hello, so as long as I was here, I wasn't going to miss it.

It was a bit of a drive, 90 minutes or so, but so worth it for the friends and food.  Jan said bring olives for haystacks.  What the heck are haystacks?  I had to look it up on the internet.  Apparently when they were in Amish country, they ate where everyone took food from the table and stacked it all in a big pile on their plate, looking like the haystacks in their fields.  

Sure enough, hamburger, rice, veggies, cheese, queso and everything else you could think of was piled high, followed by brownies and pineapple upside down cake.  Haystacks of dessert sounded good to me, but I already ate too much of everything else.

After lunch we sat on the patio and watched the quail try to be brave enough to hit the feeder on the ground just a tad too close to those humans.

 I'm sure no one would have minded pictures, but I kept my phone in my pocket until I went inside and asked Bill for a tour of his kachina dolls.  Jan's dad and he made every one of probably 30 (maybe more) kachinas sitting on the top walls in the house.  

The details are amazing!!!  Of course I was just as fascinated with all the handcuffs, spurs, gun belts and mostly, the furniture!!  Jan has a knack for cowboy/western decorating, that's for sure.  

The kachinas were hand carved from blocks of wood.  Bill says there's something in that block that wants to come and visit me.  I should give it a try.  I quote Patty .... "I was thinking you needed another hobby!"

All the way home I contemplated my foe for today.  It's been almost a year since I bought this RV and the warranty will be up.  That's why I took it in last week to get everything fixed ... not that any of the fixes will last.

When I took a good look before I dropped it off, I found EIGHT of these outlets that were broken and falling out of the wall, or ceiling in this case.  There is just some kind of screw-looking device that twists with the use of a screwdriver, that turns a plastic knob sideways to hold it in place.  Good grief, why not just use something as backing to screw a REAL screw into.

When I called the manufacturer, they sent eight boxes like this ... exactly the same thing that broke on every one I currently have.  I'm pretty sure I will have the same problem over and over again.  Every time I unplug something, I have to push against this as I pull the plug out to keep it from coming out of the wall.  Plus, they are apparently so tight they break the plastic box just driving down the road.

The only other thing in the entire rig is the porch light didn't work and I'm having them raise that back jack so it's at least 8 inches above the ground instead of it's current location of 5, that I'm sure is going to catch on something.  That turned out to be a short list.  By the way, I did actually drain the hot water heater too.  That's one I wasn't sure about.  Hopefully I can figure out how to fill it up again before I need it!!

This morning's task is to call Lazy Days and see if it's ready.  Hopefully it didn't take them more than three days to change out 8 plugs and it will be ready to go.  

In the meantime, I can't believe I ran out of batteries for my game camera.  They lasted well over a year, then died a quick death overnight, probably due to the cold temperatures.  I did get a quick glimpse of a young coyote yesterday about 5:00.  Just as I let Cooper out the door, I spotted him right by the block wall.  He stopped and we had a moment before he walked on off.  I told him what a beauty he was in daylight!!  A friend for sure!