This morning as I was walking Coco for her morning constitutional, the older couple with a 5th-wheel trailer, was warming up their truck in preparation to leave. They’d been sitting there a while, I guess trying to figure out where they’d be headed next. As I walked immediately behind them he proceeded to drive off. It was then that I heard a loud screech followed by an equally loud crash.
Apparently the pin slipped out of its mount inside the bed of the pick-up and dropped unto the back of the truck, where it not only buckled the sides of the pick-up bed but also totally ruined the tailgate.
Within seconds the man was outside of his pick-up explaining to me that he had doubled checked the pin and even put on the padlock. In my mind the evidence proved the contrary. Guilty!
About a minute later his wife for some odd reason climbs out the driver’s door and exclaims to me, “Just like last time.” She had ratted him out.
It was a sorry sight, and there was not much I could do, so I continued walking Coco. When I returned to the trailer, they were still standing there scratching their collective heads trying to figure out what to do.
I then took Molly on for her morning constitutional walk, passing the accident again, but now the gentleman was headed to the campground office, presumably to get some assistance.
When I returned with Molly, the woman was there alone, in some distress since in all the excitement, they had locked their keys in their pick-up. That in itself is too bad, but their two dogs we now trapped and she was concerned that they be cooked in the mounting heat.
The gentleman returned with someone from the main office who tried to jimmy the car door open to no avail. I asked the woman if they had AAA, no, she said, but they did have Good Sam Roadside Assistance. When I left them, he had borrowed a cell phone and was on hold with the Good Sam folks.
I returned to the trailer and related this tale to Marianne. As we looked out of our window to see someone successfully opening the door to let the dogs out, and to use the 5th-wheeler’s automatic jacks to raise the trailer off of the smashed truck bed.
After about an hour, he got everything somewhat squared away, hooked up again. When I looked at the campsite, I saw that he left his shoes on the picnic table. What an awful way to start the day!
Shortly after 11am we headed to Nikki’s work to pick her and Cory up to take them to lunch. Her work was much closer to our campground than I thought so we got there way too early. Fortunately there was a Costco very near Nikki’s work so we spent the next half hour there picking up things that Marianne can only get at Costco. We were also looking to find another book on CD, but there was only one copy of one lame “girlie girl” book in the entire store so I wisely vetoed the purchase.We got to Nikki’s work right on time, and she met us at the door to give us a tour of where she spends her days. Melissa was right there in the cube next to hers. We met some of her other co-workers, and then with Cory, the four of us headed for lunch at a Japanese hibachi restaurant just down the street.
This is a Benihana-style restaurant where the cook prepares the food on a sizzling hot large grill right at the table in front of you. They do some tricks with their knives and forks and some of the food, entertaining you all the time, complete with banter. Since these are also one of my favorite kinds of restaurants, I’ve been to them more than a few times, and it’s uncanny how many of the same jokes keep coming back. If you’ve been to one you’ll know what I mean when I say, “Japanese egg roll.”
After lunch we said our goodbyes to Cory, since he is currently working two jobs, and won’t be able to join us for dinner tonight.
After Nikki went back to work, we went back to the campground and just relaxed a bit.
At 7pm we headed for a park where Nikki would be playing the second of two soccer games tonight. She was leaving the first game at halftime at a different park in order to be able to play the entire second game with her “original” Monday night soccer team. Mike Caponi plays goalie for this team, and there’s even guy who was a teacher with Nikki when she taught at West Mecklenberg here in Charlotte. Her loyalty is with this team.Everyone played their hearts out in this heat, but Nikki’s team still lost 4-3, to what supposedly a pretty tough team. I brought out the “big camera” for this event and was able to capture a number of great photos with the long lens. So when Marianne and I are playing dueling cameras, this time I brought a rifle and she only has a pistol!
After a quick stop at Nikki’s condo, where she changed and we were able to see all of her new furniture and meet her new roommate Amy, we headed over to Ed’s Tavern for dinner.
Ed’s is in an old house and I guess they have an old air-conditioner because it wasn’t working. It was 9pm and we were too pooped to drive to another restaurant, so we endured the heat. Another reason is that this place also has deep fried pickles, an appetizer that I first met and liked, in Jacksonville. Instead of using sliced pickles, Ed’s uses pickle spears. This does two things: one, there’s less breading and two, deep fried pickle spears stay really really hot for a long time. Nikki burned the roof of her mouth when she brazenly bit into the first spear.
I dislike mouth/tongue/teeth injuries, so I waited about 15 minutes before I attempted a spear of my own – and it was still hot. I think I’m a fan of deep-fried sliced pickles rather than the spears.
After our late dinner we headed back to the trailer and the dogs – we were all dog tired.
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