Getting paid to guess.....

Even though I, in mostly good humor, make fun of weather forecasters by calling them "weather guessers" I do rely upon their guesses a lot in deciding what to do each day.  Each morning I pull up www.weather.com  on my phone to see what their prediction for weather is, and then make my best guess based on my locally observed conditions, and go from there.  The difference between their guess and my guess?  Well, they get paid, and I don't.  Who is more accurate?  If you want the most bang for your buck, then ask me to guess for you....after all it won't cost you anymore than watching the weatherman on TV, or reading weather.com, and I think I'm right slightly more often.

Now back to Monday, which was Labor Day.......the paid guessers predicted partly cloudy skies trending toward to mostly sunny.  What, in fact, did we get.......starting at 4 am, rain pretty much all day from here to Spokane.  What was my guess based on locally observed conditions yesterday morning around 6 am?  Rain all day.

I really like being in a resort town just before and just after Labor Day......you go from way too many people hustling and bustling hither and yon to a decidedly lower energy level after Labor Day.  This morning (Tuesday) kids are returning to elementary, middle and high school, and even university.    Suddenly the local roads are not quite as congested, and the local campgrounds begin to disgorge their summer inhabitants back to wherever they came from.  For me, this is my favorite time of year.....the "shoulder season" between summer activities and winter activities.  I love the crispness of the air as Fall begins to take hold.   Already on Monday we were seeing people who have been here most of the summer packing up their rigs to begin their trek south.  It's hard to believe that in 60 days the climate here will become quite inhospitable, and the population will contract back to "normal".

Around 10 am I got a call from Ron Brown, the gentleman who left a note on my coach door a few days ago, asking if he and his wife, Marlene, could get together with us for a cup of coffee and pick our brains about full time life on the road.  I suggested we meet at Calypsos Coffee in town around 1 pm where TLE and I have been a couple of times.  They have a very nice interior (we have sat outside both times) with couches, and easy chairs.....feels like you are in someones living room, and with the rain and all would be perfect.

Internet picture off Yelp site....very comfy

I have to say again that I am always impressed with anyone who will go to the effort of contacting someone they only know through the internet, asking to meet them.  First of all, there is always the concern about being rejected, or rebuffed.....no one likes that, and then the other concern is the people you want to meet will end up being some weirdos you can't wait to get shut of.  So thank you Ron and Marlene for taking the chance!  We had a lovely time visiting over coffee and talking about the nomadic lifestyle.  There was an immediate connection, and the time just flew by.....I casually looked at my watch as I took the last sip of coffee and saw that it was 3:15 already!  We agreed to adjourn back to our coach for a quick tour of the Newell, and more discussion.  All in all we spent about 3 hours with Ron and Marlene.  They are in the process of selling their home, and hope to be on the road full time by the Spring.  In the mean time they will take a few long trips in their 1988 Vogue 40' Class A diesel pusher....by the way they have the same Detroit Diesel 6V92 we have, and it was a Google search of 6V92's that led them to our blog.  You just never know what the connection will be that will lead to serendipity.

After saying our "until next times" to Ron and Marlene (I'm still kicking myself for not taking a picture of them for the blog) TLE suggested we head over to a new place for dinner called Capones Pub and Grill....Yelp gives them 4.5 stars, and we would both have to agree 100% with that rating....they have 41 beers on tap, which for me would make them deserving of 4.5 stars all by itself, but then there is the food.  Well, after a while, and we have been doing this for a while now, you start to run out of superlatives to describe good food, so I'll just say the food was very, very good.  They make a pretty "mean pie", and they offer anchovies as one of their toppings, so you know what I ordered.  TLE had the world famous Tommy's Pastrami sandwich.  We both had a pint of the XXX Stout made by Pike Brewing.

The interior has a baseball theme (see below)

I put this one in just to prove TLE really does drink the beer....here she is displaying her considerable multi tasking skills

We arrived back home around 5 pm where I sat down in my easy chair and took a nap.....there is something about good beer that is almost like a sedative to me.  TLE read the rest of the evening while I watched a few episodes of American Pickers I had not seen.....Frank and Mike just make me smile.

It is still heavily overcast as I write Tuesday morning.......I "guess" it might be mostly cloudy all day.

Thanks for stopping by!