SD - Day # 11

As promised, I dug the old scale battery  (one of those flat ones that is about the size of a nickle....#2032) out of the trash and re-installed it, and then weighed myself.....same weight....205.5.....I then put the new battery in......same weight....205.5.  Okay.....a temporary blip on my weight loss horizon, but wait, there is more......this morning's weigh in has restored order to the universe......I am down to 203.5!  Maybe I was retaining water?   Lol.....I have no idea, but onward we go!  At any rate, 203.5 is a number I have not seen for close to 2 years.  One thing that has changed the past few days.....I am hungry all the time now.  It's like my body has suddenly figured out I am only feeding it 1300 calories a day instead of the 2,000+ it was getting before.  It has been a long time since I was hungry before a meal.....I mean really hungry.  To compensate TLE has bought a lot of those baby carrots, celery, radishes, etc. for me to snack on, as well as an occasional hard boiled egg.  The extra bulk is helping me "feel" full, but I'm still losing weight, and am still hungry most of the time.....that's a good thing, right?  It has been a long tine since I had a beer.

On a slightly different note, we stopped in at Costco the other day after driving the Mini Cooper that over heated, and bought one of their house brand (Kirkland) single malt 18 year old scotches just to check it out......I have to say we are very impressed.....and at $33 for a quart I would say it compares well with several $70-100 per bottle 18 year old scotches we have tried over the past couple of years.

Sunday we had the iniquitously early Kiosk shift, but it was only from 6:30 to 10:30.....4 hours seems way shorter than 5 hours, especially when there is almost nothing going on, which was how it was Sunday......since we're 10 days past the last trout stocking the number of fishermen coming into the park was greatly diminished.  I had taken my HP Netbook into the Kiosk just in case it was a slow day and began searching for a replacement vehicle in earnest again.  As I mentioned yesterday, we have broadened our vehicle search to include Mini Coopers, VW Beetles (the new version), and Ford Escapes.  Sunday we looked at 3 VW Beetles.....two of them baby blue convertibles, and one gray coupe.  The one below is the one we are very interested in.  I'm going to take it into our mechanic Monday to have it checked out.  We both like it a lot, but until I get the thumbs up from Joel I'm not going to get my hopes up.  This one is just immaculate inside and out!  When we started our search our goal was to get a car that could seat 4 people, and carry our bikes.  The bonus here is that we would still have a convertible.....yay!  We are also able to have a 1.25" receiver installed on the Beetle so we can mount our bike rack.  We've kind of given up on the idea of the Jeep as we would need to double our budget in order to get a decent running, later model Jeep.

2003 VW Beetle Convertible

The sunflower

While I was in the Kiosk I sent a few e-mails and texts to people who had VW's we were interested in, and by Noon we had set all our car viewing appointments.  Our first was at 2:30 over in Mira Loma, the second at 3:30 back in Upland, and the 3rd was in Rancho Cucamonga just a couple of blocks from where my son Chris and his family live.  We were blown away by the condition of the first one, a 2003 VW (above)......I could tell from the pictures on Craigslist that a girl, or woman had been the driver, and I was right......any time you see a sunflower on the dash board of one of these you can be pretty sure there is a feminine touch involved, and more than likely the car will NOT have been driven too hard....the driver of this car is the owner's daughter who drove it gently.

The second VW Beetle in Upland is a gray coupe, and looks good on the outside, but the inside was a little the worse for wear.....it was a turbo with a sunroof, and runs good, but the interior would need some serous detailing.....it is about $1,000 less, but it's not a convertible.  The final VW we saw in Rancho Cucamonga was a 2005, and identical to the first one, but even cleaner if that is possible....also driven by a young girl, and it also had the ubiquitous sunflower on the dashboard.....this one is about $600 more than the 2003, but if I had a choice I would buy that one in a heartbeat.....unfortunately, we are in second position on that one, so unless the guy who left a deposit backs out that one is out of the running, but you just never know what Mr. Jello, or Miss Serendipity may have in mind.

It was a nice afternoon, for a change, of car shopping, and frankly we could see ourselves in anyone of the three VW's.....if the 2003 doesn't check out mechanically we'll move on to the 2001 and have it checked out.  We arrived back in the park just at sunset with smiles on our faces.......we think we are getting near the end of our search, and can begin to focus on other unfinished business, like selling our baby, the T-Bird!

Oh, I forgot to mention that for the first time I rode to the top of Mt. Rubidoux for the second time in just 3 days.....I was riding into a headwind about half the time so my summit time was about 2 minutes above my personal best....from the summit I rode over to the Subway to get my daily foot long sub, and then rode around Fairmont Lake again....total distance ridden was just over 11 miles.

We spent the evening watching the "Survivor" finale.....once again my favorite won.....Tyson....he played the best game, in my opinion, of the three finalists.  Another great day in the books, and many more to come.....God willing, and the river don't rise.

Thanks for stopping by!