There's an ECHO.....

 9:31 am - Saturday - July 25th - LPG&RVR - 78° F, humidity 11%, cloud cover 7%, wind 15 mph out of the west by southwest......mostly sunny today with a forecast high of 92° F.  On this date in 2013 TLE and I were visiting Glacier National Park....

.....we were having lunch at East Glacier Village Cafe where I had my first ever bottle of Moose Drool.  Whenever I find it I buy a six pack to this day.

I got a call from 'Full Throttle' in Alturas on Thursday that the string trimmer I left with them a month ago had been repaired.  I'm not sure if I wrote about receiving the used ECHO string trimmer as a gift from good friend Bob Longacre.  Someone had given it to him, and he had not been able to fix it so he gave it to me.  I fiddled around with it a few times but could not get it to run, so I took it to 'Full Throttle' to see what wrong with it.  When I gave it to Eric to check over he said the ECHO's are very expensive, commercial grade string trimmers costing just under $400 new.....wow!  At any rate, I figured if it cost under $200 to fix, it was a good deal.....

......ultimately, the issue was the carburetor.  It must have sat for a long time unused and the Ethanol in the gasoline has crystalized in the carburetor, making it useless, and unrepairable.  The cost of a new carburetor was $70, so I authorized him to make the repair.  Total cost was $135...killer deal!  On top of all that he said the ECHO had been lightly used, and was virtually new....even better.   It will come in very handy this winter at 'The Wilson Wilderness'.

Anyway, 'Full Throttle' is not open on the weekends, and only open on Friday until 12 pm, so we needed to go into town earlier than normal to get our shopping done, and pickup our now repaired ECHO string trimmer.  At any rate, I deferred the writing of my daily blog until after we returned from Alturas.  As you know from reading that just published missive about Thursday that I forgot to write the post when I returned.

Upon arriving in town we made a quick stop at ACE Hardware to buy a new toilet for new Dometic toilet.  One of the hinges decided to break Thursday night, and while it was still useable, needed replacing.  How handy that we were going into town Friday.  If it had broken after we returned, I'm not sure I would have made another round trip into Alturas until next week. We made our usual stops at Dollar General, Grocery Outlet, and Holiday Market to resupply our fridge and pantry before heading over to 'Full Throttle' around 10 am to pickup the ECHO string trimmer.  On the way out of town I picked up a Mocha Frappuccino at Java Doctor, and then a quick stop at the fuel station to top off the VW tank before arriving back home around 11 am.

While TLE put away the groceries I removed the old toilet seat, and installed the new one which features the 'slow close' option.  Then turned on the TV to watch the replay of the 19th stage of Le Tour de France, and what an exciting stage featuring a long climb at the end to the finish line.  Over the past few days Tadej Pogačar's teammates had been dropping like flies to some sickness, and had barely been able to finish the previous two stages within the time limit (usually 40 minutes after the Stage winner crosses the finish line).  By Friday those who had not abandoned the Tour were feeling better, and able to help him.  On the final climb to the finish line on Friday Tadej was behind the leaders by over 3 minutes with 5 miles to go, when he began his attack.  He was able to not only catch them, but passed them winning the stage easily.  One of the most amazing things I have seen on the Tour.  He now has a 7 minute lead over the second place rider, and one of his teammates, Isaac Del Toro, is in third place, with a chance to finish on the podium in Paris on Sunday.

The temp did hit 96° F around 4 pm, but then it began to cool as it always does.  By 8 pm it was down to 78° F, and by this morning (Saturday) it was down to 56° F!

Thanks for stopping by