The Settlement Pt 2 & Free Lunch

We needed to pick up some interior halogen lights for the motor home today and went to La Mesa RV to pick them up.  La Mesa gives out a free lunch, so we called Ron K and asked if he wanted to join us.  Free lunch, you bet I want to take advantage of that.  They had a nice tuna melt, brownies, chips and a salad for the lunch.  It was a nice meal and we all enjoyed it.

After lunch we went to their parts department to pick up the bulbs and the lady remembered Gerry from the last time she bought bulbs there.  We cleaned her out the last time and it happened again today.  She had 5 of them left and we took them all.  They say halogen lights all last about the same length of time and that seems to be the case with ours.  We have 6 more lights out and most likely more in the next month or so.

While we were in the parts department, Ron K was checking out LaMesa's inventory of toy haulers.  They didn't have anything that was of interest to him this time.  However, when we drove across the street we went to the toy hauler area of new units.  One of those caught Ron's eye.  What do you think, Ron?

We stopped by Camping World to pick up a few things, but found out our Camping World membership had run out.  It seems every time we want to buy something there our card is out of date.  We didn't renew the card and won't unless we have something expensive to buy there.  

We came back to the motorhome and then decided to go out for dinner.  The first Friday of April we went to The Settlement steak house and weren't pleased with the service.  Gerry decided to call the restaurant and voice her displeasure with the service.  The call went to voice mail and the manager called back the next day.  After she explained what made her unhappy, he agreed that it was uncalled for and sent her a letter with a big discount for our next meal there.  Tonight was the night.

As it turned out, all you can eat ribs was the special tonight and Gerry loves ribs.  That gal sure can put away some ribs.  I had a sandwich and snuck a few of the ribs off her plate.  We were very happy with the service and the quality of the food.  Gerry said the ribs were excellent and we will return again in the fall when we come back to Tucson.

We chatted with the manager and the bar manager after the meal and affirmed that we were happy with the meal and service.  The bar manager was a nice young lady and looked too young to be the manager.  I must be getting old.  The pictures below were the manager, bar manager and our waiter, plus outside shots of the restaurant.  If you are in the Vail, AZ area and want a nice meal, check out The Settlement on Old Spanish Trail.

  
It was another windy day in Tucson with gusts around 30mph; however, the temps were around 88 degrees.  Later in the evening it was down around the high 70s and beautiful outside.  If this was typical weather year around for Tucson, we would move out here.

That was our day, how was yours?     

New Addition To Family & Tax Time

I received an email the other night with a picture of Charlie, the newest addition to the family.  My niece, Shelly gave birth to Charlie Noell on April 3, 2013.  Charlie has two teenage sisters that I am sure will "mother" her and are excited to have a baby sister.  Congratulations Shelly & Deveron on your new arrival.  I already added her to the genealogy files.  She is a beautiful baby and takes after her mother for the good looks.  Sorry Deveron.

Deveron & Shelly

Today was a painful day for me since it was time to prepare our taxes for 2012.  I can remember when I prepared our taxes by hand and it took about an hour using an adding machine and a pencil.  Now I use Turbo Tax since it is impossible to prepare our taxes without it.  It still is painful to prepare them and I hate the job.  Once I filled them out, checked what I could and then e-filed the Federal return. Gerry found a transposition error on one entry.  I reversed the 9 & 0, resulting in an $81 error in our favor.  I guess they will catch it and then send me a letter telling me I owe an additional amount.   Or, they may arrest me and send me to jail.  Not likely.

After all the tax work I needed a beer and to get out of the motor home.  I couldn't leave right away since a new arrival took about 45 minutes to park their 5th wheel unit next to us.  They sure did have some troubles with that.  

We headed for Saguaro Corner to enjoy the outside atmosphere and cold drinks.  I think everyone on the east side had the same idea since the parking lot was full, even with double parking and parking in the desert on the side of the road.  What a mob scene.  We decided against waiting there for a seat and having to walk through the desert, so kept on driving.

We wound up having dinner at The Settlement down the road.  It is a steak house with a real cowboy flavor.  The food was good, drinks cold, service so so and they neglected to tell Gerry about the 1/2 price drinks for ladies all day on the first Friday of the month.  They shouldn't have done that since it ruined the mood of the place for us. They did have a cowboy singing and playing his guitar during the dinner hours.  He did a good job and wasn't so loud as to drown out conversation.

I did manage to eat all three meals out today.  Breakfast with Ron C, Subway for lunch and The Settlement for dinner.  I think that is a first for me while we've been in Tucson for the winter.  Eating in the hospital doesn't count in the above.  Now I have to exercise even more to get rid of these calories.
   

The end.