Awake: 6:11am Temp 42 sleep 6+05 drizzle...rain overnight @ Pendleton, Oregon.
After my coffee, I drove our M.H. up the hill to the Caterpillar Service Center. Rich quickly assigned Jerry to do the pressure check on our coolant tank. Due to some light rain, Jerry asked me to reposition the M. H. closer to one of the service doors, making it easier for him to use his testing equipment.
Meanwhile, Kathy drove the Suzuki up to the Service Center & joined me in the M.H. During Jerry's testing time, I decided to call John @ Newell & talk some more about our coolant dilemma. We were getting nowhere in our discussion until I mentioned to John that another oddity to the mystery was that our front window would fog up when using the front heaters.
"Wait a minute," he says. "Now I know what's happening; you have a coolant leak in one of your (2) front heaters. That's an easy fix for now; just close the valves on those (2) front heaters & that will stop the coolant leak. We'll find that leak when you visit us next spring. In the meantime, use a portable box heater when parked & the dash heat when traveling."
Moments after talking with John, Jerry knocked on our door & reported nothing wrong with our coolant tank. Then I told Jerry about John's diagnosis & showed him where the valves are located. Jerry agreed that it has to be in that system. Shame on me; I missed the big clue: fogging of our window.
Next comes an even bigger surprise: when I asked Rick for the bill he said: "there's no charge Monte, we're happy to get you back on the road again." How about that?!
With a lot of THANKS to Rick & the guys, I drove our M.H. back to the Lookout RV Park. We then motored our Suzuki to downtown Pendleton where we, joined by (2) other women, started the underground tour, led by Carol.
We followed Carol to the underground Shamrock Card Room, Hop Sing's (Chinese Laundry), the Empire Ice Cream Parlor, through the tunnels beneath the sidewalks to the Empire Meat Market. We stood under the prism glass that is a sidewalk above the street & then went through a secret passageway to a Prohibition Card Room.
Tunnels led us to a Duck Pin Bowling Alley, then up the stairs to one of Pendleton's (18) bordellos & the famous "Cozy Rooms."
After learning about Stella Darby & her working girls, Carol took us to the most primitive area of the tour so far: the Chinese living quarters, with jails & an opium den.
That was quite an interesting way of life during the late 1800's--early 1900's in Pendleton, & Carol did a marvelous job of covering it in fashionable detail. She's been doing this tour off & on for over (20) yrs now.
After exploring a bit of downtown Pendleton on foot, we drove thru town to the Pendleton Woolen Mills. During the early 70's, while Kathy & I were living in Vancouver, WA, we shopped for some woolen clothes @ the Washougal Mill. Unfortunately today, most of the woolen clothing is made in China, using some of the wool spun by the Pendleton Mills.
Our factory tour only lasted about (20) min & prices in the retail store were much too rich for our blood, so we didn't linger much longer.
Then we did our own tour of the town of Pendleton by car before returning to our motorhome.
Dinner: Beef veggie stoop with bread.
Evening movie: "Bachelor Mother" with Ginger Rogers, David Niven, Charles Coburn, Frank Albertson, etc. Rogers unwittingly becomes guardian for abandoned baby in this delightful comedy by Norman Krasna. 1939. We both enjoyed this movie a lot.
Lights out: 12:33am.
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