We both awoke early today and were out of bed by 4:30! Had my normal breakfast. It was raining steadily at 7:20. I called Midas in Palmer to make sure that they could take care of us today, and the guy suggested that we should contact the Wasilla store. Odd — last week, the Wasilla store said they couldn't handle us and directed us to the Palmer store, and the Palmer store said they could probably squeeze us in today. I called the Wasilla store, and the guy first suggested that we call the Palmer store! After I explained that the Palmer store had just sent us over to him, the guy said we could bring it by this morning and he should be able to take care of it. The rain had stopped and it was still dark and gray around 8:40. We prepped the RV and left before 9:00 with me in the RV and J following in the Jeep.

We got to the Midas in Wasilla and I went inside to start the paperwork. We needed a new tail pipe downstream of the muffler because the shop that installed a new muffler for us when we were in California bolted a new tail pipe onto the muffler, welded the tailpipe onto just one of the two hangers, which meant it could rotate down towards the ground, and then bolted a short tail pipe extension to get the exhaust out beyond the side of the RV. Well, I had rigged up some strapping to hold the tail pipe up off the ground, and the strap that provided the most support fell off after a few months. The tail pipe extension fell off somewhere along the Alaska Highway, and that's when I noticed that the second strap I had installed had burned through. We left in the Jeep.

First stop was Walgreens to pick up a refill prescription for D.

Then we went to the drive-up ATM at a bank so I could deposit a check that had arrived in our last mail shipment.

Then we went to the drive-up mail box at the Post Office to mail some things.

We returned to the Midas around 9:35 and went into the RV to wait. I had thought that we would wait at the Wasilla Public Library, but they don't open until 2:00 pm on Mondays. I did some computer work and J took a nap. The sky cleared and there was some nice blue sky between the puffy white clouds. The Midas service manager called to let us know that the RV they were working on, and which was tying up the bay we were waiting for, would take longer to finish than they thought, and he wasn't sure if they'd be able to work on our RV today. We left in the Jeep around 12:10.

We went to Quizno's for lunch and used their buy-one-get-one-for-a-buck deal to get two small classic Italian sandwiches, and J used a coupon to get a free chocolate chip cookie for her birthday. The sandwiches were most tasty. :)

We walked to the nearby Fred Meyer to do some grocery shopping, and J said she wants to get the tail pipe fixed today and doesn't want to have to get it taken care of tomorrow. I left in the Jeep to go ...

Back to the RV around 12:50 so I could go online and find another place to fix our tailpipe. After a few calls, I finally found a place that could look at it this afternoon. I left in the Jeep at 1:10.

To Fred Meyer to collect J so we could take the RV over, and J was still busy shopping.

We returned to the Midas place around 1:45, and J put the cold stuff away while I told the service manager that we were going to take the RV elsewhere. We left at 1:51 with me in the RV and J following in the Jeep.

We got to the Quality Muffler place around 2:00. The guy came out to look and gave us a reasonable estimate. He balked when I asked if he could do to the work today, and he suggested that we come back tomorrow morning at 9:00 and he'd do it then. I told him that wouldn't work for us, and he said he'd try to squeeze us in today — whew. We waited in the RV and I had half a slice of leftover pizza to round out lunch. Then I made some reservations for bear viewing from Homer in September. We left around 3:05 in the Jeep shortly after the guy said he was ready to work on the RV.

We went to WalMart to load up on Clif Bars and Mountain House dehydrated food for when we're camping in Denali. There was a 4- or 5-year-old boy with a Mohawk haircut when we were checking out.

We stopped at Lake Lucille to see if the grebes or loons were out. There was a float plane at the dock with people unloading things from it, and there were no birds, so we left.

We returned to Quality Muffler at 3:53, and they were lowering the RV to the ground as we were pulling into a parking space — perfect timing. We went in to settle the bill, then we left around 4:05 with me in the RV and J in the Jeep.

J headed "home" to D&RA's and I went ...

To the Holiday gas station to use their free dump station.

I returned to D&RA's around 4:45, leveled the RV, started loading up the fresh water tank, then hooked up the electricity. J brought out the package from B&H with my HiTech ND (neutral density) filters when she came out to the RV.

We had dinner around 6:00 of steak fajitas using leftovers from the overly-done t-bone steaks from August 6, 2009. Don't worry, J had sliced up the steaks that day and then froze the meat. The clouds are few and far between, and there's lots of light outside.

We went outside around 6:55 to hang out with D&RA who were photographing, or at least waiting to photograph, the birds at D's feeders.

We went back inside the RV around 7:32 when my mother called. Had a nice chat with her. Did some computer work, then went to bed early.