Thursday August 20, 2014 Salem, OR

Gerri and me

Oregon Capitol Building

 I was awake during the night thinking about my lost car keys.  Lamenting the hassle of replacing the keys on the ring and kicking myself for losing them.

I had planned to check at the office and see if they had been found and look in the dumpster to see if I could see the outline of the shoe box that was in the bag I threw away.  At 7 I heard what I believed was the trash truck, so I was kissing that possibility away.  After making coffee I did go to the office and ask if the keys had been turned in.  They hadn't been.  I did look in the dumpster and it hadn't been emptied.  I turned over some of the top bags hoping to see the outline of the big shoe box.  I didn't.

At 11 we met Walt Myers downtown for lunch at a Mexican Restaurant, The Margarita Co. Walt still works so it was his lunch time.  We ate and talked for longer than his lunch hour and made plans to meet for dinner tomorrow night and then spend some time at his house.

David and Iva Starke

When we got back to the park I started to head for the Jeep dealership to have a new key made. The ignition key has a chip in it and is integrated with the key fob.  I was dreading a $200+ bill.  I stopped at the office and ask about the keys again.  When I told my story  the maintenance man said he would look through the garbage bags.  He tore open 8 or 9 bags that were near the top of the dumpster.   We didn't see the shoebox or the Tillamook Cheese bag that it was in.  For some reason we then looked in the recycling bin. There was the Tillamook bag and my keys were in the bottom.  Al's willingness to dumpster dive had saved me some money and a lot of hassle.

Gerri contacted Iva and made arrangements for them to come over and go downtown with us.  Our first order of business was to see the State Capitol Building.  After walking around the capitol grounds for awhile we went to Da Vinci's Italian Restaurant.  We were seated but there was such a loud piano playing we left.  We ended up at a restaurant called The Brick.  It was much quieter and offered a varied menu.  Gerri had a French Dip Sandwich and the rest of us had fish tacos.

Back at the RV Park we said goodbyes and agreed not to wait another 3 years before we met again.

Before going to bed we caught up on computer activities, read and did Sudoku puzzles before bedtime.