July 3 – July 6
Michael’s been working in the basement replacing some plumbing fittings, tweaking this and tweaking that. One of his lights in the ‘back’ basement died and he’d picked up a new one when we were at Airstream last week so he installed that too. Michael’s happy as long as he’s putzing…y’all know that by now!
Mel-O-Dee Restaurant
Mid-afternoon on Monday we drove over to the Mel-O-Dee Restaurant. We had planned to try this place last week but found out that they’d been closed due to being damaged by a tornado and weren’t opening until the day after I’d planned on going.
Michael’s always hungry for good fried chicken so I hunted all over Dayton and what I found was the Mel-O-Dee. They’ve been open since 1965 and are known for their broaster chicken (and other foods).
Home made bread & cole slaw….DELICIOUS!
When we arrived about 3:30 pm the parking lot was pretty full but we found a spot, went inside and were seating immediately. We both decided to try their famous ‘broaster’ food. Michael ordered chicken while I went with a chicken & fish combo. Meals come with fresh-baked bread and choice of two sides…we both ordered cole slaw (another dish they’re renowned for) and macaroni & cheese.
Food took a little longer than normal to arrive but we snacked on home-baked bread and butter while we waited…very good. Plus we sampled our cole slaw…really really good!
Broaster chicken & fish and macaroni & cheese
The chicken was very good – nice and moist and crispy…but we’ve had better. I actually preferred the broasted fish over the chicken. It happened to be all you care to eat broaster fish day…shoulda gone with that! Oh well.
Our son, Zack, went to get his tires mounted in Utah and after chatting with the owner of the tire shop for a while they found that they both own Road Warriors AND that the owner has been following the Heartland Blog and has read and shared several of my posts on his camping page on Facebook. SMALL world!
Nice set up for a potluck…big garage with lots of tables and chairs
Tuesday the park had a 4th of July potluck up at the clubhouse at noon and we decided to attend and meet some of our neighbors. The park supplied burgers and hot dogs while other campers brought side dishes and desserts. I made a Angel Food Pineapple Cake.
Coincidentally, someone brought a big old bucket of cole slaw from the Mel-O-Dee…it sure is good…I had two helpings! Yum!
We sat next to two couples that we really enjoyed getting to know. One couple were about 15 or so years our senior, while the other couple is roughly 20 years our junior. The older couple has been full-timing for 10 years. The younger couple just started full-timing in May when they were stationed here at Wright-Patterson. We had a lot in common and there was seldom a quiet moment and conversation flowed easily.
Since it’s the 4th of July I’m going to dub these the ‘Freedom Birds’.
The clubhouse where the potluck was held is also the Outdoor Rec office which is located on the shore of Bass Lake. We walked down to the lake as we were getting ready to go home and were pleasantly surprised to see five ‘birds’ across the way. The five birds are the five C-17s that call Wright-Patterson home. They were lined up perfectly on the tarmac and I couldn’t help but get a picture.
We were back home about 2:00 pm and since it was pretty hot and humid outside we decided to hibernate inside and watch a movie using our Amazon Fire Stick. We’ve had the Fire Stick since we came back from Utah but just got it up and running since we’ve been here and so far we’ve really enjoyed watching movies from Amazon Prime. There are a lot of other options to watch (HBO, Showtime, Netflix, Hulu, etc) but for now…we’re kinda concentrating on Prime.
Wednesday was our normal weekly trip to the commissary and we also went to a movie which has become a weekly ‘to do’ since we’ve been here at Wright-Patterson. Can’t really beat a $5.40 movie. This week we saw ‘Beguiled’. I think we were both expecting something a little different but I actually ended up enjoying it more that I thought I would as the preview we’d seen the week before led us to believe it was something different from what it was. Anyway…good movie.
Delicious!
Thursday we stayed home all day and stayed inside as it poured in the morning giving us a reason to work on some inside chores. We had five episodes of ‘Designated Survivor’ on the DVR that we were able to clean up, which was nice. I tried a new Instant Pot recipe…one that I’d made in the crock pot before and we liked so this time I tried it in the IP and it turned out quite good…another one to add to the ‘make again’ file. If you’re interested you can click HERE for the recipe for Instant Pot Mississippi Pot Roast.