Fresno for Cinco de Mayo
Trip Start
Nov 22, 2007
1
29
55
Trip End
Dec 01, 2008
Fresno,
California,
United States
Monday, May 5, 2008
We made a stop in Fresno California because we were having problems with the Winnie again. Much to our chagrin, as we camped in Sequoia, the house batteries lost their charge and would not hold a charge for more than a few hours. You might recall that the Winnie was stuck at the dealer in Nokomis FLA for a month the last time we decided to get something fixed. And just about everything they touched at that dealer either wasn't fixed or only worked for a short time. (We still did not have working windshield wipers.) Our experience in FLA caused us to be somewhat apprehensive about this latest problem. We decided that since we planned to dry camp in Yosemite for some of the time, we needed to get the electrical system checked out.
Well, we stopped in at Paul Evert's RV dealership prepared for the worst. I have to say that we were pleasantly surprised to find that they were nice enough to work us into their schedule the next day. Further, they have a parking lot with hookups, so you can live in your RV while it is getting serviced. Of course it's not the ideal set up, but certainly better than moving out of Winnie and staying in a hotel (in Tampa we stayed with Bob's brother, Lee, which was lucky (and fun!) for us). Well, we ended up at Paul Evert's for a little under a week (they had to order some parts) but we are happy to say that the experience at this dealership was about as good as it could be. Friendly people, who mostly kept us up to date daily, and didn't charge us for any diagnostics or other work related to warranty, the only thing we paid for was our oil change. And they even fixed the wipers!!! They get high marks from us.
We don't have pics of Fresno, but we did go to a place called Lost Lake, which was about 30 miles outside of Fresno. This was an interesting day. After we spent the day bird-watching and sunning by the lake, we stopped at a little "hole in the wall" tavern just outside the entrance to Lost Lake that makes fantastic tacos. A few other patrons were there, but one in particular was a character. He had some connection to the Hell's Angels motorcycle club. He noticed our bikes when we pulled in and struck up a conversation (actually it was more like a monologue-his monologue). Well, this guy was a little bit off and obviously a lonely soul. We had trouble shaking him-in fact, he decided he would ride back to Fresno with us (following on his own bike-we did not invite him) and buy us a drink at his friend's bar. Apparently his friend had recently bought a bar in some seedy neighborhood in Fresno ". . .Where the prostitutes used to hang out, man, but trust me, the bar is really nice. . ." Unfortunately, somehow we lost him on the highway on they way back to the Winnebago dealership (actually we lost him on purpose to escape-he was pretty scary and we had no interest in seeing his friend's establishment).
But the real reason for the blog is to highlight the place we spent Cinco de Mayo-Sutter Street bar and grill on East Shaw Avenue. The bartenders and wait staff were very friendly and they had a great happy hour every weeknight with Buffalo wings, tacos, tacquitos and canapés. They had a great spread and good deals on Mexican beer and margaritas. If you're ever in Fresno, stop in for happy hour between 5 and 7.
