Not a happy anniversary

Today is our 20th anniversary but it was marred by inconvenience and aggravation. We traveled from Randle, WA to Long Beach, WA which is a trip of about 150 miles. Not a problem normally and it was all new area to us. We took the back roads, winding through hills and enjoying the scenery and pulling off the road a couple of times to allow faster traffic by. I think that was the problem, because upon arrival while opening the slides to set up at our site I discovered the computer monitor face down on the coffee table and candles and items flung about. This normally doesn't happen in our travels, so I can only assume that when Denny pulled over since there were narrow shoulders on the road we must have had a couple wheels go off the road tilting the rig which caused items to fly. Fortunately, the monitor didn't break and it was just a matter of picking up and sweeping up a shattered candle and putting things back in place.
The next problem occurred while attempting to reposition the DirecWay satellite after being unsuccessful setting it up on one side of the rig. We managed to crack the cast iron plate at the top of the tripod which meant the dish now wobbled. And a wobbly dish means no satellite signal. Locating another tripod was a trip up and down Highway 101 until we found one in Long Beach where they charged us full price for a used surveyor's tripod. Grr. Or perhaps I should say full price in other states, as it may be for Washington it was a reduced price. Regardless, we needed a tripod and this place had the only one around for miles, so we bought it. So by then, we had missed lunch, gotten disheveled and grumpy and were in no mood to clean up and go out for a nice anniversary dinner, so we stopped at Chen's Chinese restaurant where we had a drink and a really great meal. For entertainment the waiter showed us how to open a bottle of beer using the bottom of a disposable lighter, something he said most Chinese folks do as so many of them smoke and have lighters available. It was a cute trick and his pleasant service helped us relax and enjoy the rest of the evening. We came home to clear out the back seat of the truck as we have an appointment tomorrow morning to have the transmission looked at to see why the reverse gear is slipping.