The repair shop

Having never been to an RV repair shop I was not prepared. The staff was very friendly, which I later found out was in part due to the amount of money the charge. The service manager knew exactly what the problem was before I had finished my description of the problem, then he threw me the curve ball. We can take care of that quickly have you back on the road in no time, it's just a one hour job if we have the part in stock. At this point I was loving this place, then he ask the question that was the start of the downhill slide.  "What chassis is you coach built on?" Simple enough question, but who knows that, not me. Back to the campground to see if somewhere in all the papers I have on the care and maintenance of the motor home is the name of the builder of the chassis. After 2 hours of pouring over all assorted papers and manuals no name of the chassis builder anywhere. Feeling like an idiot and hoping there was someway they could proceed without that info I called the Service Manager. Guess what, beside the drivers seat on the wall is a little sticker with all the info, who would of thought to look there, but the bigger question is why didn't he tell me to look there first, or am I really suppose to know that as a requirement to owning and operating an RV, and do I have to surrender the RV till I take a course somewhere?

With the required information it's back to the shop. Proudly I proclaimed it has a Roadmaster chassis at which point he lost his smile and said that's bad we don't stock parts for Roadmaster. The problem is that the RV manufacture uses several different chassis, even on the same RV and mine just happen to be the least used so the do not stock parts. The Manager said give me a day and I'll see if I can track down the part.

Back to the campground to pick up the DW and explore Flagstaff, I'm not about to let this little setback get me down. Flagstaff is a beautiful town high in the mountains, heavily forested, close to the south rim of the Grand Canyon, just a great place to visit if your ever that way stop and spend a little time.

Good new and bad news, the manager called, he has located the part, it is in Chicago, bad news it will take a week to reach Flagstaff or for a mere $70.00 they will overnight the park. I opted for the overnight. As we toured the town we noticed the wind was picking up and the temperature dropping so decided to call it a day and snuggle up in our beautiful and very comfortable motor home and prepare to take it to the shop in the morning when the part arrived.

While watching the news that evening they were reporting on a strong storm with heaving rain and high winds in Phoenix about 200 miles south. The storm was heading north and snow was possible in the higher elevations, yep you guessed it we had a damn blizzard that night. The next morning it was beautiful with everything covered in snow. As we were enjoying the beauty the storm had left behind the shop called. There was a problem, seems that the over-night delivery did not make it. The UPS plane had a breakdown and would be sending the part tomorrow. Now I'm thinking we must have had a curse placed on us, can so many things go wrong just by chance.

Finally good news the part made it, have the repair scheduled for the next morning, Bad news, UPS will not refund the overnight charge as they only guarantee over-night once the plane takes off, prior to that it is considered processing time which is not considered part of the over-night.

A paniful lesson in the cost of RV repair

Well just check into the Tall Pines RV park in Flagstaff.  I've checked in maybe 30 parks since beginning with no problem, till now. Filled out the required registration form, showed ID, handed my credit card to the manager to complete the transaction, then it went downhill. Seems that the owner of the park had an fight with the back regarding the fee they imposed for processing credit cards, and therefore no longer accepted credit cards. Cash or check only.  As many Rv'ers will attest to we don't carry a lot of cash when traveling, credit cards for purchases and debit cards for a little walking around cash. A thorough search of my wallet and all pockets resulted in a grand total of $7.64. That left a check as the only option which the Manager would be happy to accept. When was the last time you were 2,000 miles from home and a business willingly accepted a personal check? This was a pleasant surprise considering the "don't trust anyone" that is so prevalent today. Now this is all well and good till you realize you have not seen your checkbook in the last 3 months, and have no idea where to start looking. Only one thing to do, wake up the wife. Women have two unique abilities a man could never master, 1. the power of total recall of every word a man has ever uttered, which is not the one I needed now and have never been to fond of, and, 2. being able to remember where everything is located from the birthday card she received 10 years ago to the candy bar I had stashed in a safe place so she wouldn't know about it which even I had forgot about. Women are just weird creatures. Anyways, even in her groggy state from being woke up she knew right where to located the checkbook.

That all out of the way, finally set up in the campground among the tall pines, will be going to the repair shop in the morning, life is good. 

Cool morning, clear skies, I'm off to the repair shop. 




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