It's a good thing our plans are flexible

The weather is once again nice, with cold nights and blue skies in the daytime...time to get on those hiking trails.  But first we had a couple of housekeeping things to take care of.

Our decision to fix the awning somewhere along the way (originally named Plan A) backfired on us.  Our plan was to get into Washington state, park near the Camping World and have them do the repair for us.  Easy Peasy!  When Left Brain called he found he could order the part but it would be mid October before they had an opening to do the service.  Yikes.  This was unexpected.

On to Plan B, order the part, pick it up and carry it with us until we land someplace long enough to get it fixed. Another brilliant plan!  Camping World requires the model and serial number on the awning before ordering the part as it cannot be returned or refunded.  Guess where those numbers are...that's right...you have to unroll the awning to read them, which is currently impossible.

The nice lady at Camping World called Dometic (maker of the awning) to check on this for us and in turn had us (meaning Left Brain) call them directly to get the right part.  They will not order without the number, even though the man doing the diagnostic work in Minnesota said it wasn't necessary.  Grrr.

Left Brain called the people back in Minnesota and they looked up the part number, which is the same one we came up with.  Now we find that the part ordered through Camping World is about $100 more than just ordering it online.  So we went to plan C.

We will find a place to land in Washington long enough to have the part delivered, and we need to get our mail again as well.  I called a RV park in Burlington WA and made arrangements to stay for five days (starting about a week out to allow for travel time) with the understanding that we will have two packages arriving, possibly before we get there.  This was all confirmed as being fine and so Left Brain ordered the part and contacted Escapee's to have our mail sent.  There...that's done.

On to the next problem.  We caught a stone coming across Montana and the crack in the windshield is spreading a little more each day.  Bouncing along the road was bad enough, it really didn't like the RV being leveled.  So Left Brain called the insurance agent to get the claim started.  We hope to get this fixed while in Washington as well, but we haven't heard back yet.  We have a $1000 deductible on this so it will be a major expense to replace. It will be nice to be in a populated area again to take care of these issues.

By now it's noon and he's waiting for calls to be returned and the hike just went out the window for the day.  Instead we found a place to get some fish and chips for lunch and then went into Hungry Horse (yes, that really is the name of the town) to buy groceries at their little store.  We stocked up on some meat and other fresh produce that we haven't been able to secure for a while and returned home.  I really wanted to buy some huckleberries for pancakes but a small bag was about $20, so we skipped that option.  We fell in love with huckleberries the last time we were out this way and now crave them.  They're like a blueberry but with an attitude.

Photo courtesy of John Ashley - found in Google Images

After putting away the groceries I took the laundry over to the office to get it done.  I noticed a jigsaw puzzle in progress when over there earlier and that always makes the laundry chore go fast.  Then I extended our stay to leave on Monday instead of Sunday.  Yup, I made the grave error of scheduling us to travel when there was football on television.  When will I ever learn?

While working on the puzzle I noticed the show on their flat screen was getting pretty gruesome (Day of the Living Dead was playing) and went to change it.  The only thing I found that was nice background noise was Dirty Dancing....in Spanish.  Oh well, I know most of the lines and it's all about watching Patrick Swayze  anyway so it worked for me.

Soon it was time to take the clothes back to the RV to fold and enjoy the rest of the afternoon watching the cats play in the tunnel.  We found that if you toss in a ping pong ball they go nuts chasing it and it can't get away or stuck under furniture.

This just confirms that our life is not always a vacation, full-timers have the same issues that home owners face, it's just that our house is on wheels.  Luckily we can move at our own pace, so there is no rush in taking care of things...except perhaps that windshield.

Long Live the Slightly Cracked Queen