We left Montgomery, TX this morning and drove about an hour to Demontrond RV to get our warranty items done. We are outside of Houston, just off I-45. The shop has closed for the day and we are in our rig, right outside of the garage door and are here with one other full timer couple….locked in for the night. Our service advisor gave us a key to the gate, in case we need to get out but we’re staying put. We went out earlier and went to Sam’s Club, which is only 3 miles from here. This RV service shop is huge. There must be 8 or 10 rigs parked on either side of us. Jeanie, our service advisor said that 22 rigs came in last week, without appointments. Wow ! She said it gets like that every year as spring break looms near. No one thinks ahead about getting their service work done. Full timers like us, who cover a lot of miles and have tight schedules, know that you have to schedule service work sometimes months out to make it fit in with your schedule. Jeanie said that I was spot on with the three week window I told her we needed for getting the new microwave in. She said she waited several months for a Spartan part cause they had to make it first, then the holidays came and then they had to ship it. the manufacturers are competing their part inventory really tight, which sometimes hurts the consumer who has to wait for a part to arrive. Good thing that we don’t need many parts, although we do need a bracket for the ramp. I hope we don’t have to wait several days for that to come in. She said the approval of the warranty work would be the longest part of all of this. Thor tends to be a little slow with their approvals. She said we might be here several days. Sigh….Good thing we padded in this whole week for the work.
Temps were gorgeous today….supposed to be in the 60’s overnight.
Another chilly start to our day today. I had opened up the curtain around the front window and we were sitting around having breakfast. Boomer starts barking and is looking out the front window. Here stands this little black goat, looking at the rig, and around his neck, he’s got a red collar with a big cowbell on it. He stands there and looks at Boomer while he’s barking at him…Then he trots up the road. There’s hardly anyone here in the campground so I’m not sure where he came from or who he belongs to. Guess he was just out for his morning stroll. How cute… I got the flat tire plugged and filled with air, ready to go back on the car. Got cleaned up as we needed to go to Winston Salem. We had made a date with our friend, Ted to have lunch with him. Ted is a resident at the retirement community we managed and Linda would make his day when she’d give him a hug AFTER he’d say, at breakfast: “It’s a wonderful day at the old folks home.” We’ve been chatting with him, each month, since we left there and he’s so dear to us. Ted retired from the Air Force, after having spent 20+ years in Colorado. He loved hearing about all the areas we’d visit while we were out there in his home state. He came back to Winston because his daughter lives here. We’re going to get together again with him before we leave at the end of the month.
After lunch with Ted, we decided that we’d better get new tires on the car since I’ve plugged them at least three times now. They are pretty worn out ( my car has 214,000 miles on it), although not all of these miles on this set of tires. Ended up getting them at Discount Tire, after missing out on a set at Sam’s Club. I ran into Sam’s right before we needed to meet Ted for lunch and they only had four tires in stock to fit our car. By the time we left the restaurant and got back there, they had sold two of the four tires. So we went down the street to Discount Tire….only cost us $12 more than it would have at Sam’s but man, talk about a quick way to blow $500. They replaced our spare tire (the one that had never been used), with the best tire of the ones that came off the car since the spare was starting to show dry rot. Discount Tire is in quite a few of the states that we work around the country so we can get free tire rotations at any of their locations.
Bought a few of the “helper” shelves to help finish up our organization project in our cupboards. Everything is laid out nicely now…easy to get to and broken up into “food areas” and “work supplies”. Tomorrow I need to tidy up the garage a little bit. Things are getting a little out of hand there. Here’s some of the pictures I promised.
At this location we have Mondays and Tuesdays off so our work week is just getting underway. On Monday we went out to do some errands...got our propane tank filled up (is $30 here) and went to Sam's Club to get some office supplies. Seems we've been lucky that there's been a Sam's Club close to all the locations we've worked at as their office supplies are much cheaper than a Staples or Office Depot.
I think spring is in the air as there has been a lot of activity over the past week with move outs and move ins. Has kept us busy here plus there are two rental trucks at this location and it seems that both are going out every day, which is great. The extra truck that is here is one that Linda and I had gone out to pick up New Year's eve from one of the other sites. The managers, at this location, requested an extra truck and it's been a big help here. The second truck is a new one, as the previous one was demolished when someone tried to go through an overpass much too low for the truck. Yikes....word has it that it peeled the top off of it like a sardine can. This 15' box truck turned into a scrunched up piece of metal like a piece of aluminum foil. Today I spoke with the company that will have the graphics put on this truck. They can't apply them until the temperatures are consistently above 50 degrees or we risk the decals coming off. Since the 10 day forecast is calling for temps of 49 degrees or low 50's, it looks like it will be at least a couple of weeks until we get this truck covered with the Mini U decals.
We were told by the managers how much they enjoy shopping at the Stop and Shop grocery store, just a half a mile down the road. You can sign out a scanner so you can scan items as you put them in your cart ( you take bags with you and bag them as you go) and it will show you any discounted prices for the items you picked, give specials that only shoppers using scanners can take advantage of AND when you go to check out, your whole order is totaled and you're ready to go. Not only is this cool but the deli area has the most awesome Lobster Bisque. Oh my is this to die for ! The first ingredient is cream.....does that tell you how creamy and delicious it is ? I even discovered that they sell 24 oz tubs of it to take home. I had been buying it out of the soup crocks in take out soup containers. When I spoke to one of the deli ladies about the lobster bisque she said that is a huge hit and people come there everyday just for that. They have it most every day due to its popularity. Linda and I have to eat it in moderation though....a 12 oz bowl is around 550 calories.
We just learned tonight that there is a Chipotle Grill just a couple miles from here. We've never been to one of these but the founder was on Oprah tonight (probably an old show) and he spoke about his use of natural meats for his menu items. They buy meats that do not have antibiotics added and the animals were grown in a natural setting and not confined. This restaurant's feature on the show was part of her discussion about the movie, Food, Inc.
Here's an excerpt of what the movie is about: "In Food, Inc., filmmaker Robert Kenner lifts the veil on our nation's food industry, exposing the highly mechanized underbelly that has been hidden from the American consumer with the consent of our government's regulatory agencies, USDA and FDA. Our nation's food supply is now controlled by a handful of corporations that often put profit ahead of consumer health, the livelihood of the American farmer, the safety of workers and our own environment. We have bigger-breasted chickens, the perfect pork chop, herbicide-resistant soybean seeds, even tomatoes that won't go bad, but we also have new strains of E. coli—the harmful bacteria that causes illness for an estimated 73,000 Americans annually. We are riddled with widespread obesity, particularly among children, and an epidemic level of diabetes among adults."
I am aware of many of the atrocities that occur in the production of food but I was surprised at one thing I saw tonight. When chickens are given the antibiotics to make them grow fatter and faster, their skeletal structures can't grow fast enough to support them and they get so they can only walk a couple of steps and then they fall down. They are too big for their feet and legs to support them. It was really disgusting to see ! It's time for a food revolution in America !
We left Montgomery, TX this morning and drove about an hour to Demontrond RV to get our warranty items done. We are outside of Houston, just off I-45. The shop has closed for the day and we are in our rig, right outside of the garage door and are here with one other full timer couple….locked in for the night. Our service advisor gave us a key to the gate, in case we need to get out but we’re staying put. We went out earlier and went to Sam’s Club, which is only 3 miles from here. This RV service shop is huge. There must be 8 or 10 rigs parked on either side of us. Jeanie, our service advisor said that 22 rigs came in last week, without appointments. Wow ! She said it gets like that every year as spring break looms near. No one thinks ahead about getting their service work done. Full timers like us, who cover a lot of miles and have tight schedules, know that you have to schedule service work sometimes months out to make it fit in with your schedule. Jeanie said that I was spot on with the three week window I told her we needed for getting the new microwave in. She said she waited several months for a Spartan part cause they had to make it first, then the holidays came and then they had to ship it. the manufacturers are competing their part inventory really tight, which sometimes hurts the consumer who has to wait for a part to arrive. Good thing that we don’t need many parts, although we do need a bracket for the ramp. I hope we don’t have to wait several days for that to come in. She said the approval of the warranty work would be the longest part of all of this. Thor tends to be a little slow with their approvals. She said we might be here several days. Sigh….Good thing we padded in this whole week for the work.
