Tuesday: We’ve REALLY been living life in pencil – again! I’ve made several road trip plans, and we’re currently on only a piece of one of the plans, and we truly have no idea where we will be one week from today. 🤷♀️. This is me using my pencil and eraser about equal time on our calendar, pretty much like chopsticks.
Recap: Nitro is our 5th wheel toy hauler trailer, and its front window is cracked and it leaks. We had RV One (RVO) in Tampa look at it two months ago on January 3. They submitted the issue to the manufacturer, Forest River (FR), as a warranty claim. FR agreed that it is a warranty issue. YAY! They instructed RVO to get installation bids to submit for approval, which they did, but FR wasn’t willing to pay for the “high” installation labor charges in Tampa. So RVO got more bids and found a place in Sebring Florida that FR approved. Navigation Note: RVO is 90 miles north of where Nitro lives. Sebring is 90 miles East of where Nitro lives. Logistical pain in the butt, because WE have to go get the window in Tampa and take it to Sebring to have the replacement done! 😏
The window was ordered and finally showed up at RVO in mid February. At this point, we were running low on time, because we wanted to leave on our cross-country trip on March 7. We asked if we could just pay the difference between the Sebring price and the “Too Much” price in Tampa, to save time and travel. Come to find out, the difference is only $300!!! I guess our fuel and time running around Florida costs don’t get figured into the equation from FR’s point of view! So RVO had to resubmit our request for approval, and FR finally agreed, but then the installation place in Tampa couldn’t get us in until mid-March. GRR! OK FINE! So we asked if the crate would fit in the bed of the truck so we wouldn’t have to drag the trailer up there to get it, and were told that yes – it would. We took the truck to Tampa and picked up the crate with the window in in on Friday February 24. We took it directly to Nitro (he lives in Venice in a cow field/RV storage facility), and we gently loaded the crate into Nitro and strapped it down securely. We went home and prepared for a short camping trip to Sebring. Fortunately, the installation place in Sebring said they would let us stay in the trailer in their parking lot, and they even have hookups! So we loaded Nitro with food and bedding and stuff and headed to Sebring on Monday. We were scheduled for installation on Tuesday, but they said if we got there before noon on Monday, they could probably do it Monday, then we could spend the night and let it seat and seal really good, and we could be on our way Tuesday. Sounded great! We got there about 10:00am on Monday, unloaded the crate, opened it, and the window was broken. AGHHHH! ARE YOU KIDDING?! 😖.
See the spray of cracks going from the center right of the picture spraying out to left? (It’s a little hard to see, because the window was reflecting the ceiling.) Great. Just Great! NOW WHAT?!
Kenny got on the phone with RVO. They claim that their parts people opened the crate to inspect the window. Well, if they did, they were incredibly magical about it, because there was NO evidence that this crate had ever been opened. The repair place confirmed the same with RVO. OK, moving on. RVO got in touch with FR, and FR will send another window. (I guess we’re probably pretty lucky, because we can’t prove that it was broken when we took possession of it.) Nobody has any idea how long it is going to take to get another window. We spent the night there in Sebring, hoping we might get more information in the morning. All RVO would say was that they requested that it be rush shipped as fast as possible. (I will say that RVO has been diligent and communicative. They are kind of stuck in the middle as a FR Warranty Service provider because they aren’t doing any of the work.) The window can only be sent to RVO in Tampa, not to the window installation place in Sebring. So sometime in the future we’re going to have to go back to Tampa and then back to Sebring – AGAIN! But we will not accept the window in Tampa without looking at it ourselves FIRST! GRRRRR. This drama has yet to be resolved. That all happened over a week ago, and we still know nothing about timing for the new window.
Now- on to potential delay number two. Kenny had a cancerous tumor removed from his bladder back in 2019, and underwent a type of chemo for a couple of months that spring. Since then, he has had a bladder scope procedure done with the urologist every three to six months. Last fall, a small irregular looking area was found, so through a series of MRI, scope, biopsy, urine lab, tests, etc., the doctor decided it should be removed. The biopsy showed that it was ‘irregular’ cells. So Ken had that surgery to remove the irregular-ness last week on Thursday March 2. The pathology report from the surgery showed that it was the same kind of non-invasive cancer as before. Oh boy. His post surgery follow-up with the doctor was a tele-conference scheduled for today (Tuesday).
Between these two wrenches that have been thrown into the plans, our dilemma was – do we travel to Atlanta this week? We told our friend Scotty that we would come help pit crew for him at the SCCA races in Atlanta, especially because he’s short handed for this race. Also, our friends Sherry & Alan from SeaJamm (2018 Looper friends) made reservations to meet us next Monday at a campground northeast of Atlanta for a couple of days. We really don’t want to cancel all of those promises and things that we really want to do based on a handful of unknowns! So – we decided to just go to Atlanta. Anything that needs to happen medically, won’t happen in the next week anyway. And we have no whisper of a window yet. We decided that if we have to come back to Florida and stay, that’s what we’ll do. Until we know differently, we decided to go play as planned.
Back to scheduled pencil programming: We’ve slowly been loading Nitro getting him ready to go for the summer. We may not be coming home until October, right? Last week we got Kawi all loaded in and ready to go. He’s been at home getting some maintenance done. It’s a little bit of an ordeal anytime we need to move him, because we can’t get Nitro safely into our neighborhood due to it’s height. So, we rent a trailer from U-Haul whenever we need to move Kawi between home and Nitro. Whew!
This morning we just had to load a few more things, including the refrigerator/freezer and we were on our way by 9:00. I routed us to a rest-area to stop at noon for the phone call with the doctor, and away we went. We made it to the rest area just before the phone call.
The results are that we can continue on our trip, and the doctor will see Ken in early November. YAYY!!! Yes- there were some cancerous cells found, but at this point, the doc was not concerned that anything needed to be done immediately based on how much tissue he removed and how small the percentage of cancerous cells were. SWEET! WHEW!! Alright. Party On!
We continued on our way to our stop for the night, which is a ‘Harvest Host’ in Adel Georgia (pronounced AY-dell); The Horse Creek Winery. With our annual Harvest Host membership, we get to park overnight for free, if we’ll patronize the organization providing the parking spot. Not a problem!
When we pulled into the parking lot, there were these two white geese/duck birds that would not move out of the way! I got out and tried to shoo them, and they still wouldn’t move! They just stood there, wagging their tails and jabbering. I think that they think that they are dogs! It cracked me up! They were obviously happy to see us, and it kind of seemed like I should have reached down to pet them the way they were behaving.
We got all parked and relaxed for a bit, but it was pretty warm and sweaty, so we decided to go inside to the air conditioning. We needed to spend $20 anyway, right? We each had a wine flight of four flavors for $10/each. The majority of their wines utilize the famous southern Muscadine grape. It was a tasty refreshment after a long anxious day.
We had a short spell of rain while we were inside, and that made everything outside all steamy. We had to turn on our generator and air conditioning for awhile. There were two other rigs parked, but our gen didn’t bother anybody. They were also running theirs, and it was quite noisy outside anyway because we were right off of the Interstate freeway.
There was fog rising from the ground and it was really eerie but pretty.
It was kind of an anxious day, but tomorrow we’ll continue on to the racetrack and get about the business of race cars.