Monday Evening.
Picked up another Chance Card!
Bates RV had said they would put the Trailer onto our site at Tampa East (next door to them). But they didn’t. Oops!
We had to deploy a back up bonus card and stay at a local motel for the night. Motel 6
Not bad, this meant we were forced to go to the Waffle House for breakfast. Surprisingly it was quite yummy. They cooked the food right there in front of you and though it was simple it was good.
Fortified by breakfast we entered the fray at Bates RV.
What ensued there could so easily be full of meaningful detail, but would probably appear quite trite. Sufficient to say that we were underwhelmed by their communication skills and organisational capability. The trouble is that the people who work in the Service Department are really very nice. But their receptionists cannot remember to pass on messages. Their body shop workers, while keeping themselves in a job by damaging panels of our trailer against a wall could not actually fix all the parts, leaving work to be done on the repair, because he forgot that he had damaged one of the trims at the same time. Doh!. They have an ordering system by which given a choice of two sofa’s to replace, because of faulty upholstery material, cannot, even after writing it down about four times, order the correct one! So we have a brand new sofa to replace the one which was not damaged. But they are now going to have to chase us up country to replace the defective one. But a work record system which lost our snagging list about three times, leaving them asking us what they were supposed to be doing! But bless them, they do try. Linda, the manager, when we told her what had happened (she, being the manager said, and I can believe it, she knew nothing of the arrangement to place the trailer at Tampa East, even though we had made the arrangement with her in December. She wondered why we had not phoned on the Monday to remind them. I pointed out that we could have phoned at 5.00 in the morning when we took off from Manchester, but felt that no one would be really interested at that time. We had phoned on the Friday and spoken to Richard (he’s the one that looks like the guy in ‘fifty first date’, is it Adam Sandler?) to remind him. He said OK sure thing, no trouble.) So he is not in on Tuesday (can you blame him), so Linda phones him and says “I have Mr and Mrs Phillippe here, they want to tell you how much they enjoyed staying in a motel last night”. Truthfully though, they did refund our motel cost, which was nice. Meanwhile, this all happened in Linda’s office, and a dear sweet receptionist, who kept saying that Linda was bearable after a good cup of coffee (I am not sure who was supposed to drink the coffee), was trying to calm the waters by making everyone (well Linda really) a coffee, also in her office, however having the standard skills of a BatesRV receptionist, she had no idea how to make ground coffee, so half way through our conversation we could see the coffee boil over, flooding the desk, wall and floor of Linda’s office with strong coffee and grounds, which when we pointed it out to them took three technicians (RV menders really) and a receptionist to stop the flood. French Farce was one theme that kept passing through my brain. We went out to the trailer and went through the snagging list again, and admired the nice new ladder they had fitted. It is strongly attached to the back bumper, the rear walls of the trailer and the roof itself (this was nice and they had done it very cheaply for us. You don’t realise how much of a comfort it is to know that I can get up on the roof now, I certainly sleep easier). One of them tested it first and it seemed OK, so we were happy with that. Good job done.
Anyway, we seem to have got most things sorted out (apart from the sofa which will be delivered some time in March, oh and the electric hot water heater (which died on us in October, which after several hours of them saying “it works” and us saying “it doesn’t” they admitted had been recalled and we would get a new one anyway), which they will refit at the same time). So we said a temporary goodbye and took the trailer on round to Tampa East RV.
As we were just leaving one of the guys, Billy, who is very nice and seems to know what he is talking about, came over somewhat sheepishly over, though I figured he came to say goodbye (because they are all right neighbourly) carrying a nice new sewer hose kit, nice red one, with the 90 degree bend and two lengths of hose that clip together, still in its box. I said “Hi Billy, we are just off, we’ll see you. Do you know we’ve got a sewer hose just like that one”. He said “Yep, I know that, this one is for you, because, you see, as we were fitting the ladder we had to drill through the bumper to fix the ladder to it”. What, good readers from England, you may not know, but which every RV’er in the States knows, (except apparently those who fit ladders to the rear of RV’s) is that the rear bumper is hollow and you use it to store your sewer hose. So we now have a brand new sewer hose, unfortunately at the moment we can’t store it in the correct place because there are 2 large bolts stopping us putting it away.
So today (Wed) as we are packing up to leave, Good Old Matt arrives with a piece of trim (you remember the trim?), which he has lovingly removed from another Starcraft Trailer, and proceeds to fit it while we are packing away. Still, job done!
Moving on to Sertoma
We packed up our trailer and have moved on to Sertoma Youth Ranch. Some loyal readers may remember that we stayed here last November for the Thanksgiving Bluegrass Meet and then stayed on to join The Soggy Bottom Bluegrass Bunch. We have now returned to join in with their Hog Roast Weekend.
While on the road we saw a fascinating sight. We stopped for lunch at a roadside pull in, a bit like a motorway service centre, but with no petrol station or café. Very similar to the Aires they have on French motorways.
We stopped in the truck section, so that it is easy to park. We were close by a couple of low loaders, each with half a large mobile home on them. As we stopped we noticed that there was a pick up truck which was stopped off the paved area, half hidden in the dense undergrowth and trees. It seemed a strange place to leave a truck. In fact we both commented on it at the same time. As we sat there the driver of one of the trucks and a woman came round from behind the mobile home. They threw there arms up and ran for the truck. It seems that they had got out of the truck and walked away without putting the brakes on. The truck had rolled away, over the edge of the car park and off into the trees. Fortunately nothing but their pride was damaged. They looked very sheepish as they reversed the truck out, clearing braches and leaves from the front. The only casualty was the big flag they have to carry on the front bumper. The pole was badly bent and the flag had ripped off in the undergrowth. This made for a very entertaining lunch.
We arrived at Sertoma in good time and were greeted enthusiastically by Karen, the manager, who greeted us like long lost friends. Yes, it is nice to be back.
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