Florida, Jacksonville - Thursday, January 16, 2014 - Rivers RV Service

We have a working refrigerator!!!!! 

We were in the service line first thing this morning and it took until 4:30, but it looks like we are going to be out of here tomorrow.  We have to stick around until tomorrow to make sure everything is working ok, but I just peeked and it’s getting cold.

We’ve spent two days sitting in the customer service lounge here at Rivers RV and one thing we have discovered is that we are really quiet people.  I know, some of you may have trouble picturing that, but we’ve listened to a few really outspoken and loud couples.  After listening to a guy in there today, I turned to Greg and said, “I am so lucky”.

We’ve been around here so long the employees here are starting to feel like family and we appreciate all they have done for us, but we are hoping the fridge is still working in the morning so we can head to Tampa for the RV Super Show.

Florida, Jacksonville - Wednesday, January 15, 2014 - Rivers RV Service

I was too disappointed to write yesterday.  The part didn’t show up in Jacksonville as promised.  We could see that it made it to Atlanta, but that is where it stopped.  Once again Greg spent most of the day on the phone with Norcold (the shipper) and YRC (the trucking company) trying to find out what went wrong this time.

It seems the shipping department at Norcold put the wrong shipping code on it so the trucking company didn’t know it was an overnight shipment.  I swear the level of incompetency at Norcold is beyond anything I have ever seen.  We’ve already researched the names of the higher ups at Norcold so I can write a scathing letter once this whole fiasco is over.  We also looked up the higher ups at Dometic, which is Norcold’s competitor, I think they might get a letter also so they will know how bad their competitor is doing.  Believe me we looked to see if a Dometic fridge would fit in our space without having to do a lot of remodeling.

This afternoon did bring good news.  The part arrived here at the service center about 2:30 this afternoon and it is the right one.  We are scheduled to get it installed first thing in the morning.  Keep your fingers crossed that nothing else goes wrong.  It’s officially been two months since this started on November 14.

Florida, Jacksonville - Saturday, January 11, 2014 - Rivers RV Service

Today started out perfectly.  I slept late, had breakfast and then walked up to the dealership and enjoyed a cup of fresh coffee on their canopied patio with the palm trees blowing gently.  The temperature was 72 degrees.

Around lunch time I told Greg I would like to order a pizza and have it on the patio since the weather was so nice.  We got to thinking about the last time we had ordered pizza – when was it?  We both agreed we had been in a hotel and the last time we were in a hotel was last May when we went to Washington DC with Indiana Rolling Thunder Chapter 1.  Pizza places would go out of business if they had to depend on us!!

By the time Greg had called in the order and we received delivery, the wind had picked up to the point that it would have blown the pizza off the table on the patio, so we took it back to the coach.  After that the weather turned down right nasty, lots of wind and rain.

But the afternoon wasn’t totally wasted, I found some interesting RV related posts on Pinterest so I spent a couple of hours looking at them.  I told Greg I was doing “research”, somehow I don’t think he believed me J. 

Florida, Jacksonville - Friday, January 10, 2014 - Rivers RV Repair

We left Pecan Park RV Resort early this morning.  After a fortifying breakfast at Cracker Barrel thanks to a gift card we got for Christmas, we headed back to Rivers RV Service to get our fridge fixed.  We had been following the shipment of the part all week.  We could see it was in Jacksonville, our hopes were high.

When they opened up the box we had the same part we had the last time – the wrong one.  Greg put in a full day’s work making his way up the ladder at Norcold until it seems we might have an answer (although we aren’t holding our breath).  It seems that way back in November whoever looked up the part at Norcold, looked up the wrong number for our year and model of fridge.  So the original repair service we used ordered the wrong part number based on that info from Norcold.  Then as our claim progressed, this wrong parts number still kept coming up even though we were sending them the serial number of the fridge, the number on the old part and pictures of what the old part looks like.  But, by the time somebody at Norcold realized what the real problem was, the shipping department had gone home for the weekend.

Rivers RV does have a small area where RVs can hook up so we are staying here.  Last week Greg tried to get the people at Norcold to send the part overnight but they said the trucking company they used couldn’t do that.  Greg comes from the trucking industry and today he finally got through that it was possible and Norcold is now supposed to be shipping the part on Monday (with a new carrier) and it is supposed to be here Tuesday.   If the part gets here and is installed on Tuesday, we will stay until Wednesday to make sure it is working properly.

On Thursday we plan on going to Tampa for a big RV show they are having there.  We are going to try to get into Tampa South RV Resort and spend at least a couple of weeks there.  This park is owned by some people we know from the trucking industry so it would be nice to see what they have going on there.

We’ve cancelled our reservation for the campground in Palmdale Florida where we were supposed to stay for January and February.  We still plan on being down around Lake Okeechobee in March and April where we have reservations.  For the rest of January and February we plan to just play it by ear and stop where we take a notion.  I think we are both tired of being tied down by this parts fiasco and just want to wander for a bit.

Florida, Jacksonville - Thursday, January 2, 2014 - Elite Resorts, Clermont

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO EVERYONE!!

I’ve been a bit lax in getting my posts out, but we’ve been having such a good time with the kids and grandkids.  This morning they all took off to get back home. 

Right now we are back in Jacksonville at Rivers RV – guess what, the part for our refrigerator is in!!!!  We will be pulling into the service area first thing in the morning hopefully to get our fridge up and running again.  It’s raining here, so we are inside just being lazy.

We left the Elite Resort in Clermont, FL this morning, we enjoyed our stay there.

 

This is where we stayed for the week.

 

 

The park is very well kept.

Since we spent all of our time at the kids’ condo, we didn’t have time to take advantage of the amenities the park had to offer.  While we were here they had a breakfast, an ice cream social and a New Year’s Eve party.  We found out those folks do like to celebrate New Year’s Eve – lots of fireworks and firecrackers going off in the campground.  I was a little surprised that they allowed this because otherwise it is a very quiet, upscale, gated community.

On New Year’s Eve Papaw Jack Crosley treated everyone to a wonderful meal at Johnnie’s Hideaway in Orlando.  Yesterday we all went to the Sea Dog restaurant, the food was good but it took forever to be served.

I just spent some time reading through some of the blogs written by other fulltime or wanna be fulltime RVers.  It made me realize how very lucky we are to have the support of our family to pursue this dream of ours.  When we announced to our blended family of five children, eight grandchildren and one great grandchild, that we were selling everything and traveling fulltime, I do think some of them were surprised.  But, once they realized we had thought everything through I think they were as excited about it as we were.  Not a one of them made us feel guilty for “leaving them” like some of the stories I just read. 

We’ve been so blessed that all of our children have grown up into very responsible, hard-working adults who are great parents and people in their own right.  They all have their own lives and they know that we will be there for them if they need us, but we expect and they live up to our expectations of taking care of themselves and their families.

Modern technology allows us to keep in touch with our kids and grandkids through Facebook, Face time and frequent phone calls.  Our blog probably allows them to know more about what we are doing than they did when we were home in Indiana.  Our travel allows us to spend quality time with them since they all left home and spread out from Kansas to Washington, D.C.

Our children have become more than the children who used to depend on us, now they have become wonderful friends - and, we are very grateful for their support.