~Monday, December 14, 2020~
Day 183 (Travel Day)
Hugs and kisses and we’re on our way. Another long travel day. Boy, are we looking forward to a few days of rest once we get settled in somewhere. Flitting around is exhausting. Plus, it’s nice to just be in one spot during the Holidays.
As we were leaving Del Mar and driving to Riverside, Jeff decided to tell me about some mishaps with the trailer that he found out about last Friday. He didn’t want me to be upset all weekend, so waited, which I appreciate. Apparently, Lance sent Richardson’s RV the wrong style of countertop which would have meant that ALL of our countertops would have to be changed in the RV to match, i.e. hearth, bathroom, and desk. Unbelievable this was not checked by Lance with the Vin # to see exactly what finishes we had in our trailer before they shipped it out. Apparently, they no longer make our counter style. The solution…..keep the counter we have and caulk it ourselves. When we originally had the new counter ordered, we had problems with the counter being warped and bubbled near the sink area. It has since improved as we are very careful to keep the space between the sink and counter dry. It appears that Lance never caulked it. Lance definitely dropped the ball in caulking a lot of things correctly on our model.
Then, Richardson’s made the mistake by not listening to “their customer” (me) in the first place, when I said that the stainless steel panel on the refrigerator front was not the right size. They said all along that it just wasn’t installed correctly on the last repair. Well, we were right about it being too small. Ugh, they could have had the new one ordered and installed during all these other repairs. So now they have to ship a new one to us in Florida where we’ll be next month. Next, we found out they were just putting in the new shelf today (the day we are picking up the trailer), with the probability that more things could go wrong, thus more delays. They’ve had the shelf for over a month, and our trailer for a week and made this the last item on their list to repair? This is THE item that has given us the biggest headache since we bought the trailer.
As the clock was ticking and it looked like we weren’t leaving the dealership anytime soon, I decided to take it upon myself to find the stovetop bumpers and grommet replacements from Dometic that I’ve asked Richardson’s to track down for over 2 weeks now. Richardson’s told me earlier in the day, that I would have to buy the stove grate and grommets together (around $100). We’re talking about the tiniest little replacement part (the size of a pea), and they can’t just send me replacements for those? I’m sure people have to replace these all of the time. As I find it shocking that we can put a man on the moon and now Mars, I can’t get the tiniest part on the trailer?? Since I never take “no” for an answer, I called Dometic customer service myself and what do you know, I’m getting them in 5 days. The cost……$20 (minimum charge with UPS) instead of $100. She told me she didn’t understand why they were telling me I had to buy the whole thing. We certainly know by now with all of the things we’ve had to sort out with Ford and Lance on this trip, that the squeaky wheel gets the grease AND it all depends on WHO you talk to.
As we leave the dealership with most of the repairs completed (see video), we have only a few items left…..refrigerator front and new blind. Since we were so delayed (3 hours), we came up with a Plan B which was to stay at Rancho Jurupa RV Park for the night, only 10 miles from the dealership. We’ve stayed there before, early on in the trip (about 6 months ago) when we dropped off the trailer for repairs on another occasion. Well, it sounded like a great idea, except this park and all state parks are now closed as of 1 week ago, due to COVID spikes. Surprising, but not surprising. I had to call Diamond J RV Park in Tucson, to tell them that we would be there tonight after all, not the following night. Ultimately, I guess we’ll be driving the 420 mile trek to Tucson arriving around midnight. Ugh! Projected driving time is about 6-½ hours, but towing the trailer is more like 8 since we’re keeping to 60 mph.
Jeff took the first leg of the trip, which ended up being the worst of the entire drive due to all of the road construction. We were already pretty exhausted with all of the driving and packed schedules we had in California. When we finally arrived in Tucson, it didn’t take long for us to figure out that we’d be crazy to get up at 7:30 to drive another 450 miles to get to Carlsbad Caverns before dark. Not happening. We needed just one day to reboot.
Since we arrived so late to Diamond J, we kept setup to the bare minimum to avoid waking the neighbors and wanting to get to bed ASAP….just water hookups for tonight. What a day! Are you exhausted yet?