Finishing up!

We hope tomorrow will be our last day for the repair bays here at Red Bay, Al.  But they also said we would be done today too.

We are done in the repair bays as we did not have an appointment, so we only got 3 hours of actual repair.  Waiting to get into a repair bay is now about a 5 week wait.  They did get most of our stuff fixed in the three hour period that we were allowed.  They call that an "Express" visit.

Our dealer had worked on a bunch of our concerns, but it seems that there are always new things.  They replaced that awful LP CO detector that has beeped since we bought the rig, and it has been quiet ever since it was installed.  A lot of the stuff they did had to do with fixing stuff that we managed to break.  Oh, they replaced a window, and our power sun visors too.

The reason that we decided to come here and brave out the waiting, was that our windshield had popped out of the fiberglass frame on the top of the front.  I did not feel that anyone other than the factory would know how to put it back into the rubber mount.  Or worse they would break it trying and I would have to purchase a new glass for around $1,700.  It was considered an emergency repair and they took that in right away too.

Additionally we had a broken board in the center TV.  They took that to their appliance shop and had it fixed in about 2 hours.  I was much relieved.

As you loyal readers know, we had issues with a trailer that got away from our control, and I used the coach to force it into the curb and keep it from rolling down a hill and into the desert.  That left some scrapes near the door on the passenger side.  We also had scrapes on the back, where a mail box in Arizona jumped out in back of the rig while I was backing into our site in Mesa.  The campground guy directed me right over the box.  But still I should have known it was happening.

But most of our time was spent re doing the front where numerous rock chips and dings had left chips in the paint.  We had a sealer coating that was over the paint, but it was no where near up to the task.  Somehow, the windshield guy hand carried our ticket over to the paint shop and got us in.  I don't  pretend to know how this all worked, and I'm not asking.  There are still folks that are waiting to get in that have been here longer than us.  So if they take a liking to you and you are not nasty about your problems or to the staff, that will go a long way!

Tomorrow we are having a thin plastic wrap like shield applied over the new paint on the front.  It will be most of a grand to get done, but compared to all the paint work, it will be cheap.  This is called Diamond Shield, and comes with a guarantee of three years as to chipping or marring of the new paint.

So if we get chips, they will pay to get the places redone.  I think the insurance feature of this is probably about half of the price.

With some luck, we will then be done for now in Red Bay.  Depending on the time that they finish, we will either opt to leave, or actually pay the $10 for another night, and leave on Wednesday.  We have had no camping fees for our stay here so far.

Our appointment is for 10 AM, so we have a much more civilized schedule in the morning!

Retired Rod