8-5-08 Tuesday (When does the fun start?)

We woke up at about 6:30am, and although camping world doesn't open until 8am there was still someone there bright and early to open the parts department. It was strange (probably for them too) to sit outside the RV at 6:30am, having a cigarette, coffee and diet coke in hand as some lady walked by with a bag of trash. I felt somewhat like trash.

We got on the road at 8 and arrived at Florida Spring and Axle on MLK as was recommended by the Camping World guy. Jim knew the guy which made it a little easier. So when will you have it ready? 2:30 or 3. Great, what do we do without a our home on wheels? We took the Jeep and drove to the vet. Dasher had a 3:30 appt, so we asked if we could get in early. They told us 10:50 so we still had time to kill. We went up to McDonald's where they had a dog area within a fence, we finished and still had time to kill so waited at the vet's. After that we shopped at Bestbuy with giftcard in hand and the dog in the shopping cart (he wasn't pleased, I assure you). We went to my mom's (JoAnn) for a couple of hours then my Aunt Donna's house then by 3pm the RV was ready. We picked it up, ($800 later) drove back to Camping World to leave the Cherokee with them so they could install the tow bar tomorrow. (We later found that somehow Jim had the damn keys so it's back to them tomorrow to deliver them!) We'll take the BMW to deliver them.) We drove to the nearby weigh station at Pilot where we found the RV was within the manufacturer's limits. YAY!

Back to Fort Myers to get gas. Second time in a row the gas pump didn't have a long hose. Jim had to backup to reach it. After the gas, I DROVE IT back to The Groves RV park. It was nerve wracking, it's hard to accelerate, it's hard to stop all that weight and its hard to judge the lanes. I pulled it into the park, and got the damn thing in near perfect position on the site. I was proud.

Oh, side note about the $800 bill. We have a service contract but with a $500 per visit deductible. They would only pay for calipers but not the pads or rotors since it was "consequential damage to a non-covered item". Jim was ready to cancel it but being in the automotive industry the coverage didn't surprise me. Besides, the policy covers towing and hotel. Could be handy.