Day 1 : Call Coach-Net

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“If you’re not living on the edge, you’re taking up too much space.”

We had been busy saying our goodbyes over the last few days.  Tammi’s out of town but we visited with her last weekend.  Then, Wednesday we gave hugs and said our goodbyes to Sandi and Michael.  Thursday we gave the hugs and said our goodbyes to Lee, Sabrina and Jordie.  All we had left was to actually head south.  It’s always sad to leave.  I have so many mixed emotions.  I know they have their own lives.  That’s how we raised them but we really love being a part of it.  So, we’re just taking a vacation.

The day started off okay.  We had no intentions of getting on the road early.  We had the trailer to hook up and we just dawdled a bit.  We planned to wait until Portland’s morning work traffic was history.  Then I took a step on one of those plastic lids and slid across the floor in the motorhome.  Where did I land?  My ribs connected with the corner of a wall.  OUCH!  Black and blue doesn’t become me. 

Traffic was fine and before you know it we were parked at the outlet mall’s parking lot in Woodburn …. about 70 miles south.  I can probably honestly say it’s the only in my life when we actually parked at a huge outlet mall that I never even walked in one store …. honest, I didn’t.  HONEST!

Just in case you’re curious … no, gray hair doesn’t run in our family.  Bob got it all!

The idea of parking there was just to get a good spot for the motorhome and trailer while we went around the corner with my brother (Bob) and his wife (Ginny)  to Elmer’s for an early lunch.  By the time we left the restaurant we were thankful we didn’t have any particular place we planned on being that day since we chatted for a very long time.

 

As I said thank goodness we had no plans because the next thing I knew Terry was off to the side of the road. It wasn’t actually a  blow out he had.  Blow outs blow.  Right?  This was a disintegration.  An inside rear tire just came apart.  Coach-Net was needed.  Three hours later ….. we were on our way again.  Yep, that’s right three hours!!  It took the driver 2 hours to get from his place of business to our location ….. 11.2 miles away.  Then, it took another hour to fix us up.  Coach-Net does good service. The customer service agent called around to find a tire for a fair price. The problem wasn’t getting Coach-Net out. The problem was getting the tire company in Salem on the ball.

Do you know how tired you can get sitting on the side of the road like that?  It’s exhausting.  I felt like I was the one who changed that tire.  My brother, Bob, and SIL, Ginny, just happened to be passing by on the way to the Verizon store.  We had company for those three hours.  Out came the chairs.  Thank goodness it was a beautiful day with no rain, very little wind and a beautiful blue sky.  The only thing we didn’t care for was the noisy freeway.  Terry suggested we close our eyes and think of it as waves crashing on the beach.  We did.  It didn’t work.

 

We paid the fellow $$$$ in cash for the tire.  He took the cash but was a little bewildered when I asked for a receipt for the cash he was now holding in his hand.  He said if we needed a receipt we had to follow him to his place of business.    Of course, he already had cash in hand.   With an inverter it wasn’t difficult to grab his work order, scan it and print us a copy so that he could sign the receipt for the cash that was already in his pocket. 

Finally we were on the road again.  We didn’t get far.  Our daily total was under 150 miles.  It took us eight hours to go that far.  Traveling in the dark is not our cup of tea.  Thus, we needed a place to stop.  That we did.  It’s amazing how tired we were there.  I think sitting on the side of the road and stressing is far more exhausting than driving down the road.    No blog reading and very little computer for me.  It was almost straight to the sack.  We literally crashed at 7:30.

We have an appointment to check out a little toy.  We’re not so sure we’re going to make that as planned. It seems we rarely stick to plans. The adventure today caused a hiccup but we hoped the next day would be an uneventful day.  Well, it wasn’t so much.  It started off with a peek out the window and checking out the trailer.  It seems we had a visitor overnight that decided some of the things on our trailer would be better off in his possession than in ours.  After cutting our bungees ….. he borrowed a few items.  For some reason I doubt he will have the courtesy to return them.

That was Day 1 ….. more on our trip south in our next blog.

‘Tis life on the road.