"if you are not living on the edge, you are taking up too much room"

Friday, July 13, 2012

Good days

I was thinking the other day about what we were doing a year ago. Rudee had just been laid off from her company and I was working as a Field Appraiser for a major insurance company. Like most people I was "working for the week end" and really only had two "good days" per week. I was pretty miserable and needed a change.
Fast forward to this year and just about every day is a good day! Sure we still have to work but the stress is a whole lot less. Rudee mentioned the other day that she is finally able to grow some fingernails instead of biting them off as a stress relief in our old life.
We will never get rich in this lifestyle (unless we happen to win the lottery) but we were not getting rich in our old lifestyle either and life seems much "simpler" these days.

The campground has been a little slower this week and the temperatures have finally started dropping a little bit, still no rain but at least it's cooler :-).
A new set of work campers arrived Monday. Blaine and Lori are doing their first work camping gig and are from Northern Indiana. They have been retired for a couple of years and were looking for a change. They are even considering staying and working this winter and next summer as well.
We, on the other hand, have only another 11 weeks to go to fulfill our obligation here. Many fulltimers talk about getting "hitch itch" when they have stayed in an area for awhile. Some only last a few days until the road begins to call their names again. We have been pretty content to sit for awhile, get some work camping experience as well as some projects completed. Lately though I have been checking the atlas and doing some research on RV parks that we may visit when we leave here. Yep, the dreaded "hitch itch" is starting! :-).

Last evening while working a very large King of the Road 3 axle 5th wheel pulled into the driveway and stopped at the office. The gentleman went inside and shortly afterwards Rudee called me on the radio and asked me to come in and help him find an electrical cord.
I went in and he said he had just purchased the camper used from a dealer and needed a cord to plug into electricity. The trailer was 50amp and had a twist on receptacle on the side. He said the dealer told him there was no cord that came with the 5th wheel even though they had it plugged in and showed him everything worked. I had him double check all of his compartments since he said he had not looked in any of them yet. Some were locked and the dealer had not even given him one of the common 751 keys that unlock all the outside compartments on almost every pre-2008 5th wheel! Most dealers have a box full of these keys!
I unlocked the compartments for him with my key and of course no cord. We did not have anything in the store to help him and since it was late the closest RV dealerships were closed. I felt bad we couldn't help them and their kids were disappointed when they turned around to leave :-(.
Sounds like the dealer he bought it from really took him for a ride. He did mention the dealer sold mostly used and repo units which is no excuse, but it sure looks like he took advantage of this young, inexperienced couple. What a putz this dealer must be to not even give the guy the cord to plug his camper into power! Unfortunately I forgot to ask what the dealerships name was. The couple was from Illinois so I assume so was the dealer ...... sad.

We will be attending our youngest grand daughters birthday party Saturday afternoon and will be bringing home our oldest grand daughter to stay a few days. She is too young to work in the cafe like Nicholas did but I'm sure we will have some fun after Grandma and Papaw get off work. I'll keep you posted.

2 comments:

  1. Like you and Rudee, we do not miss our old "Day Jobs". Lets enjoy what we have :-).

    ReplyDelete
  2. We also don't miss our former jobs at all. Our stress level has been considerably reduced. Funny, I've quit biting my fingernails too :)

    ReplyDelete