it's been a Whirlwind!

Wow what a difference a change of scenery makes. Last week we left the giggle weeds of the Texas oil fields. Our days there consisted of hour upon hour of monotony checking vehicles in and out of the gate. This past week we have tried to catch up with family and friends plus take care of the business and errands we need before heading for the summer to South Dakota. Needless to say, we have been a couple of busy folks.
Thursday morning we were up early and headed the 300 miles to Barberton, Ohio where our Mighty Hauler Motorcycle Lift was built. We were returning it because the steel plates were tearing and the lift was ready to fall off the back of the motor home taking the bike and our towed car with it! They had agreed to return the $$'s I paid for the unit but refused to return the money I paid them for their labor to install it or the costs we incurred for us to get the bike back home and the lift to them. We arrived just after noon and met with Joe the owner. He very briefly looked at the lift and said he would unload it with the fork lift. He gave me a check for the part price and I explained we were still out well over $1200 because of the failure of the lift. He told me he was not liable for any of that because they could not control how the lifts were used once they left his factory. I explained it was used exactly for what it was designed to be used for, showing him pictures of our set up and asking him what he thought could have caused the lift to fail. He still refused and said he was "doing us a favor" by returning our purchase price and said he had no idea why the lift failed and said maybe we "slammed on our brakes too hard". Really??!! I mean you have to be kidding me, right!!?? We presented him with the receipt for the U-haul trailer and after some discussion reluctantly agreed to pay for those fees and wrote us another check. Once the lift was taken from the truck I told him I was giving him one last chance to do the right thing by us and return all the money we paid him, once again he refused saying he was "entitled" to the $800 labor cost because they welded two additional receiver tubes to our hitch and I could get the use out those. I have no idea how I would ever put those to use and, frankly, they make the rear of the motor home look worse than before so I don't see any advantage to having them.
We left it at that and I will explore some options through Good Sam and of course let everyone know just what happened to us and how this company responded to our issues. The Internet is a powerful tool and I am thinking the company has the potential to lose a lot more than my $800 in future profits.

On to better things ...... We have not spent much time hanging around the motor home but have a couple of friends coming to hang out with us this week end. Rudee and I did make a run to Harbor Freight and bought a new wheel chock, trailer dolly and e-track for our new cargo trailer.

I will work on getting those installed this next week and are thinking of options for some shelves and a way to hang some of our motorcycle gear.

Tomorrow is tax day ....... YUCK! I used to do our taxes on the computer using one of those free tax programs but since going full time our taxes are not so cut and dried. We have several 1099's as well as a couple of W2's each and I need some help figuring out what is deductible and what isn't these days so we pay a professional to do our taxes now and our appointment is tomorrow morning. Wish us luck! :-)

There is supposed to be some rain moving into our area for the next several days. The good news is the temperatures are staying above freezing and the campground has turned the water on to all the sites. Yay! :-)
Maybe now we can take some longer showers and get the last of the Texas dust cleaned out of the rig! I'll keep you posted.