Back at MacDill AFB

April 8th - Thursday Clearwater, FL at Harberson RV - 86 degrees w/ breeze and lots of birch pollen and seeds flying everywhere.

The last 24 hours has been different and interesting to say the least. We called Winnebago on Wednesday to talk to a technician regarding our parking brake and he advised that we have the RV towed to Clearwater where they would call and get us an appointment to have the brakes checked. The wrecker service called us and told us they would be at the gate at MacDill AFB around 1:45 pm so Lou went to the gate and the office to get clearance for them to enter, not an easy task, however, it was accomplished in time for them to get into the park.

The wrecker arrived with a crew of two that were one the job training...... No tools, thankfully DH has a great supply of tools, and he was able to supply what they needed to disconnect the drive shaft. Finally, we were on our way, we led the parade to get off the base and then they led

and as Lou will tell you he aged 10 years following behind them. When we told Kris this, she came back with a good remark "Lou can't do that, he doesn't have an extra 10 years to spare, we need all of his years". to which he agreed. We arrived at the garage at 4:15 and of course, they closed at 4:30, so they parked up in their sales lot and plugged in our electricity, so we had it pretty good last night. We had lots of food in the refrigerator and made a nice dinner and then we went for a walk around the sales lot, as we were locked in for security reasons. We had a great snack last evening. I made chocolate covered strawberries, and that certainly tasted good to each of us.

At 7:30 this am they were ready to start on the RV and they quickly diagnosed the problem, had all of the parts in stock to make the repairs, and told us how much it would be and felt they could finish it today. Lou, Estee and I went to the sales lot and sat in comfortable chairs outside and enjoyed the breeze sunshine, under an umbrella tent while they worked. Thankfully, we had both taken new books to read, water bottle for Estee and her dish, and she was so good, she slept under the table for the majority of the day. Lou went to Subway and got us a wonderful chicken sub for lunch and we continued to read and toured the RV's on the sales lot. As Lou said, if we could afford a new one, we would swap this one in for a smaller and new one. The lots are finally showing some smaller ones again with double slides, nice looking ones, only $107,000. for a 25 foot, which would be just the size that we would like to have.

The shop foreman came out at 4:00 and told us our RV was ready to go, so we hooked up the car and drove back to MacDill, with the experience and a huge bill paid and behind us. As Lou says, expensive toys are expensive to have repaired, and this is the same problem that he has had many times before, and it just keeps happening, with no warning. We also learned that Workhorse has been bought out by International....

We got back to MacDill, all hooked up again and I fixed a chicken stir-fry for dinner, with fresh sliced tomatoes and cottage cheese salad. I gave Estee a bath after dinner, and her hair was filled with the seeds from the birch trees that are just coming out. We want to get the RV washed down this week and waxed, but the pollen is so bad, everything is covered with yellow dust. We are going to stay some extra time here, we both hate to leave to go home, we just keep putting it off to enjoy something else of interest or nothing at all. Hopefully, the rest of our stay will be uneventful.