Blessings and Curses

Blessings:

Last night I went out of the trailer at dusk and saw one of the magical things about lower altitudes in the summer: lightning bugs or fireflies. We don't see those in Colorado. Is it the humidity? I don't know. But I love seeing those little flashes of light and remembering my granddaughter, Kylie, chasing them in Iowa four years ago.

Last night we were in an RV park in Winchester, VA. The sites were fairly close together, but there were huge areas of green grass throughout the park. It reminded me of RV parks we stayed in during our first-ever RV trip in 1988.

Today we drove from Virginia through a corner of West Virginia and a slice of Maryland before entering Pennsylvania. To touch that many states in such a short time in the West, we would have to drive in circles around the area where Colorado, Utah, New Mexico and Arizona meet at the Four Corners. The scenery was beautiful. We are no longer driving through just tunnels of trees. We also saw large open fields and farms, limestone outcroppings, and vast vistas.

Tonight we are parked in a destination KOA in Pennsylvania. They have side-by-side hookups for the 50-amp pull-through sites. But the electric is reliable, the restrooms spotless and the location attractive.

On a Friday night in summer, we share the park with a field of tents and lots of families with young, bike-riding children. Not our favorite thing, but we are glad families are having such wholesome fun.

Curses:

Yesterday morning at about 10 we talked to the mobile RV repair tech who was supposed to install our new air conditioner. We had been waiting in Ashland since June 1 for the unit to be shipped from Indiana to Virginia. On Wednesday Roadway trucking told the tech the unit was in Richmond but they didn't have anyone to unload the truck until Thursday. He told them it had to be delivered onThursday. When he called them Thursday morning they still couldn't tell him exactly when it would be delivered, but it would be on Friday. His father had been hospitalized in Florida and he couldn't wait any longer. At 10:45 we began preparations to drive north. As we drove, I studied Trailer Life and found a place to stay about three hours up the road.

Both yesterday and today I spent a lot of time on the phone, trying to work out a location where we could have the unit shipped and installed further along our route. Maybe, just maybe, that will happen in a couple of weeks in Syracuse, NY. Tammy at Camping World RV Sales there was very helpful, as was Dawn at Dometic, the company honoring our warranty on the A/C. We will keep our fingers crossed.

John says any time we have a warranty claim, it is a crap-shoot.