A Thousand Here, a Thousand There...

Latest RV Tracking for Jim & Jacque

CORRECTIONS:  In my torpor while blogging last night, I actually skipped over a WHOLE WEEK that my lovely wife reminded me of.  Thus in the interests of more-accurate tale telling...
Let's See Now.  We camped a few days for the weekend race at Road America near Elkhart Lake in Michigan.  That was nice except for our prized driver breaking his motor before he got into his first test lap.  Racing must be somewhat like RV'ing, in that large lumps of money are involved....
But more about that later.  We left Road America after attending church in Sheboygan and drove to Charlotte ("Char-LOTTE" is the local pronunciation) for their annual Charlotte Bluegrass Festival.  This is a 3-day weekend affair wherein many of us come in the first of the week prior to the fest and snag a decent parking spot for our RV's.  The sweet strings of picking and fiddling begin long before the festival actually starts, with both amateur and professionals practicing and jamming in "Yard-Picking" style.  We enjoy these so much we need to take advantage of the events occurring in other areas than Michigan where we alight temporarily or permanently.  So far it's been Michigan since it involves hob-nobbing with Jacque's auntie and uncle and her brother.  Saturday was the final day and we stayed over another night so we could attend church at the Charlotte LDS Branch. 
We then headed  down to "driveway surf" at Uncle Bob and Aunt Marilyn's lovely place on Pickerel Lake.
When we arrived, safe and sound with no mishaps, we were shocked, SHOCKED when we opened the fridge for dinner and found it was barely cool, nay, lukewarm instead of COLD.  Ice cream in the freezer was sugary soup and Jacque woefully decided much of the foodstuff had to be discarded.
Resetting the 20-year-old Dometic did not help, nor did turning it completely off and back on again, which has worked several times before.
Sadly I began to look online for RV refigerator repair shops.  We found a couple, but come Monday morning when enquiring on the phone, no one sounded helpful, and in spite of advertising service calls, none could spare a repairman to come out to our RV.  Since we live in the darn thing, it is not too handy to have to drive it in to a repair facility and abandon it for however long it would take them to have a look-see, order parts, etc, etc.
Thus it befell ME to somehow accomplish a repair.  Years ago I was able to order replacement absorption cooling units off Ebay and rebuild a failed fridge, but in this case we need quick repair or replacement and cannot wait around for weeks for parts and service to arrive.  We decided to bite the bullet and find a replacement, new fridge.
Which turned into an all day job.  It took a couple hours just to get the old unit out, fighting the tight fit of the hole in the wall housing the fridge, then wrestling it out the front door.  A very tight squeeze in all directions, with impolite comments erupting here and there.  Jacque's brother and uncle suggested Bontrager Surplus in White Pigeon Michigan, of all places, a joint that obtains cosmetically damaged or undesired NEW stuff and appliances from nearby RV factories and sells them for decent prices.  As in almost HALF the cost of new units in the box.
The gentleman did not have the correct replacement fridge on hand, but called his man in another warehouse and got him to deliver a proper unit to us.  All for the bargain price of 1100 bucks, not counting tax.  A new unit was priced at 1800 bucks so I got out my card and paid for this one gladly.
Jacque and I just tried to recall the last time we had to shell out a kilobuck.  Why Shucks, it turns out maybe a MONTH has gone by since we had our driveline rebuilt with new U-joints in May.  That was almost a kilobuck, which reinforces the old saying in the RV world:  "A thousand here and a thousand there, eventually it starts looking like real money."
Installing the new fridge was not as difficult, since I now knew where all the screws were supposed to go, and since this was an exact replacement, they actually  all fit.
Well, the good news is that gasoline is almost 20 cents cheaper here than in Ohio and Indiana, and 30 cents a gallon cheaper than in New York State, which is not much of a surprise.