Part V - The Customer's Lounge -October 31, 2000

 On Friday our Delivery Manager, Jesse, had gone home promising us that our trailer would be picked up first thing Monday morning and the repairs indicated completed.  We arise Monday, close the trailer for transport, and head out to Bartow to deliver our truck for some performance add-ons.  We return to the Rally Park shortly before noon to find our rig still sitting in its site.  We track Jesse down.  He says he'll get it moved right away. For me, this is a bad sign.

We settle into a couple of chairs in the Customer's Lounge with the cats quietly sitting in their cages.  Irene does puzzles; I read and sleep. After a couple of hours I head out to find the trailer.  I run into Jesse who is running frantically around looking for his book of work orders and jobs to do.  Another bad sign.

At the trailer I discuss our list with the techs working on it.  They explain a couple of the problems to me, to my satisfaction.  I wish Irene were along, as she's the real techie of the two of us.  One nagging problem remains.  The kitchen/entertainment center slide, a long narrow slideout, is rubbing against the floor tile in one corner.  Apparently there's no adjustment on the roller wheel to lift it.  The tech says he'll try to file it down a little.  Later, Jesse says the tech has been on the phone with Carriage to discover the fix and suggests the slide room might have to come out.  This lifts the problem to a new level of seriousness worrying both of us.  The other issues (a jammed storage area door, another storage door which doesn't close easily, a rub on the main door, a loose kick board on a cupboard, some split wood on a door frame) have either been fixed or are in process.  The slide rub poses a problem.

The Customer Lounge continues to be a bad place to spend time.  Too many horror stories.  One man tells us he's been in the repair bay since October 4, going home on weekends and coming back on Mondays.  The front windows on his Monaco keep cracking.  They've now stripped out the whole front end to find out why the windows are breaking.  He says, "I still love my motor home and I'd buy another Monaco." The bays are full, mostly with motor homes. There seem to be very few fifth wheels in for repair.  In talking with people about their problems, it seems that motor homes have so many complex systems in them that something always is going wrong.

At five Jesse asks us whether we want to sleep in the bay or be delivered to our site.  We ask them to take us back to our site so we can spend a more or less normal evening.