Sunday, August 9, 2020

Our First Major Mishap....

We have been at Gunter Hill Corps of Engineer park for five beautiful days. The weather has been very very hot, but not as humid as Florida.  We spent the days researching where to go and getting reservations for future sites, planning for Labor Day weekend, sitting outside and reading. We decided to head into town for a bite to eat. You really have to drive 15 miles one way to get to a ton of places to shop and eat, but we don't mind. It helps break up the day a little bit.

We had a terrific early dinner at Jim 'n Nick's Bar B Q in nearby Prattville, AL. It's a chain, but a VERY good one. They have the most delicious cheddar biscuits that melt in your mouth, and fantastic potato salad as well as decent BBQ.

We came back home to the rig, Eldo went inside, Sparky went for a bike ride. On the way back from her ride, here comes Eldo in the truck, yelling, "STOP! STOP!" By the urgency in his voice, Sparky thought something had happened to one of his kids or Sparky's kids, or somebody died.

It turned out that our awnings had taken a huge hit from a falling pine tree limb next to our site. A 15 foot limb came crashing down and took out both awnings. Eldo was sitting inside and he heard it. Sparky had just left for her bike ride. It was a perfectly calm day...zero wind.  A rotten limb just decided to let go and caught both our awnings. 

 It looks like we will be delayed in leaving now, until we can get the insurance company to let us know what to do. The metal braces are destroyed. We can't zip tie anything. We can barely open the front door. We are so lucky that we weren't sitting outside in our normal spots a little further out from the door. We are so lucky that it's just the awnings. People from several sites immediately came over to see what they could do. A man named Michael Hall came over because he saw the limb fall, and climbed up onto the roof to see if there was any damage. Several others came over and said to please ask for help if we needed help clearing the limbs or taking down the awnings. It's a wonderful community of people in the RVing world. That's one of the things we love about full timing. You think it's just going to be the two you, but pretty soon, you are making friends almost immediately. And everybody pitches in to help in an emergency.

Just yesterday, we dealt with a water leak and had to call a mobile tech guy to come out. We looked and looked for the source of the leak. The water was in puddles in the storage bay, the water lines from the bathrooms and kitchen were dry. It turned out to be a combination of a little too high water pressure at our site, AND a leaky valve in the wet bay. If you are ever at Gunter Hill Campground and need a mobile tech, don't hesitate to call  CT Mobile RV, serving the central Alabama area. Tim Payne was wonderful, and really knew his stuff. He checked both toilets, asked thoughtful questions, and then traced the leak to the wet bay access panel. Thank you, Tim! We're going to call him to see if he can help us get the awning off....stay tuned and we'll let you know  how it turns out.  We are supposed to leave for Tennessee tomorrow, but that's probably not going to happen. We are still waiting to get an insurance adjuster assigned to us--two business days, Progressive said.

Bye for now.....

5 comments:

  1. We have had goodluck with progressive in the past, hope they are still good. Very lucky not to have been under that limb!

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  2. Glad you are both Safe and hope the Insurance has you back on the road soon.

    It's about time.

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  3. Yikes! You know from traveling before, it's not 'if' but 'when' :)
    Glad nobody was hurt and no body damage. Awnings can be fixed!

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  4. Oh No. Really? That's terrible. What a way to begin your new full timing adventure. But then, that's what full timing is, just like any other life. So glad no one was hurt but what a pain to deal with and to you new RV too. SIGH.... Hope you are back on the road soon. Glad there was no problem in extending your stay.

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