Tuesday of Countdown Week

Tuesday morning started just like all the other weekdays here - the roar of the diesels begins right around 6:30 a.m. Some folks believe that the technicians don't know that they are waiting at the door at 7:00, and feel the need to blow their air horns, just to be sure no one is left sleeping.

So, up and around with our coffee. Tuesday is also Weight Watchers day, and I was on the way to Muscle Shoals a little after 8:00. It was the last meeting for me at that location. I've enjoyed it, as I do most of the places I go. It's interesting to find how alike, yet different, the meetings are in different locations. Yes, I did lose a couple more pounds.

When I got back home, we started watching for Dortha and Mark. They pulled in just a little after noon and got sent to the runway with no hookups to wait for a site to open. I expect they will get one soon, as many people don't like to hang around here, gee, I wonder why. We went over to their rig to greet them, then Mark stopped by here.

Jasmine was so excited to see him she nearly wiggled herself out of her furry skin! To say she loves Mark is a drastic understatement! I didn't get a picture of the moment, but here they are a little later, catching up with each other:


We decided to go to Subway to grab a quick bite. When we got back, we were going to leave Mark to hold down the fort, so to speak, while Dortha, Jim and I made a run to Walmart. But just as we were getting ready to head out, Mark called Dortha to say they were moving to a partial hook-up site. We waited for that to be accomplished, and then all four of us made the journey to Russellville.

When we got back, it was time to start getting things ready for dinner. Sylvia baked a huge piece of Halibut, and I fixed sides and dessert. We all gathered here at the Castle and had a wonderful meal and visit before we called it a night.

Joe (aka Speedy) left me a few questions in a comment a day or so ago. Speedy, here are your answers, as best I can figure:

Is this the only facility to repair these MH's? Can they repair them at a dealer?

----This is the location of the factory, so they have the most ready access to all the parts, or can make them on the spot if they need to. Yes, they can be repaired at a dealer's, but sometimes it's better to get things done at the source.

Why is it full all the time? Gosh it seems like they have so many repairs going on all the time. Must be a very busy place.
---- It's not full all the time. They make 3 appointments per day (usually booked at least a year in advance) and everyone else is "walk-in" and gets serviced according to urgency of repair, extent of repair and when they check in. There are peak times of the year, what I call "Snowbird Migration Seasons" when people are either heading North for the summer or South for the winter. If you consider that Phaeton is the top selling motorhome in the country, there are a lot of them out there. Looking around the campground, you would find probably 40-50 Phaetons here at any given time. Overall, that's not really a big percentage of the ones that exist. Plus, there are a lot of year's models here - anywhere from 70's vintage rigs to the very latest models.

There are all kinds of work getting done, not all of it is repairing. Some people come to have routine maintenance. Others are getting some sort of upgrade or modification. Yes, it's a very busy place.

I guess only fulltimers can use this unless you could use your vacation time to repair your rig?----

I think many people who are here are fulltimers, but lots are part-timers too. I'd say more are retired folks who, as I mentioned, are on their way home after spending the winter in the South. A lot of people just bring their rigs here and leave them to be repaired, and come back to get them when they're done.

I hope that answered your questions, Speedy!

And now, I'm off to see what today has in store...