Category Archives: awning

Service Please!

While the weather in Vermont has been cool and rainy and not conducive to camping, we are becoming impatient with the delays and lack of progress in getting repairs estimated and begun. Pete’s RV in South Burlington has not distinguished themselves so far, setting an inspection date and then waffling for three weeks or so. It is a tough time of year to get work done since there is a lot of dealer prep and prior service commitments after a long winter. But …..

There are two problems. The first is the serious damage to the awning caused by a “dust devil” in New Mexico that I first mentioned here.

The awning remains strapped in place with canoe straps after being manually retracted with the help of three wonderful campsite neighbors – in mid-March.

The good news is that the insurance appraiser looked it over a month ago, sent me a check and someday, we hope to just replace most of the unit. Progressive Insurance has been excellent.

The second incident, completely my fault, occurred in Texas as we went for one last look at the Whooping Cranes – which had departed for parts north. I turned down a narrow road which had a “Men Working” sign at the turn but it wasn’t obvious, until after a quarter mile, that the road was closed off due to paving — and there was no turnaround. Rather than backing all the way to the main road, I tried to turn around on the road, misjudged and got the back wheels down off the pavement. The rig was hung up big time and after call to AAA and a wait, a big tow truck (which luckily happened to be in the general area) showed up.

We were lucky to have a monster tow truck with an experienced driver available.

The driver winched the rig, ever so slowly, getting it turned and out — but we knew there was damage. I could drive it back to the state park and over time to Vermont without the propane or the black water system available.

There’s a leak in the black water tank and other damage that needs to be identified. Come on guys, let’s get with it.

Meanwhile, I’m  birding locally and waiting, and still wondering what possessed me to try that U-turn on a narrow road. My co-pilot Sally’s  intuition said, Don’t do it!”  I wish mine had.

Heading Home

While in California, I learned that my dead MacBook battery was going to be a $750 repair so I am limping home using just the cord, which is touchy. So blogging is slow since I can’t pull off the bird photos easily. (End of whine.)

I found some loose tubing hanging down and have determined it is a break in the propane vent line which has shut down the system. No big deal at the point and we will fix it at home.

However, we were hit with a “dust devil” while parked in New Mexico with the awning out. It came out of nowhere on a hot sunny afternoon and in seconds, nearly destroyed the awning. Neighbor campers helped Sally and I removed broken supports and manually retract it so that I could tie it up for the journey home. We were too concerned to get a “before” picture but here’s the wonderful trio that worked an hour or more to sort things out.

After stops at [Seminole Canyon SP](https://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/seminole-canyon) and [Falcon Lake SP](http://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/falcon), we are settled at [Goose Island State Park](http://tpwd.texas.gov/state-parks/goose-island) in Texas, seeing some good birds including some early warblers.

The game plan is to stop in Louisiana next week and start swinging north with an ETA of the 11th or so. Starting to get itchy for the Green Mountain State.