Daily Archives: June 30, 2013
How to Turn $25 into $225, just like Magic . . .
Jan and I were up this morning about 7:30 to have time for coffee before we headed over to the Cam-Plex for the opening of the Vendor area. Jan wanted to sign up for some of the limited-size craft classes before they filled up, and I wanted to be at the Blue Ox booth when they opened so I could sign up to have my Aventa LX tow bar serviced. The tow bar is what connects the RV to the Dodge Dakota truck we tow behind us. We bought our Aventa at the beginning of 2008 and we’ve put over 56,000 miles on it since then. So it was about time to have it serviced.
I had tried at a couple of other rallies where the Blue Ox guys were present, but always got to the booth too late. But today I was the first person to sign up.
The charge for the service was only $25, but a phone call about 10:15 magically jumped that up to $225. Brian, the service guy, was already at the rig and was calling to tell me that my hitch connector, the now-shiny part that you see below, needed to be completely replaced. I had already noticed a lot of ‘loosey-goosey’ movement in the ball joint that had slowly appeared on the years, but it has always worked with no problems. But if the ball joint came apart, the safety cables would be the only thing still connecting the truck to the rig. Not a good thing.
I was happy to find out that the new ball joint connector will not wear out near as quickly as this one did, And since this one lasted over 5 years, hopefully we won’t have to do this again.
For lunch Jan heated up her left-over pizza from Old Chicago last night, and I had the last of my BBQ from Big Hole BBQ last week in Victor, ID. Both still very good.
A little before 3pm Jan and I drove back over to the Cam-Plex for the opening ceremonies for the Escapade. But I think the real reason to be there was the fact that they were having a drawing to give away two $500 gift cards. Neither of which we won, unfortunately.
By the time everything was over, it was getting to be time to go eat. So about 5pm we all headed out to have dinner. After finding our first choice Chinese restaurant closed on Sunday, we headed over to Humphrey’s, a place we had eaten at when we were here 3 years ago. Our meal was good, but when Jan ordered her burger well-done, we all got ours well-done, whether we wanted it that way or not.
I’m more of a medium / medium-rare kind of guy myself. But we had a good time, anyway.
Getting back to the rigs, we again sat outside for a hour or so until the sun went down and it started to cool off quickly. Then it was in for the night.
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Thought for the Day:
"Whenever you find that you are on the side of the majority, it is time to reform." – Mark Twain
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