Our RV Adventures

Or I am.

Probably a little of both

Starting tomorrow morning we’ll be keeping our heads down here on the gate.

It’s the first day of deer hunting season in this area.

And there will be deer hunters here. The landowner has deer stands and blinds set up all over, as well as a lot of game cameras, and he charges people to hunt on his land here.

They’re not supposed to shoot in our direction, and we are wearing orange safety vests, but a few of these idiots manage to shoot each other every year, and they’re wearing orange safety vests too.

About 11am I headed into Carthage for my weekly Wal-Mart shopping. Oh, and Whataburger too.

The first thing I noticed there was that gas was $1.91 at the station there. When I here this past Tuesday, I filled up for $1.83, a big jump for three days. But I guess it bodes well for the oil industry.

One thing I picked up at Wal-Mart was a bottle of Diesel Kleen. I try to dump in a bottle every 3rd or 4th tank of diesel

Here’s what I had to say about it when we were gate guarding in July, 2012.

A few days ago I was talking with one of the drivers for Macro Trucking, one of the big haulers in this area for the rigs. They have over 600 semi’s, and we get 3 or 4 a day in here.

The driver told me about Power Service Diesel Kleen with Cetane Boost.

He said the company had started using it in all their trucks about 9 months ago, after doing a six month trial run on about 50 of them. He said they were getting a solid 5-6% increase in mileage, along with cleaner injectors.

So I’ve used it every 3rd fill-up or so ever since. Can I tell you that my mileage has increased, or my injectors are cleaner?

No, it’s pretty much impossible to really see an MPG change with the varied routes and conditions we drive under. And I haven’t had my injectors looked at since I started using Diesel Kleen, or before, for that matter.

But we just recently hit 135,000 miles on our coach, about 70,000 miles of it from our travels, and except for a bad fuel line sensor a couple of years ago, we’ve had no engine problems in our 8 years of travel.

One reader asked if Diesel Kleen was approved by Cummins Diesel. I don’t know, but I kind of doubt it. The manufacturers can’t test every additive, and every combination of additives that you might use. But I’m pretty sure all these trucking companies wouldn’t be using Diesel Kleen if they didn’t think it worked, or that it would harm their engines.

When I put the Diesel Kleen in, I’ll also put in a slug of Biocide like this.

When the weather gets cold and rainy, moisture will start to condense in your diesel tank. And the moisture feeds algae, which starts to grow in the fuel. And when you start the engine, the algae clogs the fuel filter, and your engine stops.

Been there. Done that.

And so has my friend Nick Russell.

But a capful of Biocide will take care of the problem.

Was it always just this simple?

Recently I’ve mentioned (complained?, ranted?) about getting my order right at Whataburger. I would tell her that I wanted a #6 with cheese, and only these extras, which in Jan’s case, is ketchup, mustard, tomatoes, and grilled onions, and nothing else.

Then she would ask, “Do you want pickles?”, and we’d go around again.

And today it was the same girl, but I tried a different tack. I said, “I want a #6 with cheese, plain. Then I want following, ketchup, mustard, tomatoes, and grilled onions. After each item, I waited for her to hit the key on the register.

The first time, we just stared at each for a few seconds until I said “ketchup” again, and nodded at the register. And she hit the ketchup key and it came up on the little screen in front of me.

Eureka!

Then it was item, key, item, key, item, key, and we were done.

Then my burger went just as smoothly.  So this time it took about 30 seconds total, instead of the usual 2 or 3 minutes of back and forth.

Of course with my luck there’ll be a new girl next time, and we’ll start this all over.

Who are you going to believe, me or the lying website

Seeing as how the equine carcass was still twitching a little, I decided to take another swing or two at it.

A couple of days ago I related how I had tried to buy a Thousand Trails Camping Pass to augment our park selection during our trip up to Vermont for the 56th Escapade next July. This was after trying to buy a Ready, Camp, Go card, or a Zone Pass for same reason. And this was based on this page of the website.

I was told that it did not mean what I thought it meant, and that I could not add a Camping Pass to my membership. Then yesterday I was back on the TT website and when I went to the My Membership page, I saw this.

Note the “Want to add more campgrounds to your membership?” part.

Why yes, thank you. I do.

So I “Clicked Here”, and guess where it took me.

No, go ahead, guess. I’ll wait.

Right the first time. And the second, and the third.

It took me right back here.

Ok, surely I had them dead to rights this time.

Well . . . NO.

This time I called Corporate Member Services instead of the phone number on the page. Surely they could straighten this out.

Well . . . NO

First off, the lady denied that the website said that. And after we went round and round about it, I gave her my password so she could log in as me. She was still insisting that I was wrong until she got to my My Membership page. Then she got quiet.

After about 30 seconds of silence, she said, “That’s not what it means.”

Me: “Well then, what does it mean?”

More silence.

Finally, “It means you can upgrade to an Elite Membership.”

Me: “Then what’s the Camping Pass part for?”

More silence.

Finally, “It’s to show you how much better an Elite Membership is than a Camping Pass.”

Me: “But I don’t have a Camping Pass, so why should I care? Since it’s on my My Membership page, why doesn’t it show my Alliance membership and compare with how much better an Elite Membership is?”

More silence.

This is getting to be fun.

It’s lonely on the gate, and I needed some entertainment.

Then she put me on hold and went away for about 5 minutes. When she came back she said, “We have no control over what’s on the website.”

Me: “Well, didn’t someone from Corporate have to tell someone at the website to put that up there.

Again, “We have no control over what’s on the website.”

Me: “Well, could I talk to someone who does have control over what’s on the website.”

Again, “We have no control over what’s on the website.”

Seeing as how we were circling back around for a fourth go at this, I thanked her for her time, and told her to have a nice day.

But the part of all this that really ticked me off was something she told me early on when I mentioned no longer being able to buy a Ready, Camp, Go card like I originally wanted.

I called in on October 4th to purchase the RCG card and that’s when I found out they were no longer available.

They stopped being available on October 1st.

I have no words.

Well, yes, I do. But you probably don’t want to hear them.

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Thought for the Day:

Is Nothing Sacred Anymore?

I think my favorite part is that Aunt Bee hated everyone.

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