Our RV Adventures

With it drizzling rain pretty much all day, that put a kibosh on any outside chores, so I spent most of the day going over our upcoming trip schedule.

I nailed down a few more parks, and made a few reservations,  An ‘*’ by the date means I have a reservation there. Many of these I won’t contact until a few days before.

*3/08 -Travel to Colorado River   Columbus, TX

*3/10 -Travel to Pecan Valley RV Park   Junction, TX

*3/11 -Travel to Saddleback Mtn. Park   Balmorhea, TX

*3/12 -Travel to Coachlight RV Park   Las Cruces, NM

*3/14 -Travel to Cochise Terrace Park   Benson, AZ

*3/18 -Travel to Voyager RV Park   Tucson, AZ

*3/25 -Travel to Santa Fe RV Park   Apache Junction, AZ

*4/08 -Travel to Las Vegas TT Park   Las Vegas, NV

*4/22 -Travel to Soledad Canyon TT   Acton, CA

*4/29 -Travel to Turtle Beach TT (?)   Manteca, CA

*4/30 -Travel to Friendly RV Park   Weed, CA

*5/02 -Travel to Bend/Sunriver TT   Bend, OR

*5/16 -Travel to ??   Hermiston, OR

*5/17 -Travel to Blackwell Island RV   Coeur d’ Alene, ID

*5/19 -Travel to Riverfront RV Park   Garrison, MT

*5/20 -Travel to Billings Trailer Village   Billings, MT

*5/22 -Travel to Gillette Cam-Plex   Gillette, WY

*5/23 -Travel to Elk Creek RV Park   Piedmont, SD

*5/30 -Travel to Belvidere KOA   Midland, SD

*6/01 -Travel to ??   North Platte, NE

*6/04 -Travel to ??  Salina, KS

*6/05 -Travel to ??  Pawhuska, OK

*6/08 -Travel to ??  Paul’s Valley, OK

*6/11 -Travel to ??  Waco, TX

*6/14 -Travel to Lake Conroe TT  Conroe, TX

*6/25 -Travel to Colorado River TT  Columbus, TX

A Total Distance of a little over 4400 miles.

We’re coming back here the end of June for a big family reunion. Then we’ll head back out for a couple of more months until the end of August when we’ll come back for Landon’s 7th birthday. After that it’s gate guarding time again.

In a follow-up to Moen’s excellent customer service, I got an email from them today, saying that my FREE part had been shipped.

And in a follow-up to iDrive’s sucky customer service, I still have not heard back from them answering my questions about any actual activity on the account.

Yesterday I was able to repair the socket that holds the AC Blower Resistor Pak for our Dodge Dakota.

A while back a high resistance in the socket burned the common pin off the plug and damaged the socket itself.

Since then we only had the high speed on the blower because I used a paper clip to bypass the resistor pak.

But I was able to repair the socket and install a new resistor pak.

So now we have all 4 speeds again.

About 3:45 Jan and I headed down to the Clear Lake area once again for Jan’s yearly get-together with five of her former Medical Records coworkers. They all have done this every year since we started RV’ing in 2008, and Jan looks forward to it for months.

Jan had me come by the meeting place, Mamacita’s Mexican Restaurant, in Webster to get a  picture of the group.

I didn’t have any trouble finding the group. I just asked at the front desk where the rowdiest bunch was seated and they pointed me in the right direction.

Jan’s already looking forward to next year’s meet.

Awaiting the RV Mobile Lube guy at 8:30, I was up about 8am and got the coffee started. Then I got a call from the guy about 8:20 saying he would be about 15 minutes late.

And he showed up about 8:45 and got right to work on changing out my fuel filters, starting with the easy one at the rear of the coach. I went inside for a few minutes to make a phone call, planning on coming back out with my phone to get some photos of how he got under there for the hard one.

But when I came back out about 20 minutes later, he was already done with both filters and ready for me to start the engine and let it run for a few minutes to check for leaks. And with none found, and everything looking good, he was on his way by 9:20, about 35 minutes after he arrived. Great service from a great company.

And in another example of great service, the cartridge in our shower faucet has started leaking from behind the knob. But a quick call to Moen and a new cartridge was on its way, free, courtesy of their Lifetime Warranty. More great service.

And that’s the Good.

And now for the Bad.

Two years ago I set up an iDrive online backup account for a then-client. I put the charge on my debit card and just billed the client. When my work for that client ended in October 2015, I asked what they wanted to do about the account, and was told to just cancel it and they would set up their own system. So I emailed iDrive using their online form for that purpose and cancelled the service.

And since I used their online form, I have no record that I sent them an email. I did however receive an automated reply, stating that they had received my ‘inquiry’ and would get back to me. But I never received anything else, but still thought I had cancelled the service

Then a couple of days ago I noticed a $69.50 charge from iDrive. And going back through my 2016 bank statements, I found that I had a $59.50 last March also that I missed when it came through.

So last night I fired off an email to iDrive to find out what was going on. I was told the account was still active and that they would cancel it now as soon as I prove ownership of the account. And I had to do this by either giving them the password to the account, or the last four digits of the credit card used, as well as the expiration date.

Well, I don’t have the password, since I only logged into the account from the company’s computer. And when I gave them the credit card I have now, they said that wasn’t the correct card. And that’s because I got this new ‘CHIP’ card in June of 2015, and the iDrive account was set up in March 2015. And I have no idea what my old card number was.

So at this point I have no way to cancel this IDrive account.

So next I called Chase Bank to find out what card was used to make the charge, and was told it was my present card. But they weren’t able to explain how I was able to set up an account in March of 2015 using a card that they acknowledge wasn’t issued to me until June 2015.

I sent an email back to iDrive, asking if the fact that the account was still ‘active’ means that backups are being done every day, or has it just been sitting there, waiting patiently for the last 18 months. I haven’t heard back from them yet.

As a last ditch effort, I may just have to cancel the card and get a new one with a new number.

We were meeting Ed and Deb Hurlburt at a great local Chinese place, China Delight, at 4:30, but we headed out a little early to drop off some prescriptions at Sam’s Club and Wal-Mart before we met up.

Jan had the Beef with Orange Peel, while I, looking for something really spicy hot, went for the Chicken Volcano, Extra Spicy. But somewhere between the kitchen and our table, the Extra Spicy disappeared

And actually, the regular spicy went away also.

In fact, even the normally hot Chinese red peppers,

were mild enough to just munch on, without any noticeable heat. Our Hot & Sour Soup was actually hotter than my Chicken ‘Volcano’.

But regular blog readers will know I’m always packing heat.

No, not that kind.

This kind.

and with a few sprinkles of this, things warmed right up, ‘runny nose and top of my head sweating’ warm. Just perfect.

Dinner was great, as was the company.

And as is usual with RVer’s who haven’t seen each for awhile, after all it had been two whole weeks since we last had a meal together, this dinner took the usual three hours, before we all headed back to the park.

Tomorrow we’ll head back down to Clear Lake for Jan’s yearly former hospital coworker’s get-together at 6pm.