If It Isn’t One Thing…

Okay, we picked up the trailer this morning and the body work looked great. Forest River (the manufacturer) sent the wrong fender, but the dealer had one that fit. It’s a little different than the one on the other side, but hey, no one can see both sides at the same time, so what the heck? Besides, the shop agreed not to charge us for the fender, so the insurance payment we’ve already received more than covered the repairs. We’ll see about getting the insurance company to pay for the three days in a hotel, coverage I think I have. BTW, the cats didn’t think too much of three days in a hotel room, but at least they didn’t run away.

So, we left Tucson at around 11:30am heading east towards Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico. Due to the late departure, we planned on stopping about half way – in Deming, NM. A big winter storm was forecast for Arizona and New Mexico, but as far south as we were, we were only expecting high winds and rain. It was quite windy and we missed most of the rain. Really pretty skies when there’s a storm in the desert (which reminded me of a John Denver lyric).

We arrived at the Deming RV park at around 4:30pm, it’s about 200 miles from Tucson. We hooked up our stuff and I started to slide out the two slides. A reminder—the damage caused by the blown tire was on the side panel of the living room slide. So the bedroom slide comes out first, as it always does, then the living room slide starts to come out. And BANG! Oh oh!

The living room slide is a section of the trailer that slides out the side of the trailer adding about 3 feet to the inside width. The slide has it’s own floor which slides over the main trailer floor when the slide is in for travel. Apparently the technician who did the repair didn’t notice that he was working on a slide (perhaps he was visually impaired, although he wasn’t carrying a white cane and didn’t have a seeing eye dog), so he attached the brackets from the newly repaired side panel to the stationary floor of the trailer rather than to the slide. So when the slide slid out the first time, the new brackets attached to the stationary floor pulled against the newly repaired side panel and bent it badly. The two brackets also broke away from the floor – thus the BANG.

I called the repair shop immediately and the manager was embarrassed, apologetic, and quite angry at the technician who had already left for the day. I don’t envy him when he gets to work tomorrow. Bottom line – we’re heading back to Tucson tomorrow morning to have the repair repaired. The manager said they’ll let us stay free of charge for the weekend at their RV park. I don’t know yet whether another day or two in a hotel will be required while the work is done. So, when all is said and done, we will have driven an extra 400 miles (back and forth between Tucson and Deming). I hope the shop will pay for the fuel. The high wind and rain is forecast for tomorrow, but at least now I’m experienced at driving in high wind.

We’ll get to Carlsbad Caverns, eventually.