Monday, 12 through Saturday, 17 April 2021
When I first checked in here at the KOA, I'd planned to stay only a few days. Clearly, that time got extended, partly because I had so much catching up to do between my chores and my blog posts, and partly because I've found it's nearly impossible to get a reservation in any of the state parks on a weekend. I decided to take things a little slower and wait until the next weekend had passed before leaving again.
That turned out to be a good thing, because I ran into some problems with my RV that needed fixing. Except they didn't get fixed, though not for lack of trying.
One of the problems that worried me most was my heater. It would start, then stop, start, then stop - each one less than a minute apart. Once I counted it doing this cycle 25 times before I switched it off, afraid it might damage something. Well, I knew we weren't done with winter weather in Missouri, or even chilly nighttime temps, and I wanted to be sure I'd have a functioning heater. So one day I spent hours at a repair shop while the guy first took it apart and blew out all the dust and pet hair - though there wasn't as much as I'd have expected. That accomplished nothing other than cleanliness. So he did some tests and decided it was the thermostat. I went off to a nearby RV supply, got a new thermostat, took it back and the guy installed it. And everything seemed to work right. Total cost $195 for the guy + $40 for the thermostat. Except by the next day I'd realized it didn't really fix anything. I tried to call another place in town for help, but I had to leave my number and they never even called me back.
Another of the problems is my cabin door - the one that opened suddenly when I was driving down the highway and Gracie almost jumped out. That one. That matters quite a bit, of course, but since I couldn't get anybody to fix my heater, I figured there wasn't any point in looking for somebody for the door.
Meanwhile, we'd had some pretty heavy rain and I tried to open up my awning to let it dry out. Only I discovered I must have hit it on something because it wasn't rolling straight out but instead making weird little rotating motions. That scared me and I real quick rolled it back up again, in case it got stuck in the out position (and I don't have David and Anna here with their ladder and screwdriver to put it back in again) or even worse broke altogether.
With all this, I was starting to feel a little panicky, because this stuff actually has to be fixed and I couldn't figure out how to get it done. By then I'd already made reservations - with required advance payments - at various campgrounds for all the following week, so it wasn't really an option to keep on staying here, even if I'd had some confidence I could get the repairs done here, which I didn't.
Besides the RV problems, I still - still - haven't figured out how to get the COVID vaccinations, even though they've now opened them up to all ages, and the St. Louis morning TV was reporting plenty of vacancies for getting shots. But somehow I just couldn't bring myself to brave the city traffic again, especially not knowing where I'd be able to park. And they keep saying people should contact them using text messages, which I can't do, and it was just all feeling like too much for me to see my way around.
And on a note of lesser importance, for quite a while now, Dexter has had a knob of fatty tissue on his back, which vets have seen and not worried about. Apparently those things are pretty common in dogs. But in the last few months, the one Dext has seems to be growing, which does worry me. I think I need to find a vet to remove it and biopsy it, just in case.
And along those same lines, the one doctor I didn't see when I was in Austin seeing doctors a few months ago was the dermatologist I'd been seeing before I started this trip. I think now that was a mistake and I should have somebody take a look at several places on my skin that that last doctor had commented on.
With all that, I spent about a full day feeling overwhelmed and not sure which way to turn. Finally, I decided I should go ahead with my plans for Missouri, but plan my time in Iowa next month around taking care of all this up there. I'm sure Iowa's got people who can do all these things, and it's a smaller state than Missouri so maybe I won't feel as much pressure to get on the road as I am here - I look at my map of Missouri and realize I've barely seen any of the state, and my month here is whizzing on past. So my new mantra is "wait for Iowa" and that's done a pretty good job of calming me down.
Then separately, one afternoon, when I went to empty my waste tanks, I found that whole waste-tank-dumping area of my RV so coated with the mud and gravel from those county roads I took near New Madrid when I went to that archaeological site that I had to do serious work knocking it off enough to get the cap off the tank openings and unclog the levers so I could open the lines. Then I noticed how that mixture was caked on all the wheel wells and mud guards and it must be all over the undercarriage.
Another day, I found a Pennzoil oil change place and got that done. And then I went down the street to a tire repair place, because I thought my other front tire - not the one that went flat in Junction (TX) but the other one - was looking too low. I find these new tires hard to deal with because people keep assuring me they're fine even though they look low. But this one didn't seem right. Sure enough, the man looked at it and said yep, you've got a nail in it. So he repaired it for me, said he was going to charge $45, and I said they'd charged me $25 in Junction for exactly the same thing so he knocked it down to $25.95. Huh? Which actually he should have because the shop was wildly shorthanded and he kept me waiting almost an extra hour while he took care of 4 other customers while my tire was off and I couldn't even drive away in frustration. But it seems to be fixed. The odd thing is that I actually keep my eyes on the road as much as I can for exactly this reason - to avoid driving over tire hazards. And during this week, I found 3 hazards - like a nail in one case - in the driveways for various campsites and removed them, so it seems like I should have had a little good karma coming my way. Slow in coming, I guess.
And while I was waiting for the guy to finish fixing my tire, I noticed that all that mud/gravel mixture had magically disappeared from every visible surface. I guess the rain we kept having off and on was helping wash it all away.
And I got the dentist I'd seen in Austin to call in another prescription for Amoxycillin for another little pocket of infection in my mouth. I'm hoping that will take care of it, but if not, then I'll need to add finding a dentist to my Iowa list.
Honestly, it seems really weird to me that all this is happening at the same time and I'm beginning to have some serious questions about just what the planetary influences are right now. But I left all my astrology books packed up in my storage unit, so I'll just have to wonder.
I did stop at a place in Eureka called Super Smokers BBQ, that claims to be "The Original World Championship Bar-B-Que," though I never could figure out just when this title got awarded. And they claim to serve Original Memphis style BBQ. Maybe so, but I liked the barbecue I got in Memphis better than this. Anyway, I got a half pound of burnt ends, remembering how much I'd liked them in Kansas City, KS, and a half pound of sausage, and their own barbecue beans. And it was all good food, but I can guarantee none of that won a world championship.
I also went to a local park called the Route 66 State Park. I expected at least some signs, if not displays, about the old Route 66, but if they had them they were hiding them really well, because I looked. What I did find was a section of the old Route 66 that ran along the edge of the park. The dogs and I walked along it.
And before I left to spend a week at state parks, figuring I wouldn't have internet access, I wrote down the directions to all the places I wanted to visit and how to find the campgrounds. Since that involves a lot of arguing with Google, it takes time.
But on a happy note, a big chunk of the KOA was reserved for Saturday night because of a wedding to take place there in their meeting facilities. The folks in the office told me they'd taken all of the cabins - 16 + 4 deluxe cabins + a caboose - and between them and other people, every space in the campground was reserved. They could barely squeeze me in for the extra nights I wanted.
So I guess this was a productive period - or maybe partly productive and partly positioning myself for another period that would actually be more productive. It was a little weird, though.
But I did get this one photo of Gracie.
I just can't see what she finds so wonderful about this tiny little spot. I do know that Lily doesn't like it much because she hasn't yet brought herself to just walking on top of Gracie to get to her box. Once I saw her inside her box when Gracie lay down there, and Lily leaped out of the box over Gracie and onto the floor. But she can't really do that when she wants to get in. In the meantime, this is definitely one of Gracie's go-to places.
No comments:
Post a Comment