Idaho - Day 15 - Brake repair in Pocatello

Pocatello KOA, Pocatello
Friday, 15 July 2022

My appointment for brake repair was at 8:00, so I left the campground at just after 6:30 to have a chance to stop at a park along the way and walk Dext.  Turned out the park I stopped at had signs all over saying no dogs allowed, but luckily, just across the street was the local visitor center.  They were closed but I figured nobody'd mind if I walked my dog around a bit.  And nobody did.

Western States Cat has branches in quite a few Idaho towns, but this was the only one that could fit me in quickly to see to the brakes.

I took this photo on Sunday which is why the parking lot looks fairly empty.
My RV got tended to in that huge repair shop on the right.

They were open much earlier than 8:00, though they didn't get me into the shop until 8:30.  We were there all day long and didn't leave until nearly 4:00.  Mostly they had one guy who did all the work, and he was delayed by them having to get the parts sent over from somewhere else, but it got done.

He showed me one of the brake shoes, and even I could tell that those scrapes and other marks didn't belong there.  He said the brake shoes had worn down so much they'd caused the rotors to get warped, so now I have new rotors too.  At least, I think that's what he said.  It cost more than $1,000, but if the brakes had actually failed while I was driving, that would have cost a whole lot more than I paid today, so I saw it as a bargain.

These folks were really accommodating and let us all stay in the RV while they worked.  Usually repair places get all snippy about wanting me and my dog and my cat to all vacate the premises (and I always wonder if they aren't using insurance as an excuse to keep us from keeping an eye on them - but I'm a lot more cynical than I used to be).  Anyway, I could pick up an internet signal on my hotspot even inside that huge garage, and I worked on a blog post until I nearly ran out of battery for both my laptop and my hotspot.  When the repair guy took his lunch break, I started my generator so I could recharge everything - at least enough to last a few hours longer (I didn't want to be running the generator while the poor guy was playing around underneath the RV).  And once I took Dext outside for a walk, and while he tried to find something interesting in the grass, I was interested in the odd appearance of the hills across the street.

I don't know what it was about them that seemed odd to me, but they did and still do.

While I was sitting in the RV I learned that my phone could pick up a signal, too, because I got a call from the campground owner, who said, "What happened?"  I'd told him the day before that I was in town to get my brakes worked on, so I answered that I was having my brakes worked on like I'd told him.  Well, it turned out that wasn't what he was talking about.

He explained that the picnic table at my campsite was smashed flat and the rocks around it had all been knocked down, so he was partly really mad at the damage (and at me if I'd caused it) and partly worried that I'd done some serious damage to my RV as well.  I promised him I not only knew nothing about it, but also it would have been impossible for me to have done it and not noticed because my RV is so small.  I told him I'd noticed the bump when we moved from gravel to pavement and I'd certainly have noticed if I'd run over my picnic table.  And I told him I'd noticed the day before that several of the folks coming in had trouble maneuvering their campers around the turns, and that actually wasn't a problem I ever had much experience with.  And I told him I'd be glad to have him check my RV for damage as soon as we got back to the campground.  By then I think he'd remembered how small my little guy is and was reassured that I'd let him check for damage.

So when we got back, I stopped at the office in case he did want to check, but he'd realized it hadn't been me.  In the meantime, he and his staff had moved in a new picnic table and replaced the stones that were supposed to protect it.

Impossible that anybody went over this and didn't notice it.

The campground owner was pretty upset about it all, as anyone would be, especially because the guy had hit and run out without mentioning it.  But once I got a good look at what had been damaged (well, the repaired version), I knew that guy was going to be paying for his mistake for a while.  Flattening the table would be bad enough without also driving all over those big rocks on a hillside.  Serious damage must have been done.

So after all that drama, I ordered a pizza.  Finally.  After wanting one for a lot of weeks, I was finally in a campground that was close enough to a town where I could get a delivery and in a state of health where my tummy wasn't going to argue about it.

Big Foot Pizza
Leaving Our Footprints All Over Your Tastebuds

It was a pretty good pizza, too.