Getting Things Done - Day 2 in Red Bay

We had an early appointment over at Bruce Deaton's Paint shop in Red Bay and were there with the Roadrunner about 6:45 AM.

 When I made my appointment a few weeks ago, I mentioned the refrigerator vent, and a number of touch up areas on the coach.  Yesterday we discussed those and I marked them with some yellow tape.  We also talked about option on the front of the Roadrunner when the flying window did its damage.

He recommended I wait on getting the whole front repainted and said he could clean up the black smudge and buff it out and touch up all the nicks. But to repaint the whole front end with all the lines and graphics and then apply the 3M clear coat on top we were talking about a $2000 job.

I have a high deductible on my insurance so we decided to go with his recommendation.  Then he pulled it in to a paint pay and we left for some biscuits and gravy and coffee over at Jack's.

We met a very nice couple who are also getting some work done at Bruce's paint shop.  Bear and Jennifer are from Montana and have been full-timing about a year.  We mentioned we were going to Tupelo and Best Buy to see what they could do about my camera.

After breakfast, we stopped over at the Allegro Campground Office (Tiffin Service area) and spoke to Norris about our list of items to get fixed.  He said he'd get us into the Express Bay on Friday morning which sounded good to us!

Then it was off to Tupelo which is about 55 miles away.  We were there before 10:00 so we killed some time.  Right about 10:00 when the store opened we saw Bear and Jennifer again.  They said they had been looking for a Best Buy for a while and when we mentioned it, they decided they'd make the drive also...

I have had my Powershot Elf camera for about a year. But I guess I use it so much I wore it out.  This is not the first time that's happened.  When I press the button on top to open the lens it give me an error message and makes a clanking noise.  And the lens does not open.

I have a warranty contract with on the camera and was hoping to swap it out with a new one.  But they have to send it off to Conneticut to the repair facility.  If they can fix it, I will get it back in a couple of weeks.  If not, they will let me know and I'll get a new one.

Next, we picked up some things at Walmart, then went to lunch at Chik-Fil-A and then back to the paint shop.  They were making good progress but weren't finished yet.

In our newbie days in our first trip to Tucson, I did not pay attention when Pam opened up the bedroom slideout and the cement post it was up against would not budge.  When I saw what was happening, I banged on the slideout and Pam stopped trying to open it more.  We moved up a few feet but it left a 4 inch vertical scratch.

Another big scratch we got fixed was a gash on the side of two rear bay doors.  On our first trip a couple of years ago to Florida, a sudden rain storm and squall with heavy winds.  Our neighbor had they awning out and both Pam and I went out in the storm to help her with that.

Meanwhile, our grill had blew off the little table stand it was on and into the side of our coach.  It also  left a couple of big scratches.  Today Bruce was taking care of those as well.

Back at the Service Center, we wandered over to the Customer Area and then walked up and down between the service bays and watched some of the work being done on coaches there.

These places are always interesting to me.  I say another kind of work shirt they are passing out to the technicians.

It will interesting to see if new uniforms and shirts boost morale among the workers. My guess is that it will.

Shortly after 2:00 PM Bruce called and said the Roadrunner was ready so went over to pick it up.
The bay doors and the refrigerator vent that was painted looked great.

Bruce put on a new vent cover since we have a residential refrigerator now and don't need the louver/air vents.  The new cover looks great and when it gets cold outside, that air won't be coming through that opening into the coach.  When we were in Flagstaff and Albuquerque during the late cold weather, we could really feel the drafts.

The front end cleaned up well and we pointed out a few nicks they missed.  They were glad to touch those up in addition to the many others ones they already fixed.  We saved some big bucks on that one!   In fact the whole job did not cost us anything.  Yet.  Bruce closed up the shop at 2 PM and said, "Pick up the coach and come by and pay me in the morning".

At some point down, we will have to spring for a new front end but it will go on the 'Major Repairs - Big $$' for now.  The front windshield is already on that list.  It has a few chips but no cracks and we know it will need to be replaced also.

We weren't done yet though.  We drove drove the coach back over to our camp site and replaced the windshield wipers.

It has been over a year since I replaced them and I picked up replacements in the camp parts store earlier in the day.  That only took a few minutes but I managed to bust a knuckle but other than that it was pretty easy.

Once that was done, I repaired my  shoe.  While in Albuquerque, I kicked a sprinkler head and it caused a slight tear in the mesh top near my toe.  I love these Saucony running shoes so, I got a large curved carpet needle and used heavy duty thread to repair it.

Not the most professional job in the world, but good enough to salvage a pair of my favorite shoes.

With that, we watched some TV, had a fantastic salad for dinner and too it easy for the rest of the day.

Thanks for joining us today on the Roadrunner Chronicles!