Living in Cisco, Texas, is very different from living in Southern California. For starters, there's no movie theater here. The nearest one is ten miles away, in Eastland, and it only shows one movie at a time. The local paper announced that Spider-Man 3 is being held over for a third week.
My mom had taken her motorhome to a mechanic here in Cisco to see about the generator, but he's not familiar with motorhome parts. He thought it might be the generator's fuel pump that was causing the problem, but he told my mom she'd have to take it to an RV place, so that's what we did today.
The nearest RV dealer/service shop is in Clyde. We stopped for gas here in town, with my sister and me in my car following my mom. After my mom put in as much gas as she could stand to pay for all at one time, we prepared to head over to Clyde, but the motorhome wouldn't start. The battery has been giving her trouble, even though it's a new one, which suggests the alternator as the culprit, but the gas station isn't the place we wanted to find that out.
Another customer at the gas station had jumper cables, so I pulled around to face the motorhome, the man hooked up the cables, and we got the motorhome started. It's nice to know my car is up to that job. And helpful strangers is another benefit to small-town life.
In Clyde, the RV guy let us know we weren't even close to first in line for service. This is the busy season. But he promised to at least look at the generator today to determine whether or not they could fix the problem. If they could, we'd wait our place in line. If they couldn't, he'd let us know so we could get in line where they can fix it. But he couldn't look at the alternator. He doesn't work on the engine, just the motorhome stuff.
My mom joined us in my car, and we headed back toward Cisco, to the trailer dealer in Baird to see if they had any tow-dollies for sale. They didn't. He said we should head over to Abilene, the big city 50 miles from Cisco, where one of the RV places should have them.
The first one didn't, but he called over to his competitor (he didn't like doing that), who did, so we went there, and I bought one. But we have to wait until the motorhome is fixed before we can bring the dolly home. The man said he'd save the best one for me (they're all identical, except for one with a paint scratch).
It was hot today, the temperature bobbing around 100--sometimes a couple degrees over, sometimes a couple degrees under--with some humidity, but the humidity wasn't excessive because I didn't quite break into a sweat, and none of the locals said anything about it.
At the mall (blessed coolness!) we had lunch, did a little shopping (I picked up A Short History of Nearly Everything, which Hugh Hewitt has been raving about lately, sometimes to the point of alarmism), and finally found what we needed at Ross. At Wal-Mart (not Target--I haven't seen Target yet), we found a camera bag that will work for my new camera, picked up some groceries, and when we came outside, there was a thunderstorm in the direction of Cisco.
The RV place called my mom and said the generator problem looked more like an electrical problem, and he wouldn't be able to fix it. He suggested the RV place in Abilene where the guy didn't have the tow-dollies for sale, so my mom called him and described the problem. He said it sounds like a problem with the control panel, which translates to, "I can fix it." We like that.
So tomorrow, before my mom's eye doctor appointment, my mom and my sister will pick up the motorhome in Clyde, drive it to Abilene and drop it off at the RV place, take my mom to her appointment, also in Abilene, and I'll stay home and work on more Medical Terminology.
It takes some getting used to, this whole idea of going to different towns for the things you need. It reminds me of when I was in Europe one time, and one of the Europeans said that, if you're looking for the best of a particular thing, you go to the right country to get it. You go to Switzerland for good watches, to Germany for camping equipment, and (this is my suggestion) to Belgium for chocolate.
In California, from Oceanside, we go to the mall in Carlsbad and to the movies in Vista, but those three towns all run together in one indistinguishable city. It may take fifteen minutes to get to the movie theater, but it doesn't feel the same as leaving town, driving past empty-looking farmland, and coming to another town in fifteen minutes. It's an adjustment my mind is still trying to make.
1 comment:
All your RV adventures made me think of you today as I was searching for a parking space in the Wal Mart parking lot. I drove past an RV that had way seen better days...towing a full size van (which had also seen better days). What caught my attention was the collection of a dozen or so trash bags on top of the van, under a tarp, held on by straps that went completely around the body of the van. Never seen such a thing.
Somehow I think your traveling accomodations must be a bit classier....
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