Well, if all had gone according to plan we would be in a state park outside of Austin right now as I type this. Instead, we're in Lumberton in a hotel! Yep, you read that right, a hotel! And we'll be here for the next nine days! Not what we had planned to say the least.
We took our rig to the dealership this morning to get it its bath like we had planned to do. As I said earlier, Bob had his doubts about this outfit getting the oil off the 5th wheel. He was right. It didn't budge! Well, that's not quite true. Just before we were pulling out they tried some stuff on it and the oil disappeared. We thought great, its coming off! We stood there talking with the guys from the dealership about leaving it there for the entire day while they used this magic stuff all over the rig. We talked about 5 - 7 minutes and when we looked back at it the spots were back. Just a temporary fix.
We went back into the office and Bill, from the dealership, called the company who owned the truck that caused all this. He told them it wasn't coming off and that we needed to go to a body shop, have it sanded, repainted and new clear-coat put on. I then got on the phone and told them that we were leaving the area today and it would be a week or so before we stayed put for any length of time, that when we settled we would find a body shop and proceed from there. That was fine for them.
When I got back out to the parking lot things had changed. Bob had found out that the dealership had a working relationship with a body shop in the area and after talking it over we decided to stay put and get this fixed once and for all. So here we sit. In a hotel. With only one computer between us. This is gonna be a lllloooooonnnnnggggg week!
So we made our way to the body shop, had the guys there look at it and a course of action was planned. The body shop will make up a quote for the job and fax it to the company who will determine if they will pay it outright or turn it over to their insurance company,,,,all depends on the amount of the bill.
The ladies in the office could not have been more helpful. They even called the hotel and made our reservations for us. We're in the Lumberton Inn, in Lumberton of course. Its a fairly new hotel, only a year old and its really very nice.
When we got checked in the desk clerk, who happens to be a very good friend of one of the ladies in the body shop, faxed our bill for the 9 days we're going to be here over to the body shop. In turn, when they fax the quote they will fax our hotel bill at the same time.
You should have seen us checking in! Because we had to pack so quickly we just threw stuff in Walmart plastic bags. So here we go into this nice hotel with our belongings in plastic bags and we're carrying our live plants with us and two loaves of bread and coolers full of food from the fridge. I mean, we did not plan on a hotel stay at all.
I touched base this afternoon with the wholesale flower company after I knew they had the quote and our hotel bill. (We were faxed copies of everything too) It has been decided that this will be an insurance company issue as the quote was just a tad bit less than $5,000.00 and our hotel bill was just under $700.00. On top of that they are going to pay us each a Per Diem for food since we have to eat all our meals in restaurants. That's gonna get OLD real fast!
So I must say that this company is really stepping up to the plate to take care of us. The lady I was talking to asked if there was anything else we needed and to just say so if there was.
They had offered to take care of getting our truck cleaned up but that wasn't a priority with us because we know the oil is going to come off of it because of the gel-coat. They didn't want to hear it! They are insisting we get it detailed so that is something we'll get done while we're here. I'll make sure that gets done on a nice sunny day so Bob can take care of that and I'll spend the day at the pool.
So here's our timeline for the way we THINK things will go.
Friday: Body shop hears from the insurance company with an authorization number and starts taping (covering) the windows and graphics on our rig. We sit.
Saturday: Body shop closed. We sit. (It's going to rain)
Sunday: Body shop closed. We sit. (It's going to rain)
Monday: Body shop starts sanding. We do something if both of us are still talking to each other after sitting all weekend!
Tuesday: Body shop finishes sanding. Who knows what in the hell we'll be doing.
Wednesday: Body shop starts painting. We climb the walls!
Thursday: Body shop had darn well better be done painting by now and have the new clear coat on!!!
Friday: We pick up rig and high tail it out of the "Golden Triangle"!
We'll see how it really goes. Stay tuned.
1 comment:
LOL Sorry. Really. ;-) At least now it's just a small speed bump on life's road.
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