September 14, 2012

RV Corral, Eugene, OR

Well its official, we have taken up semi-residence at the RV Corral in Eugene Oregon.  The techs and sales people know who we are, we have power, water and an area we can dump at and if our replacement generator ever shows up we will have received packages here.  When we ask for an update we are told that the engineers at Keystone are looking at the specs and pictures that the techs at RV Corral sent them.  They have been doing this for three days so I can only assume that (a) the problem is a really big one that has them stumped, (b) they aren’t very good engineers or (c) they just don’t give a damn that we are living in a parking lot and are being woken up each morning by someone being paged over the intercom.  In any case, nothing is going to be done over the weekend.  We are tossing around ideas of where to go for a day trip because I certainly don’t want to stay here all weekend.

We lounged around in the morning and took our dirty wash to a Laundromat.   We have come a long way since the first time we used a Laundromat.  I remember walking in, looking at all the different size washing machines and being at a lost and having to ask for assistance from the attendant.  Now I know exactly which machines to use and have gotten pretty good at figuring out how many quarters I am going to have to use for the dryer.  I had brought my laptop along, so while the clothes were washing and drying, we watched a TV show.

When we finished at the Laundromat, we hurried back to the RV Corral because it was 4:30 and we needed to dump the black tank before all the techs left at 5.  It would have really been inconvenient to have a full black tank all weekend long.  But we made it back in plenty of time and now have an empty black tank.  Monte also hooked us up directly to the water spigot so that we won’t have to use the water pump.  We can only do that because it is the weekend and the techs won’t be working.

After everyone left, we had a quick salad for dinner and decided to take a ride to Best Buy.  I have been thinking about getting a Keurig coffee maker after first using one when we were at Mor/ryde and then using one at my nephew Adam’s house.  His wife, Danielle, had gotten him one for his birthday and I really enjoyed using it.  I just didn’t like the price tag associated with it but we had a store credit from something we had returned to Best Buy so it wouldn’t actually be an out of pocket expense.  I also was looking for some type of hands-free device for my phone because Monte and I talk quite frequently when we travel and I don’t like the idea of having only one hand on the steering wheel.  Especially since I had a bad experience when someone cut me off and had trouble regaining control of the car.

There were so many hands-free devices to choose from.  I had already had a Bluetooth device with a bud that sticks in the ear and didn’t like it so I knew I didn’t want one like that again.  I finally decided on a Motorola Roadster 2 which gets clipped onto the sun visor.  It is voice controlled and automatically turns on and connects with the phone when you enter the car.  We tried it out when we got back in the car and it sounded pretty good but the real test will be when we get back to highway driving.  We have 30 days to decide if we like it-I only hope that we don’t run out of the trial time while we are still here at the RV Corral!

After deciding on the hands-free device I looked at the Keurig coffee makers.  There were 4 sizes to choose from and they were all on sale.  The smallest one was kind of a single cup server which did not have a detachable water reservoir.   It probably would have been the right fit for my kitchen as it was compact but I couldn’t see spending $99 for that one when the next size up was only $10 more and had a detachable water reservoir.  In the end, Monte convinced me to go for the best model (also the most expensive).  When we got it back home and placed it in the only space available, it fit but is too tall to open the lid without hitting the cabinet above.  So I have to pull it out a little to use it which is not a big deal.  I followed the instructions for use and made Monte a hot cocoa.  It was too late by that time to make myself a cup of coffee so I won’t be able to test it out until tomorrow.

On the way home we also stopped at Walmart.  I wanted to buy a robe for those mornings it is chilly but all they had were flimsy robes that wouldn’t be very warm.  We also stopped at McDonalds because I saw a sign for an ice-cream cone that was dipped in chocolate that looked really yummy.  To our surprise the McDonalds had a red box and I found a movie that I had wanted to see when it had first been released in theaters.  The Lucky One was written by Nicholas Sparks, one of my favorite authors.  It had been so long since I had read it that I didn’t remember all of it so I couldn’t really compare the movie to the book to decide which was better.  By the time the movie was over it was 1am and we sent to bed.  I don’t remember the last time we stayed up that late.   The one thing that I really wanted to do today I didn’t get the opportunity to do and that was talk to my beautiful granddaughters, Daphne and Kennedy.  They turned 7 years old today.  Happy Birthday girls!