Category Archives: Western RV/Alpine Coach

RV Renovators – Day 23 – Paint

Thursday morning Steve sprayed the first base coat of paint. He started by spraying a fine, misty tack coat. This fine spray isn’t meant to cover the panel, it just puts down a very light coat that sticks and creates a tacky surface for the next pass to adhere to.

Steve spraying over the tack coat

Once he had this first color applied, he carefully inspected the surface. He found two flaws – tiny chips in the gelcoat that I doubt I would have even seen if he hadn’t pointed them out. He filled these spots with polyester resin. Once it set, he sanded the areas smooth and painted them again.

Filling a flaw

First color applied

This first color coat provides a base that seals the entire surface. The thing is, this color is only needed for the 1/4″ stripes that separate the other colors in the final design. Once the design is taped with 1/4″ tape, this coat will be painted over in the other three colors used. When all of the colors are done, the 1/4″ tape will be pulled off, revealing the stripes.

Taping the design on the slide out wall is a long, tedious process. At the factory, they use templates to outline the design and can mask the design quickly. Steve had to re-create the design free-hand. He did this by looking at the original panel that was removed from the wall and matching the existing points where the slide out meets the rest of the body. With the slide pulled in, all of the lines and colors need to match up.

Taping the design

There’s no way I could have done this. It takes patience, attention to detail and downright obsession with perfection. Steve made several attempts with each tape stripe before he was satisfied. He would lay out a line, then see a tiny squiggle or an arc that he didn’t like and he would pull the tape up and start over. Once he had it down to a point where it looked good to me, he would continue to adjust the tape line until he felt it was perfect.

Around 4pm I left. I rode the Spyder to Mike Hall’s place and retrieved some supplies from the trailer. Then I went to Lucky Lou’s where I had a couple of cold ones with Mike and Jodi Hall.

When I returned to RV Renovators, they were done working for the day. Steve had started spraying another color. Once the areas of this color are painted, he’ll mask over the color up to the 1/4″ tape lines. Then he can do the same process with the next color. When the last color is applied and cured, all the masked areas will be uncovered and we’ll see the result.

More color

Then it will only be a matter of applying the clear coat, wet sanding and buffing to the final gloss.

Donna is traveling back home today. Her week in Vieques went all to quickly for her – although I’m looking forward to her return. I’m sure she’ll have lots of stories to tell me. She won’t arrive here until 9pm or later.

We’re expecting the temperature today to match yesterday’s high of 84 degrees. The weekend should be a little cooler, but the rain they were predicting has disappeared from the forecast.

RV Renovators – Days 21- 22 – High Expectations

Achieving good results from a paint job requires meticulous preparation. This is especially true when the panel you’re painting is flat and more than a 100 square feet of area. When the finish is applied, the smallest preparation flaws will show.

More sanding with guide coat

After another morning of sanding, I moved the coach after lunch on Tuesday. I drove it to the dump station first – it had been only eight days but I thought I should dump the tanks since I was moving.

I set up the coach next to the paint booth. The painter, Steve had previously worked at a custom car shop. He excels at applying multi-colored paint schemes and is very picky about the surface preparation. He filled the corners of the edge moldings. Then he decided to use polyester resin to fill the entire joints where the edge moldings meets the sidewall. He told me there were small gaps in places and when the finish is applied the small gaps will show. They’re sealed underneath so no moisture would get through, but the paint wouldn’t look smooth over the gaps.

Polyester resin on the corner

Moldings filled with polyester resin and primed

This took more time to sand the resin and create a crisp edge along the moldings.

New site next to the paint booth

I looked at a couple of coaches that Steve recently painted. One, a Sportcoach, had been repaired and painted on the entire rear cap and some of the rear quarter. The areas Steve painted looked better than the factory paint. The areas where the color scheme changed color had slight ridge lines in the factory paint that I could feel with my fingers. The newly painted sections were totally smooth. The other coach was a Winnebago Tour and the factory paint had a slight orange peel look in places. The areas Steve painted were smooth as glass.

I have high expectations for the final finish on our new living room slide skin. Wednesday morning went by with more sanding and surface cleaning. The cleaning and degreasing took a lot of time. In the afternoon Steve started masking but was pulled off the job to handle an emergency repair that took about an hour. When he returned, Armando came with him to help.

They applied masking tape to the backside of the moldings which extended sticky side up about an inch beyond the edge of the molding. Then I pulled the living room slide in. The slide will stay in until the paint work is done. It’s a good thing to have a floor plan that’s usable with the slide in. The masking tape along the edge of the molding gave them a way to mask right up to the edge without overlapping any of the molding.

They used paper over the windows and around the slide. They also put paper on the roof, A/C covers and satellite dome. The front and rear of the coach were covered with plastic sheets.

Masked and ready for paint

The last thing Steve did was checking the color match of the Diamant paint. Meanwhile another worker started stripping the front lower panel. I’m having that refinished while were at it. It had large stone chips that were beginning to peel in areas.

Today we’ll finally start getting painted. The forecast looks good – we should reach 80 degrees today and tomorrow with zero percent chance of rain. Rain is likely to come over the weekend.

RV Renovators – Day 20 – Gelcoat

A big repair job like the one we’re going through on our coach requires patience. The guys performing the work have to patiently work through several steps to get the body work right. The owner of the coach (me) needs to remain patient as the work is done – pushing to rush the job is not a good plan. I want it done right – I can see they are very detailed in what they’re doing and I’m giving them space and time to get it done.

I mentioned before that the body guys – Izzy and his assistant Armando – speak English as a second language. Izzy speaks pretty good English, Armando not so much. Technical terminology gets lost in translation though.

Last week I described the process to ‘glass and prime the seams. Izzy called it primer. When they applied a catalyst over the “primer” I was surprised. I’m not up on the latest techniques, but I never heard of a two-part catalyzed primer before. Yesterday Levi Germaine was checking the work and discussing the next steps with the guys. I asked him a few questions. It turns out the material Izzy was calling primer was actually gelcoat resin. This made sense. They use gelcoat to seal the seams and flatten the surface before the final finish is applied.

Gelcoat provides a high quality , smooth finish. However, it’s harder to sand than a traditional primer coat. Levi told me they only use a primer for small repairs – large fiberglass repairs are always sealed with gelcoat.

Yesterday they finished installing the edge moldings and put the windows back in. I set up the suspended bed for Ozark the cat with suction cups on the large living room window.

Ozark the cat’s window bed

At this point the painter, Steve, is taking over the job. He looked the surface over and said it wasn’t flat and smooth enough. He sprayed it with black guide paint. This morning he’s block sanding the surface by hand.

Windows are in and more sanding to be done

At some point I’ll have to move the coach. Steve doesn’t want to paint it in the paint booth. He would rather paint it outside in natural light to better match the original finish.

Yesterday the clouds remained all day – I thought it might even rain at one point. But it stayed dry out and the temperature reached the upper-60s. We should be in the 70s today and will hit 80 degrees by Thursday.

I’m trying to remain patient, but I wonder how much longer I’ll be here at the RV Renovators shop.

RV Renovaters – Days 18-19

No work was performed on the coach over the weekend. I discovered more work was done Friday afternoon than I reported in my last post. One of the basement doors was damaged, presumably by the one of the hoofs of the deer that slammed into the side of the coach.

I didn’t notice it right away as it’s partially hidden with the living room slide deployed, but they fixed the ding and it’s ready for paint.

Ding in basement door fixed

I spent most of Saturday morning reading. At noon I rode the Spyder down to Jason’s Deli on Baseline Road a few miles from here. I had one of my favorite sandwiches for lunch – the muffuletta made with ham, salami, provolone and olive spread.

After lunch I visited Howard Graff at his place. I hung out and fondled his gun collection. We’ll have to hit the gun range one of these days. Other than that, I didn’t do much on Saturday. With Donna away I just hung out with Ozark the cat and read a book.

Sunday morning I rode the Spyder down Main Street to the Quick Trip. Quick Trip is a privately held company with headquarters in Tulsa, Oklahoma. They have stores in eleven states which are gas stations with convenience stores. The also prepare food to go on site. I wanted to try their breakfast pizza that our friend Joel Myaer told us about.

The breakfast pizza is a thin pizza crust topped with sausage gravy, scrambled eggs, sausage bits, bacon bits and cheese. It was good but a personal size pizza was enough for two meals. With Donna away I’m not following a very healthy diet.

I planned to go to a Superbowl party at Mike and Kim Childs house. Around noon I thought I should try our satellite and see if it was possible get reception. I hadn’t even tried it because I was sure we would still be blocked by the building next to us and the canopy over our roof. To my amazement, it found the signal and I had reception. I went online and opened a chat with Dish Network support and changed my location from San Diego to Mesa and got local Phoenix broadcasts.

With that done, I tuned in the Superbowl pregame show. I decided to pass on the Superbowl party. I knew I would want to have a few beers during the game and I also tend to get a little animated at times during football games. If I went to the party I would have taken an Uber ride – it’s over 10 miles each way and I wouldn’t want to be on the road on the Spyder after the game. I thought it was best if I just hung out in the coach where I could yell at the TV without making a fool of myself.

The first half looked like an Atlanta blow out. The second half was an epic comeback by New England and the game went to overtime. What an entertaining Superbowl.

The weather was nice all weekend with the temperature reaching the upper-70s. Donna sent me a photo of sunset behind the band at an outdoor bar in Vieques. I think she’s enjoying the warmer weather and better scenery there.

Sunset behind the band

Today we have high, thin clouds and the temperature should reach the 70s again. Izzy and Armando are finishing up the edge trim. They need to seal all of the trim, then block sand a few areas before they put the windows in. I think Steve will start painting tomorrow.

 

RV Renovaters – Day 15 – Lost Folder

You know how they say a picture is worth a thousand words? As the seams on our fiberglass composite walls were completed yesterday, I took a series of 10 pictures to document the process. I put the photos into a folder on my smartphone, then accidentally deleted the folder! That’s right, ten thousand words worth of photos gone.

I looked at recovery apps last night, but in the end, I just had accept the fact that they’re gone. So, I’ll try to describe the process as best as I can. This was probably the most interesting part of the job. I had some misconceptions early on in the process of repairing the slide wall regarding how they were planning to do the work. I put this down to me talking to too many people here – many of whom only really knew a small part of the process. Also, communication was difficult with some workers as English is not their native language and technical descriptions can be lost in translation.

All of the screws and aluminum angle holding the panels tight as the adhesive dried were removed. After that, Armando used a pneumatic sanding disc along the length of all of the seams. He sanded through the fiberglass down to the plywood backing about a half an inch on either side of the seam.

After cleaning the seams again, he used a thick slurry made of milled (chopped) fiberglass and resin to fill the gaps in the seams. Then he cut strips of fiberglass mat – this is different than cloth. It wasn’t woven like cloth, the mat has the individual fibers in a random orientation. The strips were about an inch wide.

He saturated the strips with resin and then placed them over the seams. He used three plies of the fiberglass mat. Then the final layer was applied. This was individual strands of fiberglass – it was like the mat but shredded and loose. He saturated handfuls of fiberglass with resin then pressed it over the strips of mat. He used a special steel roller about a half inch in diameter to flatten the fiberglass/resin and ensure that no air bubbles were present.

This sealed the seams and made the sheets of fiberglass composite into one continuous piece. No filler or bondo was used – it’s all fiberglass. After the resin cured, he used a DA sander to smooth the seams. They’re so flat and smooth, I can’t feel the seam when I run my fingers over it.

Seams filled and ‘glassed

Finished seam smooth as glass

This is excellent workmanship and I’m very happy with the results so far.

Next they’ll have to install and seal the edge moldings and then we should be ready for primer and the paint shop.

We couldn’t ask for better weather here in Mesa, Arizona. Yesterday we had clear skies and the thermometer hit the mid-70s. It looks like we’ll continue to be in the 70s with a few clouds in the coming week, then it’ll warm up!

Donna will finish packing for her trip today and we’ll go out for dinner this evening. Tomorrow morning she has a 6am flight to San Juan, Puerto Rico then a commuter flight to Vieques. She’s leaving her laptop behind so she won’t be tempted to work while she recharges on the beach.

That means I won’t have my in-house proofreader and editor to review my posts for the next week. Or my personal chef. Yes, I’m going to miss my wife.

RV Renovators – Days 11-12-13 – Changes

On Friday, they accomplished pretty much what I expected at RV Renovators – then they did something I didn’t expect. After a meeting with Izzy, Levi and the owner and president of RV Renovators and Germaine RV sales, Monty Germaine, Monty revised the plan for the new siding.

Monty didn’t want them to use wood studs in the reconstruction, he wanted rectangular aluminum tubing instead. He also came up with a new layout for the panels. Instead of orienting them vertically and cutting the excess height, he wants to lay them horizontally. This will result in fewer seams and a much more efficient use of panels.

They finished cleaning up the framing and removing all traces of plywood – except for one square in the upper right corner of the slide out which is necessary as it backs the microwave/convection oven. Then they made a trench in the foam block insulation and put 2-1/2″ x 1-1/2″ rectangular aluminum tubing studs place.

Aluminum stud in place

This took all day to accomplish, then they knocked off for the weekend.

Saturday I had to send a FedEx letter. Donna and I walked to the FedEx store about one mile west of here on Main Street. On the way there, we saw a temporary race track for electric-powered radio-controlled (RC) cars in the lot of a business. On the way back, we stopped there to watch.

They were practicing for the afternoon’s races. It was chilly out – in the mid-60s but windy. We hung out for about 15 minutes and watched the quick RC cars lapping the track. We could clearly see some of the cars had better set-ups than others. Some of them cornered like they were on rails while others over-steered with the rear end sliding out through the turns. Obviously the skill of the driver comes into play as well.

RC cars on the track

Guys working on their set-up in the pits

We wanted to stop at a fish and chips place for lunch on our way back. When we crossed main street at the restaurant, we found it was out of business! We back-tracked to a Vietnamese Pho place and found it was closed as well. I guess times have been tough for small restaurants in this area. We ended up having lunch at home – I cooked some ramen noodle with leftover chicken.

Our friends Howard and Sara Graff picked us up Saturday evening. They live a few miles away off Gilbert Road. We had dinner reservations at Baja Joe’s. I had made the reservation for four not knowing their 14 year-old daughter Jenna was coming along. The restaurant accommodated us by giving Jenna a table next to the four-top they had held for us.

We enjoyed our meals and sipped large, excellent margaritas with it. Afterwards we stopped at their house and continued to visit until about 9pm when they dropped us back at RV Renovators.

Sunday was a nice, sunny day. The temperature reached the 70s in the afternoon and I had the coach door open. It was still breezy, but comfortable. Sara and Donna went shopping at the Tempe Marketplace. I hung out and read a book.

When she returned, Donna made guacamole with pomegranate seeds and later cooked a new dish – One Pot Shrimp with Herby White Beans and Tomatoes. She served it with slices of baguette to dip in the sauce and it was excellent – definitely a keeper though Donna will add garlic to the recipe next time.

One pot shrimp

Our stay here at RV Renovators is giving us good practice at ultra water conservation – Donna made our dinner using far fewer cooking utensils than usual.

A pan, colander, bowl and utensils is all it took to make a delicious dinner

On Saturday I hooked up our fresh water hose and filters and filled our fresh water tank. It took about 40 gallons to fill – it’s been 14 days since I last filled it. We’re averaging less than four gallons per day, plus a few gallons of fresh water from jugs we used for coffee.

This morning we woke to sounds of workers back at the shop and music on the radio outside. Monte came by and examined the work performed so far. He told me he expects them to have the aluminum studs welded in place by noon and they’ll start installing the new fiberglass this afternoon.

We expect clear sunny skies all week with daily highs in the mid-70s. The rough southwest winter may be over!

RV Renovators – Days 9-10 – The Beat Goes On

The work continues on our coach here at RV Renovators. We have dry weather now and that’s a plus. It’s been relatively cold still – although the skies are clear and sunny, we haven’t hit 60 degrees since Monday.

Removing the old fiberglass composite skin has been a time-consuming endeavor. Levi told me Western RV did an admirable job of bonding the skin to the framing of the slide-out and also bonded it securely to the trim molding. This solid construction makes the removal harder.

To remove the skin, they had to use a bit of ingenuity. The plan was to leave the lower molding and front edge molding in place, only removing the top and rear moldings. Removal of the bottom molding is complicated by the fact that the slide-out mechanism – the rams – bolt through the molding.

They made a cut through the skin about a foot above the bottom molding. Then they attached a bar which held four vise-grip type locking pliers. These were locked onto the strip of fiberglass, then they applied heat to the adhesive while pulling up on the fiberglass by attaching the tool to the arm of a fork lift.

Pulling a section of fiberglass from the molding

This was a slow and tedious process. Then they did the same thing along the front edge molding. The new fiberglass composite panels will slide into the gap under the front and bottom moldings.

Front edge molding clear

This took all of Wednesday and part of Thursday morning to do. Izzy told me he wanted me to move the coach to another work stall after lunch. He wanted to position the driver’s side of the coach in direct sunlight. Having the slide-out in the sun would warm it and facilitate the removal of the rest of the skin and the installation of the new fiberglass composite material.

After lunch, I pulled the slides in. I couldn’t pull the living room slide all the way in – I had to leave it out about six inches so they could secure the slide topper since it was no longer connected to the wall.

We took advantage of the move by stopping at the dump station first. It had been 12 days since I dumped the tanks. We’ve been really good at conserving water and the tanks weren’t even close to full. I don’t know how long we’ll be here, but we’ll continue to go easy on water. I plan to refill our fresh water tank on Saturday.

After we moved to the new work stall, the next step was to pull the windows from the living room and kitchen.

Removing windows

I had to remove Ozark’s bed which was suspended from the living room window. She still favors it for sleeping although it was no longer suspended – Donna set it on the sofa.

Ozark still likes her bed

With the windows out, the rest of the fiberglass composite skin was removed. A worker covered the window openings with cardboard. The cardboard outside combined with plastic sheeting inside gives us some insulation, but it blocks the sunlight.

Skin off

The painter is using the old skin to match the colors and design he will paint once the new siding is completed.

Old skin

After a little more clean-up of the insulation and frame work, the next step is to inlay vertical wood framing. The new fiberglass composite panels come in five-foot sections. So they are going to install three wood uprights at five-foot intervals in the 16-foot-long slide. These uprights will allow Izzy to screw the panels in place while the adhesive cures. The screws will be countersunk down to the plywood backing layer of the composite.

Then he will fill the gaps and cover the screws with a milled fiberglass/resin mixture and sand everything smooth. In effect, it should make the wall into a one-piece structure. I don’t think they’ll be ready to begin this process until Monday and it will be another slow, painstaking job.

I’m pretty happy with the progress made and the attention to detail on this job. I’m confident we’ll end up with a proper repair job.

We’re looking forward to a warming trend, beginning this weekend. Next week is forecast to be dry and sunny with daily highs in the 70s.

RV Renovators – Days 5 – 6 – A Night Out

As I expected, no work on the coach happened on Friday. The shop closes over the weekend so we had nothing in particular to do here. Friday was a rainy day. Donna planned to have a rental car for the weekend and Enterprise was scheduled to pick us up between 3 and 4pm.

A guy from the shop knocked on our door and asked us if we needed to use the dump station. He mentioned that no one would be here over the weekend and if we wanted use it, now was the time. I didn’t know they had a dump station on site. It had only been four days so we told him we were good for the weekend.

They marked the areas of concern on our coach where structural damage was evident from the deer strike. The huge mule deer buck leaped at full speed into the living room slide right behind the driver’s seat. You can see in the photo the large area on the left marked where the initial impact was. Further down to the right you can see where a hoof struck the fiberglass and cracked it as the buck spun and whipped around against the side of the coach. There’s another area of damage farther back that I couldn’t fit into the frame. This was the extent of the work done in our first four days here.

Damaged areas identified

Photos like this one were sent to the insurance adjuster. Hopefully he’ll comprehend the extent of the damage this time.

The woman from Enterprise phoned us at 3pm and said she was on her way. We waited about 15 minutes before we walked out in front of the sales office. A light rain was falling. She drove us to the Enterprise office on McKellips Road – I gave her directions for the best way to get back there. It was her first day at that location and she hadn’t figured out the best routes yet.

While we were handling the paperwork, the rain started pouring down. We inspected the rental car in driving rain with deep puddles around the car. From there we drove to Red, White and Brew – a couple of miles away.

We met our friends Lana and Joel there for happy hour and an early dinner. We had lots of fun conversation and good food. Donna and Lana both went for Donna’s favorite dish there – Mussels vin Blanc – which are green lip mussels sauteed with white wine, butter, garlic and lemon. Joel and I split a pizza. As always, the food was great.

The rain moved out Saturday, but it was a windy and relatively cold day. I spent most of the day reading a book while Donna went for a walk and did a little writing. I mentioned our water conservation efforts. In the afternoon, Donna did about a day and half’s worth of dishes. She used an expandable dish tub on one side of the sink and a dish drying rack on the other. In the photo, you can see how little water it takes if you’re careful.

Conserving water while doing the dishes

There’s less than an inch and half of water in the dish tub – this the amount she used to wash and rinse the dishes. I dumped the dish water outside in a gravel area of the lot.

Donna went to Sprouts later in the afternoon and did some shopping while we had the rental car. She joked that when she left the store, she hated to claim such a hideous looking car. It’s a bright green Kia Soul and I’ll have to admit it’s not the prettiest car on the market. It’s new though with only 230 miles on the odometer and it drives fine.

Saturday night we drove the car to D’vine, a wine bar and restaurant on Power Road near Red, White and Brew. We met our friends Ron and Dara there. Donna and Dara met years ago when we lived here and they bicycled together. We last saw them about three years ago when we were camped at Phon D Sutton on the Salt River. Since then they moved away to Denver, Colorado. By chance, they were here in Mesa because Ron had a conference to attend and Dara tagged along to see old friends. We had  a wonderful time talking and enjoying happy hour for about an hour and a half. Ron generously picked up the tab – thanks, Ron!

On Sunday, we planned to head over to the Mesa Mezona Inn a few miles from RV Renovators on Main Street near Country Club. Donna snagged a half-price deal on Booking.com. I wanted to check in by 2pm so I could watch the game which I thought was kicking off around 2:30pm. Donna was out for walk when I looked online and realized I had the time wrong. The game would kick off at 1:30pm!

After Donna came back from her walk, we quickly loaded up the car and headed out. It was only going to be one night, so we didn’t need much and Donna had already packed most of her things.

By the time we checked in, the game had already started. Atlanta had already scored on their opening drive as I carried our things up to the room. I swiped the room card through the door lock and nothing happened. I tried the second card and got the same result.

I went back to the front desk and the guy ran the cards through the programmer again. Back at the room, I had the same result – no action from the door lock. At the front desk once again, the guy told me he would send a maintenance guy to the room.

He was able to unlock the door with his master key, but our keys still didn’t work. He said he had to reprogram the lock again. By then the first quarter of the game was nearly over. I turned on the TV while we waited for the lock to be repaired.

When I turned the TV so I could see the screen from an easy chair, I lost the signal. I turned the TV back so it faced the bed again and it started working. I figured I’d have to sit on the bed and watch the game. Oh, well.

After the guy fixed the door lock, Donna told him I was having trouble with the TV signal. He said, “It’s probably a loose cable” and proceeded to start tugging on the cables and I lost the signal in middle of a play! I went over and carefully manipulated the cable box until it started working again and I told the guy I was okay with it as it was.

But after he left, the signal started cutting out intermittently. I looked at the cables and could see the coaxial cable from the wall to the box had a bad connector at the box. I lined it up carefully and it started working again. Meanwhile Donna had unpacked our stuff. I phoned the front desk and asked if they could send someone up with a new coax cable.

A few minutes later the phone rang. It was the guy at the front desk telling me he would have to move us to another room as they didn’t have any replacement cables! I told him I had it working now and didn’t want to pack up and move.

The football games weren’t that interesting at the end of the day. The Atlanta Falcons’ offensive juggernaut continued as they put up 44 points and handily beat the Packers. The next game was another blowout as New England beat Pittsburgh 36-17.

Sleeping on the hotel mattress made me appreciate our Leesa foam mattress – it’s much more comfortable. After a complimentary breakfast at the hotel and long, hot showers, we came back to RV Renovators around 10am. I was surprised to find a scissor-lift next to the coach and a couple of guys starting work. They planned to pull the window awnings and slide topper and start removing trim today. Rain is in the forecast this afternoon, so they won’t start work in earnest until tomorrow.

 

RV Renovators – Day 2 – 4 – Treading Water

We’re treading water here at RV Renovators in Mesa, Arizona. They sent paperwork to our insurance carrier – Nationwide – for a supplement to Nationwide’s original estimate. I knew the original estimate was low but the adjuster, Jacob, wasn’t concerned. He said he expected a supplement. Jim at RV Renovators expected to write a supplement. So, I thought it was business as usual.

Meanwhile, Jacob at Nationwide transferred to a different position. He no longer works in claims. Our claim file and the supplemental estimate was assigned to another adjuster on Thursday. I received a phone call from the new adjuster, James, this morning. He said he’s waiting for additional photos to justify the supplement.

Nationwide sent an independent appraiser to document the damage when we were in Colorado in September. This appraiser took notes and photos and told me he thought the damage we extensive – a bigger job than it looked. Nationwide’s adjuster wrote the estimate based on photos and notes from the independent appraiser. Now they want more photos and explanations.

The original estimate written by Jacob was for $8,366. I was sure this wasn’t enough. The estimate written by RV Renovators comes up to $20,000. The new adjuster, James, says he needs to work on the claim details and probably won’t give the “go ahead” until next Tuesday. At that point we’ll have wasted a week sitting next to the shop at RV Renovators.

Donna’s staying busy writing articles. I’ve been doing a lot of reading. Yesterday, rain moved into the area. We had sporadic showers for the last 24 hours and it’s expected to continue with periods of heavier rain through the weekend. During a break in the showers, Donna and I took a walk along the Consolidated Canal – about a mile and a half. Other than that there hasn’t been much to do.

This afternoon, Enterprise will deliver a rental car for the weekend. We plan to go out tonight for dinner and also meet up with friends tomorrow night.

We booked a hotel room for Sunday. We’ll drive over to the hotel where we can get laundry done and I can watch the football games. I originally thought I should be here at the coach when the shop opens on Monday morning, but now after talking to James I don’t see the urgency.

Unlucky Day

Today is Friday the 13th. Superstition says this is an unlucky day and bad things happen. Well, Donna jumped the gun on that. Yesterday we went to Pacific Beach Recreation Center to play pickleball. We played for a couple of hours. In our last game, Donna was playing on the court next to the one I was on. I heard her fall as she scrambled to get a ball that went deep in the corner of the court.

She stayed down, holding her right ankle. She said she heard a pop as her foot rolled under, hyper-extending the lateral joint. Her partner in the game went to the office immediately and retrieved cold packs. One of her opponents in the game happened to be a medical doctor – his name is Gresham. His thought there was ligament damage, not a break.

Luckily we had Sini’s car since she had the left the RV park the day before and wasn’t due to return until the afternoon. Another guy helped me get Donna to the car. We came home and she stretched out on the sofa with her knee elevated above her heart and her ankle above the knee – we accomplished this with a stack of pillows. She spent the rest of the day icing the ankle – 20 minutes on ice, then twenty minutes off. She also took ibuprofen. This is what Gresham recommended.

I’m happy to report she’s doing much better this morning and can walk, albeit gingerly. Yesterday she couldn’t bear any weight on her ankle at all.

I mentioned Sini leaving the park for a day. She drove up to Temecula with her son, Beau. They stayed overnight at the Pechanga Casino. She encountered heavy rain and wind on the trip – about 60 miles each way – but came through fine. It was her first solo experience driving her motorhome.

The rain had us hunkered down for the past two days. It looks like we should be in for dry weather through the weekend although there is still a 20% chance of rain. I’m keeping my fingers crossed as I need to get ready for the road and I’d like to have everything dry before I pack it up.

Our plan is to drive I-8 east almost to Yuma on Sunday. We’ll boondock overnight in the desert with our friends, Jeff and Deb Spencer (Rolling Recess) – they’re already there. We last saw them in Las Vegas last spring.

That’s one of the great things about the full-time RV community. We make new friends and keep up with each other via Facebook or blogs and then we meet up whenever we find ourselves in the same area.

I’m hoping to get a fairly early start on Sunday so I can be set up in time to watch the Green Bay vs Dallas NFL playoff game.