My timeline is a little messed up so bare with me. I lost track of days, my head still healing and Kaiya took me down so hard in Stormville that my head was a basketball and I lost some of my memory of things that have happened since. I felt like a fool talking to my daughter who told me we spoke the night before and I was repeating myself.
I am trying to download photos from my LG phone and they just will not and I must admit that I am far from being tech savvy. I just enjoy all the toys.
I see we spent the night in Stormville, New York near Fishkill on 84 west. Must have been June 16th. Who thought of these names?
Anyways Fishkill has a lot of Revolutionary War history. The town is close to Stormville.
It is now June 15 and we headed out to Waterbury, Connecticut as this was the last Ocean State Job Lot and I wanted a kayak wall hanger since the kayak is loaded on the back and locked up on the top ladder rung and I am not able to use it as it is tall and heavy, tears.
It looks something like this. But to learn that it will be illegal as I now will be about 6" too wide on the side of the RV, Oh No! Now what do I do? I still have Concussion Trauma Syndrome so I don't dare to keep climbing up on the roof.
So we spend the night in the "wonderful" neighborhood with a 24 hr McDonald's. We met some nice people. Kaiya slept with one ear open all night.
On June 17th we met a nice man at a small rest stop in New York. A sign stated it had a nice view but there was a view of nothing. He told me the cheapest place to get gas was in New Jersey at the "Tri-State" line. We stop to do laundry, buy groceries, chit-chat with locals in Port Jervis and then head over to fuel up. And what happens? We break down at the fuel pump.
So I call my "trusty" Progressive Road Side Assistance for a tow (this is their photo shown above). I was on hold for 1 hour and then the gas attendant and I spoke to a man for 45 minutes. He said to hold tight that a truck will arrive in 90 minutes to jump Goliath. I get out, get a wrench, tighten the terminals on the battery and she is up and running. Now I'm so peeved I pull over to the side of the large parking lot and wait. 90 minutes later no truck, call back, took another hour. The sweet gentleman I spoke to NEVER dispatched a truck so now wait for 90 more minutes. Truck comes and the battery won't start. Call Progressive again and again and again and again. They keep telling me help is coming and the companies they are calling Progressive keeps telling them I have a van. Good thing I wrote down info and called the companies back before they hit the road. Progressive doesn't want to pay the $500 Big Rig fee and they won't call the mechanic 1 mile down the road who owns a big rig. Nope. All are close to 1 hour away. I finally give up and Kaiya and I go sit in a nice cool stream for an hour before bedtime and it was pure bliss. 22 hours later, yes, 22 hours later a truck shows up after repeating my calls at 5am. It takes the wrecker 2 hours to hook me up because I need a flat roll not a tower, oh joy. Now my tow bill just jumped to $1,000 to go 1 mile! Glad I refused to prepay because I know Progressive would have taken weeks for me to receive a partial payment and I told them this.
What was the problem? The battery was installed incorrectly. Marx Auto Sales and Repair in New Bedford, Massachusetts mechanic used an old rusty stripped bolt that was too short to ground the new $250+ battery that I just bought from them. A battery bracket wasn't put on so the battery bounced around causing the terminals to become loose enough to pull off by hand. And the battery is too small for my RV. Now mind you that this RV was stored at Marx for 5+ years and he was paid a monthly lot rental fee. Not only that but he was paid to do transmission work in February and he decided he didn't want to do the work because it was too cold in April and May so they sent it out somewhere to have it done and his mechanic broke my starter. Ok, I'll suck up the cost for the starter but why do I have to pay mechanic fees? And then he upped the cost of the transmission fee of $125+.
Here is Marx: http://www.marxautocenter.com - I'm Warning all You potential Customers!
Tom comes to my rescue. He was woken out of bed and told to jump into the Big Rig and get us.
Goliath was Tom's worst nightmare in his 22 years. The front tires are too narrow. Most driver's would have quit and made a good lie of an excuse but not Tom. He got us to the mechanic 1 mile away after our 24 long hours of waiting. All because of a battery issue that should have NEVER happened.
Will blog what happened next. I believe Kaiya should get some TLC and I need to eat. I haven't eaten since yesterday and my waistline is showing it.
If you wish to speak more about Progressive we can as long as I have internet. I already told nearly every person I spoke to including the supervisor that I was putting our horror story out there for everyone to read.
Until lata,
Spirit and Kaiya
The Wandering Gypsies
