The Florida hold is strong!

So we roll into Josam, the shop that is going to replace the drag link right at 1000am, get the Jeep unhooked, walk inside and find out UPS hasn't come yet.  Okay still 30 mins to go.  An hour later and no UPS, so back on the phone I go to find out what is going on?  Wonderful, the part that was promised to be sent, wasn't sent at all!  And the company that makes it, isn't exactly pleasant on the phone.  They want to know why I'm bugging them!?!?!?!  They tell me they have 3 weeks to build the part and why don't I talk to Monaco like I'm supposed to?  Well, I ask why they didn't ship a part after it was confirmed and promised?  No real answer, so we both calm down.  I explain again how this part has me at a standstill until it is replaced and how we live in our motorhome, and how if it doesn't get here by Friday, we have to kill yet another weekend waiting.  So they promise again to ship it Thursday, I pony up a ton of money for next day air, and we wait for the shipping number....

Now just so it stays complicated, we had a 0700am appointment in Ocala at Detroit Diesel to have our transmission serviced.  Can't make that now, so as I am talking to Ocala on the phone they ask why don't I try to see if their shop in Orlando can help me instead?  Turns out the Orlando division is a mile from where we are!!  So we are headed over there at 0730am this morning, and they say we will be done in a couple hours so we can come back and meet the part which WILL be here by 1030am confirmed by a shipping number this time!  Josam very nicely offers to let us stay overnight in their lot, even gives us a key to the gate so we can get in and out if we need to.  So with a couple burps, it looks like it's coming together.

Our campsite for the night

Now I would like to thank my government for looking out for me and protecting me in every way.  Let me explain.  We obviously didn't plan for this chain of events, so our fuel in the motorhome was at about 1/4 full as we were planning to fuel near Ocala on our way north.  Well since it is so hot, we have had to run the generator nonstop to keep the ACs going.  The catch is this.  There is a stand pipe in the fuel tank that prevents the generator from running you out of fuel.  The generator will only get fuel down to about 1/4 full right where we are!  So I get thinking, not necessarily a good thing, it would not be good to have the genny quit in the middle of the night.  So we run out to Wally World and buy 2-5 gallon gas cans, fill them up and try to put the fuel in the motorhome.  This is where Big Brother comes in.  It's been awhile since we bought a gas can, so we were not aware of the "safety" measures built into the can.  It took literally 15 minutes per can to pour the diesel into the tank!!  So our 20 minute job took 2 hours, but we did manage to put about 18 gallons into the tank with two trips to the gas station.  Gave us peace of mind that the genny wouldn't quit overnight.

So today is a new day, the sun is shining or it will in an hour or so:-)  Wish us luck, and keep your fingers crossed that we can finally escape the Florida tractor beam!