Indio, California: Dave and I said goodbye to Our Friends and drove back to Indio (from Anaheim) Sunday morning. Because of the Easter holiday, we found many businesses closed, so took the first "Desert Cities" exit from the 10 to cruise through downtown Palm Springs in search of food. (If you will recall, we have no refrigeration, nor hot water, in our motorhome.) We found parking and Smoked Chicken Enchiladas at The Blue Coyote Grill. Just love this place!
Best. Black. Beans. Ever.
Eat when you can. One never knows.After a semi-restless night due to noisy high-winds, we woke this morning to phone calls and text messages from repair people ready to service our motorhome!
Fairytales can come, it can happen to you...
The AquaHot repair guy came by to give us hot water. The AquaHot system can work via electric elements to heat water (and the furnace) or via a diesel (fire) burner to heat water (and the furnace). The diesel system is great while dry camping - it uses diesel directly from the fuel tank. Howard's RV Repair ordered the parts to fix the fried electrical portion of our water heating system, but until the parts arrive (any day now), Howard spent some time this morning to get the diesel burner working so we would have hot water for our shower, dishwashing, etc.
Not only is Howard a great guy, he knew our fridge was dead and that we needed help getting the fridge out of the built-in-cabinet so the service tech could work on the back of the refrigerator. (Our fridge is built into a cabinet about 8 inches above the floor of our motorhome. Easy to slip out, but we needed something to slide the unit onto...) Howard phoned Rob of RCV Custom Coach Service because Howard knew Rob had a furniture dolly that could be used to slide the massive fridge from the wall. A few minutes later, Rob showed up - and with his power screwdriver and furniture dolly - Rob and Dave had the fridge out from the wall.
Ignore that giant elephant in the room!
This is where our fridge has lived for eight years. An opening in the cabinet floor reveals duct work for the furnace, carbon monoxide detector, electric plug for fridge and water line for ice maker. We've never seen this before. Considering it had been sealed-up for eight years, there was very little dust. Susie Homemaker!To get the fridge out from the tight space, the right fridge door had to be removed. We placed the refrigerator door in the living area of the motorhome.
'Cause we are classy like that.All we needed to get this massive fridge from the wall was a simple furniture dolly... and a wholotta screwdriving.
Hello, Dolly!About an hour after the fridge was removed, Ahmed, from All-Star Same Day Service (JennAir certified) arrived and in five minutes had swapped-out the errant component (thank goodness, not the compressor). It took Ahmed and DT another 20 minutes to get the heavy fridge back into the tight built-in space, replace the refrigerator door, and another 20 minutes to bolt-and-screw-down every safety plate. (Apparently it is not a good thing when a fridge goes flying out from the wall when your motorhome makes a tight curve, because this fridge has several safety plates/bars.) I loved Ahmed. He went out of his way to help us and worked around our schedule (insert trip to Anaheim in the middle of this ordeal). We phoned his boss to compliment this employee. (Why is it we are all too quick to complain, yet not as quick to compliment?)
So as I type this tonight at 9p, our freezer is frozen and our fridge has reached 37 degrees.Tomorrow, I will spend way-too-much-money at the grocer restocking our larder... but we have guests arriving in a few days and no one ever goes hungry at our house.
Thank you to so many people for working together to get us back in working order!
Until my next update, I remain, your "it takes a village" correspondent.
RV PARK: The Motorcoach Country Club