Wednesday November 4, 2009-Rayford Crossing

Wow, there were 9 guys down for coffee this morning. It is good to see my friends that have returned to Rayford. We stayed down in the rally hall until almost 9 o'clock. When I came home, I ate a quick bowl of cereal, disconnected the television and together with Stella and Jim, who wanted to tag along with us, we left for Camping World.

To remind you what was going on with the television, back in July, while staying at the Green Caye RV Park in Dickinson, the Samsung TV had gone out. It would not turn on at all, so after checking everything out myself, I called Camping World to see about a replacement unit. Their service writer told me that I would have to bring the trailer in the next day, which as I recall was on a Thursday so that they could put me into their system for service. He said they would not even look at the trailer until Wednesday, so I asked him why I would have to bring it in a week in advance and stay in their parking lot (I told him that we are living in the trailer). He said that this is their policy, so I hung up and called my friend Joe French, one of the sales managers. Joe talked to the general manager of the store who approved me to bring the trailer in on Tuesday. They said they had to check the plugs in the trailer to make certain it was something wrong with the TV and not the trailer. Whatever....

We brought the trailer in and on Wednesday morning we went out for an all day ride, since they didn't know when they would look at the problem. Of course, it was after 4 before they looked at the TV, and guess what? The TV was bad.....I didn't say I told you so, but.....I told them so! By then it was too late to call Heartland in Elkhart, but they told me it would likely be two days or more before the decision would be made about what to do with the TV. I asked for a loaner TV, thinking they might take one out of a trade-in, but Jim Faris (General Manager of the store) and David Boots (Service Manager) took me into their stock room and took out a brand new Dynex TV and had it installed. Now keep in mind that I had said it was a loaner and both men were in the room at the time.

About two weeks went by when I called and left two messages for someone to call me back about the TV. When no one called me back, Stella called for the service manager.
He told her that "Heartland had told them to let us keep the Dynex" which is an off-brand, much cheaper TV. She told him that this was not what we had agreed on, and hung up.

Long story short was that we learned that Heartland had paid Camping World almost $1000 for the Samsung. Now tell me why they would pay for the more expensive TV but then tell them to give me the cheaper one? We finally worked it out that we would bring the Dynex back in and get a check to buy what we wanted, which is exactly what happened. I met with David Boots who seemed to be as caught-in-the-middle of this as I was, and he got me a check cut after we brought the TV into his office. We stopped off at Best Buy and bought a very nice Samsung TV and installed it in the opening. All is well now with our television.

Now for a nicer story. There is a rally in the park this week that is made up of older folks in motor homes. One very nice lady, who is staying right across the street from us, could not find her way down to the rally hall. She was confused about the buildings, so since I was going her way anyway, I walked her down to the rally hall and went to a meeting. When I came out of the meeting, she was near the pool but didn't remember where she had parked her motor home. Bless her heart. I walked her back to her motor home but she still didn't know how it had gotten there. I don't know where she came from but know that she will leave on Friday by herself. I hope she makes it!

We had a good meeting of the committee for the Winter Texans and made some good plans for some of the activities that will be held here in the future. It looks like its going to be a fun winter at Rayford.

So long.