Wednesday, January 7, 2015

Not a Great Start

The weather on Sunday and Monday didn't improve but we did take a walk next door to visit Don and Trudy.  They are only one of two of our friend couples still in the RV park.  They are going to look over here next year too.  We also attended computer school to learn how to navigate the website to stay on top of things.

Our biggest problem has been the electric.  Our rig has a built in surge protector.  If voltage drops or peaks, it shuts the electric down to protect us.  It kept shutting off and our readings said low voltage.  We had an electrician out twice and they said the electric post was fine.  We tried the 30 amp instead of 50 and it did it less but we still needed to get it fixed.  Mark, the owner, told us to do whatever needed to be done.

On Tuesday Ted called AEP, the electric company, and then went shooting at the range.  The fellow arrived and pulled the meter and we could hear the crackling.  It was obvious where a part was burned and was causing the problem.  That's when the fun began!

AEP said only the meter was theirs.  The post belonged to Rhodes Enterprises or the HOA or the lot owner.  Great!  I finally determined that Mark owns the post, Rhodes should have spare parts, AEP needed to shut off the electric and we needed the electrician back to change the part they needed to get from Rhodes!  Whew!  I called Ted to come back because this was getting complicated.

AEP turned off the electric, the electrician came back then left to get the part, returned and fixed it.  Now it got to be even more fun.  Ted called AEP to come restore the power.  We waited a couple hours and at 3 he called back.  THEN we were told the city had to inspect it but no permit had been pulled so our request was just sitting there.  So Ted called the electrician who was probably sorry he had ever met us.  He said he would go right then to pull the permit so the city would inspect it!

By now it is the end of the work day and we know nothing else is going to get done and we have no electric.  If it wasn't for his CPAP machine we would have been OK on 12 volt and propane.  Ted finally asked Kathy next door if their post would support both of us, one in 50 amp and the other in 30.  She said no problem.  We turned off the water heater and kept the fireplace off and had no issues through the evening and night.

The inspector came the next day and we waited and waited for AEP to come and restore power.  By the end of the day I was on the phone with the city saying they sent a clearance to AEP and AEP saying they never received it!  The next morning at 7:45 the original AEP guy showed up and said he thought we were going to call back that same afternoon two days ago.  I told him we did and what had transpired.  He said we didn't need a permit, inspection or the green card the inspector gave us!!

It is all fixed and we unplugged from Kathy's and into our own.  I wrote Mark and told him what happened so he has a record to reconcile any charges.  They felt bad we had to go through this.  It would  have been much worse if Kathy hadn't been agreeable or her post wouldn't have been able to support both RVs on it.


I went to Spanish class that is being taught by Marisa who is in a Mobile Suites just like ours.  She and I were picked up by Beverly and Carolyn to go to the breakfast Thursday morning with 30 other women.  We had to speak Spanish in introducing ourselves and others as part of our 10 minutes a day practice!  Fun times.  I am third on the left holding my coffee cup.



Last night we went to a Victoria Palms dance featuring a 17 piece orchestra.  All our old Bentsen Palms friends were there, 5 other couples.  We had not seen them since July in Michigan at Dave's 70th birthday party.



Stella texted me this morning to let us know they have hail at Inks Lake and aren't coming until Monday.  With no road crews around, it is best to stay off Texas highways in this crazy weather.

Now if we can just get the temperature up to normal.  Enough of this jet stream dipping all the way down to the Gulf.



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