So Close Yet So Far

We were up and out by 8 am Saturday morning and drove all the way to Lafayette before stopping for the night.  We stopped for lunch at a cute train themed restaurant and took a few photos. The first is a true dining car.  The second is a table attached to a specially painted wall that is the back of a pick up.  The rear window is actually a movie screen.  We sat at a regular table that was a shallow case covered by glass with lots of interesting train things inside.  The food was surpringly good!

We stopped in Baton Rouge and attended Mass at a mostly black church.  We were greeted and given rosaries as we entered and there was no hiding the fact that we were visitors when asked to stand.  It was such a warm and welcoming congregation and the music was terrific.  So many came up to thank us for coming to worship with them and we were given a prayer book for the Easter season though it is ending shortly.  What a bit of serendipity to our trip.

Much to our chagrin the Crawfish Festival was being held in Lafayette and motels were full!  We finally drove to the western edge before finding a room.  It was fine and we found four beers in the refrigerator so brought those orphans home with us

We were up early, way ahead of the crawfish revelers, but the coffee decanters were already empty. So were the syrup pitchers for the waffles.  I ate some Raisin Bran and Ted had waffles with jelly on them.  By the time we were done more coffee finally came out.  The late sleeping crowd may have been in for a rude awakening to go with their hangovers.

We made it home by early afternoon and put things away, and then our feet up.

We had talked to Scott the salesman in Winter Garden and made an offer on the light colored motorhome.  You can see they are the same but with different coloring.  It is a used 2016 versus a new 2018 that is about to turn two years old anyway, the price difference was $35,000 and I would rather someone else deal with that depreciation because there is more to come.

We got to $9,000 apart and didn’t commit, but once we got home I sent photos of other Mobile Suites for sale and included mention of the $4,000 of new furniture and the new Temperpedic mattress we put in last year and they came around until we were $5,000 and we said yes.

In the meantime we went to a dealer here and Ted drove one to be sure he was comfortable.  He said it is amazingly easy with the tag axle and articulating back wheels.  Ted asked Scott for the name and number of the previous owner and talked to him.  He gave it a big thumbs up, a lot of tips on use and driving but said it needed its yearly maintenance he had not done when he traded it 2.5 weeks ago.  This is about a $1,000 service and should be done and the fuel tank filled when a unit is sold or at least that is what we have encountered.  Scott said no, we would have to pay the $1,000.  Ted asked about their cost to do it and he said $1,000. That would mean those services owners use each year are doing it for nothing!  It was downhill from there.  They were pressing us for a deposit while I was waiting for them to tell me how to transmit it.  They weren’t happy about us not being able to drive our truck and trailer over for 10 days, etc. We were feeling rushed.

We have a very busy two weeks and I agreed to skip one thing so we could leave next Tuesday instead of next Friday, I told them I could easily charge a deposit over the phone but with the stipulation it was refundable based on a test drive.  We even checked into Ted flying over this week to test drive it and do the PDI on it but our things could not get there any sooner.  Finally we agreed we didn’t want to buy in haste and repent at leisure and called the deal off.  They immediately changed the price on the website to $5,000 less!!  And they lost a sale over $1,000 service that wouldn’t cost them that much and a week’s time.