Life always has its ups and downs. Living fulltime in our RV is no different. After all, life is life, no matter where you live or what kind of roof you have over your head, one nailed in place or one that moves down the road.
Most of the time, it's all good, but every now and then, a little "blip" comes along that isn't earth shattering, but does get under your skin.
Case in point, the other night, we were driving in the Element and pulled in to a handy gas station. Putting my debit card in the pump like I always do, it gave me a message on the screen that it could not process my pin number. Okay, so I whipped out my back up credit card, which we keep in case of an emergency. The pump took my credit card and I filled up.
The next morning, I got a call from the credit card security branch wanting to know if I made two purchases at a gas station, one for $42 (which was for the gas) and the other was for $150. Uh oh, I didn't spend $150 there. The credit card rep did a little digging and found that the gas station automatically charged my credit card $150 to ensure I had enough credit to pay for the gas! Then she told me that the gas station company would credit back the $150 in five to seven days! Nice. Imagine all the interest they make on people's money holding it for five to seven days, times the hundreds of people filling up there.
A little blip, but wow...
Many of you may have looked at the link in yesterday's post about our picture in the newspaper. Some of you eagle eyed readers noticed that the article said we sold our house in South Dakota, actually that is wrong, it was Virginia. The photographer even took notes about us but maybe he couldn't read his handwriting. It's funny, but just goes to show you can't believe everything you read in the papers. Every time I've been interviewed in a newspaper, there have been mistakes in the articles once printed. I 've got a good campfire story on being misquoted in the Wall Street Journal on a front page article.
Even more fun was the picture showing us in perfect paddling harmony. The photographer was very kind and didn't post any pictures of us banging paddles and going around in circles.
A little blip, but wow...
Our Select Comfort Lumpy Mattress (SCLM), which we absolutely love (NOT!) has given us a new issue. One of the two controllers has lost its LED readout. Believe it or not, the factory is just a couple of miles down the road from where we are staying.
Today we went down there to see if they had a parts department so we could get a new controller. We struck out, they don't have a parts department but were kind enough to provide me an 800 number to call customer service (in Michigan). I gave them a call, the rep was very nice and told me our mattress is obsolete. We cannot buy just a controller anymore, we have to buy a new cordless controller and pump assembly, for only $120 plus shipping. We're thinking about that very carefully, we may just finally chuck the whole mattress and replace it with a conventional one.
A little blip, but wow...
We are always concerned with the cost of diesel fuel, we have an allowance in our monthly budget, but it is always nice to find the lowest cost to fill up the tank. When we arrived here in South Carolina, the prices were falling and I ran the tank down to 1/4 full. I intended to take advantage of the falling prices and make a score of a much lower price fill up when we depart on Sunday. Of course, now the price is 20-30 cents more a gallon than when we first arrived. Now if I had only filled up upon arrival, the price would have gone down another 20-30 cents.
A little blip, but wow...
No matter, it's all good and we're happy just hanging out in our Journey, enjoying every day and every mile. There will always be blips, we just laugh and press on.
Now you know why we don't buy lottery tickets. :c)
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Thanks for visiting and feel free to leave a comment.
We took a vacation a few years back to Grand Cayman. Hotel was paid in full in advance. Hotel took a deposit of $100 a day on our credit card ($700) at check in. They said it was to ensure we didn't add meals, etc., to our hotel bill and that they were covered! What a rip off!! I bet more places do that than we realize. Isn't it amazing how fast they can take it away but how slow they give it back??
ReplyDeletethe credit card issue is the same here in BC..they take a large amount and hold it until a certain amount of business days..
ReplyDeletedoes anyone out there in RV'ville..like those select comfort mattresses??
I always say that it's all an adventure - good or bad. Ron loves his select comfort, but I find all that inflating and deflating kind of annoying.
ReplyDeleteHappened to us at an RV repair shop in Apache Junction. Took us a week to get that money back and I was really ticked. Will never do that again. What are you paying for diesel out that way? We paid 4.499 in NV and today we paid 4.159 here in AZ. Sure does put a crimp in our traveling plans.
ReplyDeleteDiesel right now (don't blink, it might change) at the cheapest place I can find (Walmart's Murphy Gas Station) is $3.89, or $3.79 if you use a Walmart pre paid card, which we'll purchase.
DeleteWhen we arrived here last month it was $3.59. Should have filled up then (duh!).
We all continue to operate under the umbrella of Murphy's law. blip, blip.
ReplyDeleteWe love our Tempurpedic. We will definitely have one in our 5er when we hit the road.
ReplyDeleteBlips...there are blips in everything. Good thing the good Lord is there to help us over the speed blips in life :)
ReplyDeleteWe like the new select comfort in Phiona better. On our other one we put memory foam pad and that really increased the comfort.
ReplyDeleteGotta love those blips. . . not!
ReplyDeleteWe have a memory foam mattress. Weighs a ton but we like it. A mattress like yours would certainly help the old CCC though!
ReplyDeleteIf we were to let the blips get in the way of living life, it would be a short one indeed. If your ears were burning last night, it was because we had dinner at Carrabba's and talked about the meal we shared there before you guys left to go full timing.
ReplyDeleteWe have an app called Gas Buddy. They send an email if the gas is about to rise. How do they know? I have no idea, but they have been wrong only once in 4 years.
ReplyDeleteThanks for taking the time to discuss this, strongly about it and love learning more on this topic. Thanks for the code…hard to ?And when needed..very nice indeed and keep up the good work
ReplyDeleteOur bed LED display quit after 6 months and indeed the whole unit including the pump had to be replaced under warranty.
ReplyDeleteAbout a year later the LED's failed again. I think partly because we did not use them enough. We rarely changed the settings except for altitude changes. We never bothered to fix it again, we just used the feel good method:)
Howdy Marti & Chief,
ReplyDeleteLife goes on, just live it!!! Nick & Ms Terry got so upset at their Slumber bed they stuck it in a dumpster
and Nick wrote a blog about it... Why don't they admit ALL of their ads are misleading?? Go by Sam's and get you a GOOD ONE AND A MATTRESS TOPPER; works every time!! Saves $$$, too, also!!!