I decided to
accompany the FO to Camping World rather than hang out at the KOA as originally
planned. It would have been a warm and sweaty wait as our appointment was at
1:00 p.m. It turned out to be a good decision since the kind of oil we needed
wasn’t in stock and had to be brought in by Pony Express.
Starship
Arrowstar launched on Memorial Day, and so far mechanical maintenance remains
routine. We docked at Camping World in Hendersonville, NC yesterday for our
first oil change. The urge to buy some window dressing for the ship prevailed
as we waited. We found a brown and light tan vine design in a 9 x 12 carpet for
the area just outside our door. It looks very inviting under our awning with
the area rug, the standard KOA picnic table, two camping chairs and one of
those zero gravity lounge chairs.
Our goodies
rounded up while we waited included a cool-looking four pronged level that
reminds me of one of those conference-call devices we used to put in the middle
of the table in big meetings at the newspaper back in the day. By the way, it
works great! All four LED’s lit up when we placed it on the floor of the rig.
The Starship’s self-leveling feature evidently improves with practice. Just one
push of the button this time around!
We went over
to the little town of Black Mountain for pizza at Pepperoni’s last evening. I
splurged, drinking two Michelob Lights along with two or three sausage/onion
pizza slices. Frank’s pizza half was Hawaiian, and we brought a couple slices
of each home with us. I have never been a fan of beer, but I’m really starting
to enjoy it with pizza (I also like the fact it has no caffeine to keep me
awake). We both agreed it was the very best pizza we’ve ever tasted!
Our waitress
had a charming southern accent, so we had to ask her to repeat what she said several
times. When we left she said, “Y’all come back, now!” It’s North Carolina! It’s
the home of genuine “southern hospitality.” I like it right along with the
teeth numbing sweet tea. It’s nice to feel at “home.”
End Captain's Log
FO Entry:
Camping
World! The store you love to hate. We arrived at 12:30 for a 15 minute oil
change at scheduled for 1 PM and left at 4:30 almost $***.00 (the total is not
something the Captain needs to know.)
The four
hour, “send out for the oil” delay may have been genuine but I also have the
suspicion that holding up the repair effort is also a darn clever marketing
ploy that gives the customer way too much time to wander the aisles finding a
whole bunch of things they didn’t know were essential to their enjoyment of the
camping experience. Hence the classified
total sale amount above. I wandered, I
saw, I bought, and I bought, and I bought.
Yesterday we
had an interesting experience while walking the dogs and scoping the park. As we passed by a maintenance shed I saw a large
black, rubber snake on the side of the lawn.
“Hah!” I said to myself, “It’s a let’s scare the tourists joke.” We continued on and Cleo (our back-up dog)
walked up to and sniffed the rubber snake, and then stepped over the rubber
snake, which then turned around and slithered under a pile of wood and leaves.
End First Officer's Log
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