March 1 - Slide fix day!

Our big slide in the living area has been stuck "in" since January 14 (https://journeyinamazinggrace.blogspot.com/2022/01/progress-on-friday.html). 

In January, I had attempted to make an appointment with Newmar's "mothership" - the 100 bay service facility in Nappanee, Indiana that they built just 2-3 years ago is fully booked months in advance. When I called in January, they put me on a list to be contacted back on what service we needed, and I was cautioned then that the appointment would probably not be until November or December.

I asked if the service advisor in Nappanee could recommend a service center in the Mesa area, and they gave me the name of one, but when I called, they would not accept "waiters" -- the service center wanted us to drop the rig off and come pick it up when they were done - whether that be hours or days or weeks later. We generally stay in our rig while it is being worked on -- not during the day, but every night it gets returned to us and we can stay in it. The person who spoke to me specifically said that they don't accept "Newmar waiters", so I don't know whether that means they would allow owners of other brands of RVs to stay in their rigs or not.

I had found a page on the Newmar site where I could look up approved service centers, and I found that Freedom RV in Tucson was "Highly Recommended, Platinum Servicing Dealer", so I called to make an appointment with them. They were scheduling a couple of weeks out, but with our plans to go to Mexico and Mesa, we scheduled for March 1. Carl honestly wasn't real hopeful -- feeling "snake-bit" that this slide needed a drastic overhaul. I actually was cautiously optimistic, thinking that it might be an easy fix for someone who knew what they were doing, just needed the appropriate tweaks to the controller.

We had called last week to see if we could park in their lot overnight Monday night before our 8am checkin - the service advisor let us know that if we were actively getting the rig worked on, we could stay in their lot overnight, but not the night before service. So, we stayed Monday night at the campground in Marana, and got up early (for us) to leave by about 7am.

Freedom RV on Irvington in Tucson

When we arrived, we didn't see this sign that said to follow the yellow arrows (we saw the one saying that "New Coach deliveries should be at the rear gate")...

...but we saw the yellow arrows and followed them.

Our service advisor, Dusty, told us that we could feel free to leave and they would call us with any questions or updates, so we went across the street to Denny's for breakfast. Sure enough, while we were there, Dusty called, and Carl spoke with the technician working on Gracie. The technician wanted to be sure he understood the problem because he was not finding that the slide was having difficulties and wanted to be sure that he was working on the correct slide. Carl explained what we had experienced, and we finished breakfast and headed back to Freedom RV.

Pillow in the waiting area "Roam Sweet Roam - Freedom RV Motor Home - Go Where The Road Takes You"

Carl went out to Dusty's desk to let her know that we were back -- she wasn't there, but came back in a moment to let him know that the service on Gracie was all done!

By 10am, Gracie was all ready to go.

We put the slide out and in to be sure that we were satisfied, and then started to figure out where we would go next!

I needed to have a repair done on my ring, so we stopped by the mall to drop it off. We're going to be back in Tucson later in March, and figured this was a good time to get the repair completed as it may take a couple of weeks.

There was an interesting display in the mall...

... with a funny caption...

Carl about to be eaten by the dinosaur!

We have reservations at a campground in Yuma starting next week on Monday, and we thought about heading to Yuma and finding somewhere else to stay for a few days, but I looked at a small county park that I had found a couple of weeks ago and where we are booked to stay on our way back from Yuma to Tucson... they had an available space.

West Pinal Park (aka Kortsen Park)

It is boondocking (camping without hookups) though each site has a ramada with picnic tables...

We are happy to be here for a few days!

We are SO thankful that our slide is fixed, though, we're being cautious and we don't plan to use it until we get to Yuma where there will be mobile techs available if we have a problem. We're also grateful to not be in "service center jail", where we would be staying for many days awaiting a fix to be completed!