Casa Grande let go of us, please!

All this bodes well for next year as I should be able to pick up where I left off and get stuck straight in.

The plan was to leave Casa Grande April 1^st and head over to Yuma then down to Mexico for new glasses and teeth cleaning.

Being NON planners has been a point of pride for us, so it was no surprise when our plan backfired big time!

I recently bought a used Mazda to tow behind the rig and spent some time and money adapting it for towing.

We had a practice tow around Casa Grande to fill up the rig and check everything was working properly. We're so glad we did that before we hit the road properly because I messed up setting the steering lock and we dragged it with the wheels locked at an angle without realizing it after a sharp turn out of the gas station after filling up.

The nice shiny car got torn up when the tire exploded.

I have to say that I WASN'T happy. All my insecurities and my anxiety disorder came rushing back. I had a couple of bad days and couldn't talk about it. Luckily I remembered my previous episodes and started meditation. That helped me over the hump and although it still hurts, I can talk about it. I have to state that this was MY FAULT, I didn't check things and ignored some things I should have noticed.

So we had an unplanned couple of weeks in Casa Grande waiting for the car to get repaired, but some good things came out of it. We did a few more jobs around the rig like cleaning the headlight lenses which were pretty fogged up and installing a Tire Pressure Monitoring System (TPMS) so hopefully we'll get some warnings of problems before they get really bad.  http://www.minderresearch.com/tireminder/

The TPMS turned into a major job when we realized the short valve stems fitted when we got new tires last fall wouldn't suit and we had to go to a local tire place and have the wheels removed to fix it.

But I got to go to more art classes, and better yet we were around for the cactus in the park blooming. They were really pretty and we spent a couple of evenings wandering around with a camera looking for them. I started 3 paintings of them, I'll have to try and get them finished before we leave.

More bad things seemed to be waiting in the wings however and the rear AC unit refused to function just before we pulled out. Of course nobody was available to fix it when we needed to get it done. We can only run 1 at a time on shore power anyway so at least we have the front one to keep us cool.

We were so tired of things going wrong we said the heck with it. We needed to get new glasses and have our teeth cleaned. There's a little border town in Mexico called Algedones where the “Full Timer” population go for those kind of things. It;s right next to Yuma, which is convenient for us as we can stay at the SKP's KOFA RV park.

Casa Grande didn't want to let us go just yet and gremlins hit the new TPMS system with 2 tires suddenly losing pressure after holding fine for 2 days. Furious working, cursing and wrench throwing had the tires holding air (I hoped) and me covered in a nice mixture of sweat and fine dust (We had a big dust storm thru here last week!).

We had swapped the ends of the tow bar to suit the Miata, so of course they didn't fit the Fiesta! We were so determined to leave that Barbara drove the Fiesta behind the rig for the 170 miles to Yuma.

I know. You probably spotted something. We're in Yuma with the rig and the Fiesta. We can't tow the Fiesta anymore and the Miata is still in the shop in Casa Grande. How is that going to work??

Well we're so mad about things going wrong and delays in the repair of the Miata that we just left. When they call us about the Miata we'll just drive the Fiesta back to Casa Grande and put it in storage there pending the outcome of the law suit against Ford. Then we'll drive the Miata back to Yuma and carry on from there.

Another thorn in our side has been waiting on the new California lawyer to get the Lemon Law filing done. We've been expecting it to settle at any moment. That dream just got dashed as they now tell us that it will take much longer due to them suing for damages as well as the Lemon Law settlement. So the Fiesta will get stored until November then we'll have 2 cars again next winter pending the finalization of the suit.

Did I mention that we are getting SERIOUSLY frustrated with this!!