But I digress. We'll back up about 12hrs.
Around 10 this morning Steve talked to the service tech working on his truck. He said they were still waiting for some gaskets but the truck would be done and ready to pick up sometime in the afternoon.
There were a few show people who had stayed the night on the lot but one by one they packed up and left until it was just Steve and I. Keep in mind that show power had been pulled the night before so the generator could head to Biloxi. Luckily, it had begun to rain during the night and was shaping up to be an overcast day so it wasn't going to be lava hot like it had been all week.
We went out to lunch, ran a few errands and came back to the lot around 4 so Steve could call the guy to find out the truck status. This guy had given him his cell number so he could be reached at any time. The first time he called, he was told the guy was "busy". When called again about 45minutes later no one picked up. It was time to pay the dealership a visit.
T'was a good thing because we were informed that the guy had quit/been fired the day before and hadn't transferred responsibility of informing Steve of the truck's status to anyone else. At that point they said worst case scenario, the truck would be done by 5pm.......tomorrow.
We don't open until Thursday in Biloxi so we'll still be able to get there in time but still.......
But that's merely where the story begins boys and girls. You see by the time we left the dealership it had begun to p-o-u-r down rain. This wouldn't have been a huge deal if we were staying on the lot another night. We figured for safety and peace of mind it would be best to stay at an RV park for the night.
So, in the torrential downpour that ensued we first hooked up Steve's hitch to my truck and hooked up his travel trailer. Unfortunately since my rear suspension isn't as high as Steve's the trailer would've basically been dragging on the ground had we pulled out. He took shelter under the lip of my 5th wheel and adjusted the hitch. After that we were good to go.......
Hidalgo doesn't get all that much rain. Recently however they gotten much more than their average amount. So when this freaking tsunami hit, there was already so much water in the ground that there wasn't any more room for this excess water to be absorbed. So it just stayed put all over the road. Like crazy deep! We got the RV park just fine, backed Steve's trailer in, un-hitched it, and jumped back in my truck to go fetch my 5th Wheel.
After another soaking whilst hooking everything up we were back on the road crossing even deeper reservoirs of water collected in the middle of the road. There were cops all over the highway and it seemed every 5th person or so had not quite understood the laws of physics regarding driving during a flash flood warning. Luckily we arrived in one piece at the RV park and I backed my trailer into its spot. The owner had warned me that there was only a 50amp hook-up. No problem, I had the correct adapter. He had shown me two spots back to back that I could pull into so naturally I chose the easier one.
Turns out that 50amp power supply he had mentioned was one the complete opposite end of the OTHER spot next to me. I found this only after doubling up the amount of wood I use to lower my front jacks onto and trying to devise a way to prevent my wheel chocks from floating away. The rain was incidental at this point since I was 'cannonball off the high dive' wet anyway.
Steve came over and we went through every possibility of cable combination trying to figure how to get me some power. It started to look like the only option was to head to Wal-Mart and buy an extension. At the last minute though we found that there was a 20amp plug-in in the circuit box. Steve just so happened to have an adapter and extension cord that would take my 30amp cable down to 20amp and reach the circuit box. I would just have to make sure I didn't run the air and microwave at the same time. Sweet.
After two or three trips back and forth pushing the reset button and flipping the breaker, I had me some power. So I dried off for the umphteenth time and gave my Mom a call to touch base. I decided I'd try to conserve power as not to blow the circuit and raised the thermostat until it clicked off. As soon as it clicked off, I (like a genius) fired it back up for some reason.....and blew the circuit. After one more trip out into the freezing (did I mention the rain was freaking FREEZING....yeah, we're basically IN Mexico in the middle of August and it feels like Pittsburgh in March...go figure) rain to reset things, the drama for the day ended (knock on wood). I gave my mom a call to give the 'all clear' while trying to dry out a bit.
This week off in Pittsburgh is coming at just the right time.
We brought all of this on ourselves though when we joked that we had had our fill of Adven.....er.....the A-word.
From now we only reference that word by calling it the 'A-Word' or referring to this picture:
G'night from freaking Hidalgo. Traveling in Texas is like dividing by zero.
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