Wednesday, November 27, 2013, Move to Santa Cruz, CA


Wednesday morning, the boys at Golden State Truck & Trailer Repair in Salinas, CA, had me pull into the garage and they started pulling things apart again. The owner said the pump was available and would arrive early that afternoon. We left in our toad, found a place with a hotspot and tried not to worry. Around 1:00, we headed back and found the coach was out of the garage and in the lot.

It was finally repaired. It started first time, every time and there was no Check Engine light. Rene, the owner, made it all good. In the end, he only charged for a few hours of labor dealing with the filter changes and leak investigation and the amount he had quoted for the original pump replacement. There were no charges related to the drive shaft debacle and nothing for all of the extra effort to troubleshoot the lift pump (it was removed and re-installed at least three times!)

We hooked up the toad and left as quickly as we could, hoping to get to our campsite before the holiday traffic got really heavy (we did - there were no traffic issues.) I could not quit looking for a little yellow Check Engine light for the entire 48 miles. We only drove a portion of the originally planned move from Pismo beach, but for the record, the total trip (including some back-tracking and test driving) was 215.9 miles (5,573.3 trip/65,054.4 total).

Santa Cruz Ranch RV Resort in Santa Cruz, CA, really came through for us. They never charged us a dime for changing our reservation from 10 days to 4. Joani was on the phone with them every day during our saga ("we'll be there - we won't be there") and was greeted with hugs when we finally arrived. Once we settled in, we found our neighbors knew all about our ordeal and then told us tales that made us realize how much worse it could have been. The day ended well on every front, and as you can probably imagine, we were both more thankful and relieved than we could remember being in a long time. What a wonderful feeling to be back on the road again, just in time for a big Thanksgiving Holiday!

2 comments:

  1. I am so glad that you are both safe and sound after such a tortuous week!

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    1. Thank you, Kate, but all in all - it wasn't that bad. The boys at the shop treated us very fairly. We also had a great time with old and new friends.

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