All That and We Coulda Just Unplugged and Plugged in Again?!?

This whole first year of travel plans has been loosely based around appointments:

• in Ohio at the Airstream factory for minor warrantee work,
• in Texas for doctors, vehicle registration, and voting, and next up:
• Airstream of Tampa to get the awning fixed, which we haven’t been able to open since the U.P. of Michigan.

After days of research trying to get campsites in Tampa (the place is full-up), we manipulated our travel schedule so we could stay the night at Southern Aire RV resort, which is basically where folks live in their trailers cheaply and where Canadians come to stay for the winter.

They stuck us right at the front of the campground so we’d be easy in and out for the one night, and when we walked Banjo we admired the ten shuffleboard courts and the indoor rec room and the fellowship hall. We have plans for a month at a time in two RV parks in Florida, but they won’t be like this one (I think).

Early this morning we hitched back up and dropped off our beloved home at the Airstream dealership, letting them know that we’d really appreciate it if they could look at it that day, seeing as how we have nowhere else to sleep tonight. They said they’d do their best.

So we planned for a full day of errands around Tampa. First we picked up an order of groceries (we haul around a cooler and a dry-goods bin for this exact reason, in the back seat beside Banjo).

Then we parked by a library and sat out back to use their wifi. We both had major operating system updates we’d been waiting on, plus we needed to download the new season of The Mandalorian.

We hadn’t even finished the Mando download when Airstream called and said we were good to go. What?

Yep, they did a hard restart on the awning control board. It took about two minutes.

To Tracy’s credit, he did originally troubleshoot the damned thing on the phone with the awning company, but when they said it’s the control board, he knew that’s Airstream’s area, so he just made the appointment and we didn’t use the awning. For three months. And with awkward travel times and places to accommodate the appointment.

Oh well. We have our awning back! Now we’re headed down south even more to explore Florida until our next appointment (the big one): solar installation.