We are back in Tucson, after having the repair and remodel work done at various places in Nac. Here is the report! The body repair, headlight conversion (just the front) and roof attention at Xtreme went beautifully. As usual, anything that required discussion after the fact was relayed to us promptly and we were kept up to date. I have to say that it was ABSOLUTELY painless to work with the Progressive insurance guy. He met us at Xtreme, did the examination and report in their lot (his auto is a marvel of traveling office equipment) and even called us with visual updates while the work was in progress. Good Job, Progressive!
Xtreme and FOT really worked together in getting the coach back and forth between the two locations. Here is the timeline:
11/11 Arrive in Nac. Go over our punch list with Josh and add a few things (as usual). Visit Xtreme and check on all work to be performed. Run into Progressive rep and he stays late to work on your paperwork! (Josh at FOT is GREAT, and always replies to emails promptly. VERY helpful when anticipating an appointment.)
11/12 Coach work begins at FOT. Minor fixes begun. As usual, tech find additional issues that have been puzzling us because we are dunderheads. Techs at FOT are WONDERFUL. More education for us, clean work, friendly ... all around helpful.
11/13 New (to us) Air Ride driver's seat goes in. Jeff is a happy guy! Talk to David F about the Remodel session beginning 12/8 when our new fridge will be installed. All is good.
11/14 Getting ready to leave Nac for the airport in Houston. Tech finds source of puzzling leak that had been driving us crazy for 3 months. Water in bay around water pump (always small amounts) was coming through floor from bath! Drain line from sink and shower is cracked BIG TIME behind the drawers in the bath. Remove commode (again) to pull all drawers in bath, remove all drawers in kitchen hallway, fix pipe (brittle, aged, marine grade stuff), leave coach with dehumidifier overnight in shop. Good thing we hadn't planned to stay that night! They will deliver the coach to Xtreme on Monday for us.
11/17 thru 12/8 Xtreme does their thing with body repairs, headlights, bay doors, etc. They ran over on the time allotted for our coach, so we just kept FOT Remodel apprised and Xtreme delivered the coach back to them on 12/9.
12/8 The Samsung fridge that I had purchased over the phone from Home Depot in Lufkin ($999 on sale!!) was delivered to FOT as promised and in perfect shape.
12/9 Our old fridge comes out. The work is perhaps made easier because we had pulled out the jackknife sofa and co-pilot chair while the coach was at Xtreme. Well, WE didn't do it ... Mitch from Infinity Commercial Upholstery did it. Once the new driver's seat went in, the other stuff just looked too shabby. He was able to match the UltraLeather exactly, so you know how that goes ....
12/10 .... more of the same
12/16 We get back int Nac. Fridge is beautiful!! I am thrilled! Xtreme needs one more day to finish some details, so we go back to their location for a day. Mitch brings the sofa and chair and installs them. Couldn't be happier with his work. Simply top notch. Between that and the fridge, I feel as though I have a whole new coach! Mitch says he tries to give "a bit extra", and I would say that he certainly does. You get a beautifully embroidered pillow with your mane on one side, and he made two small pillows using some extra fabric left from the old sofa, to help tie it in with the existing decor. Nice! Sofa and chair are just impeccably done. They even welded a bit on the lumbar part of my chair that had broken ... it is now working and really comfortable!
The entire experience was a fine one. I continue to be SO thankful for the great treatment and extraordinary wealth of knowledge to be found in that town. I hope I let them all know how much I value working with them.
On the way home, we flew! NOT in a plane ... but with no tow car and EMPTY bays, we were flying. The new seat had Jeffy doing 400+ mile days with NO back pain. Extraordinary. We happened to time things so that we ended in Van Horn, Texas ... the town that was so Unfriendly to RVers and talked about at length here on the Forum. We pulled off the Interstate and into Mountain View RV Park, just at Exit 140B on I-10. It is a perfectly fine place to stop, and the folks could not have been nicer. The lady said they were happy to deliver us to a restaurant and pick up up again, if I did not want to cook a meal ... the elec has been mostly upgraded, level sites with full hookups, good wifi ... $30 a night with Good Sam. I can' speak for other locations in Van Horn, and I don't know what the boon docking situation is or the restrictions on parking for a short time ... but this place was just dandy. It is apparently new management and new owners ...
So ... that is my report. Hope there was some info there that is useful or interesting!
PS ... one thing that I wanted to mention is that the Laundry Room at Camp Foretravel is really going downhill. One washer has disappeared completely, a second had standing water for a year, and is now dry but wears an "Out of Order" sign, a third washer was full of standing, dirty water and would not operate. The only working washer is the one by itself, that was designated for the Shop. There is still the sign that I put on one dryer that says "Only Works On Timed Dry" ... and that was about TWO years ago ... really. I let Jeremy know, and told him that as far as I was concerned, if they put in machines that were coin operated and just charged enough to make the place self-supporting, I would be happy. The convenience is what counts for me. We will see. If they fix this issue as fast as they are re-striping the parking lot, we will be out of washers. FWIW
Would love to see some photos of the new interior posted here...
I'll post pictures as soon as I recover from the invoices.. Glad we did our Christmas shopping early or no one would have gotten a gift..
Carol & Jeff, I am pleased to hear about your very favorable reports on FOT and Xtreme, both reinforce my long held opinions. I am equally pleased to hear a positive report on Van Horn, kinda surprising but welcome.
Congratulations on your upgrade and Happy Travels.