Sick bay

The good news is that we got our coach back from the dealer the very same afternoon.  The bad news is that they didn’t fix a frigging thing.  A convenient thunderstorm revealed that our window still leaks.  And the left rear leveling jack, which wasn’t fully retracting before being serviced, wouldn’t retract at all this morning.

Yup.  Two days after being “fixed” the jack went down, and stayed down, rendering the rig immobile.  Fortunately, this problem yielded to the same prescription that seems to work for most of life’s troubles: a two-by-four and a crowbar.  Shannon supplied the muscle while I stayed inside pushing little buttons.  My button-pushing prowess paid dividends, though, as we eventually coerced the jack back into place, allowing us to make a second trip to the dealer.

Naturally, we couldn’t recreate the jack problem for the mechanics and everything works just peachy at the moment.  It’s magic.  I was, however, able to demonstrate the leak and the dealer agreed to replace the window, when one arrives, in three weeks, maybe more.  Who knows?  We’re not going to wait around, although we won’t be venturing very far since a return trip to the dealer awaits us.

It feels like we’ve failed to achieve escape velocity and we’re stuck in orbit around upstate New York.

Which is true, because as I understand it, they used to build motor homes like complete crap.  The quality is much better now, but I still think it’s rare to get one without any problems whatsoever.  And so it is with ours.  We’re back in New York trying to get some kinks ironed out at our dealer.  It’s mostly small stuff, and we hope to be back on the road shortly.  While our rig is in the shop, Shannon, our ferocious feline, and I are bunking down in my old room at my parent’s house.  It’s funny how things work.  I spent the better part of my adolescence trying to get a couple of girls in that room with me . . . now another childhood dream fulfilled.

“An object in motion will not change its velocity unless an unbalanced force acts upon it.”

– Sir Isaac Newton, Principia Mathematica

Newton published this First Law of motion 323 years ago, so it hasn’t been new news for more than three centuries.  In non-geek speak, what it essentially says is that when a large object is speeding in your direction, get the hell out of the way because it is unlikely to stop.  As it turns out, that is a pretty good basic driving tip too.  A related tip would be that when you’re merging into traffic and encounter a 20,000 lb recreational vehicle moving at 65 mph on your left and a yield sign on your right, it is probably a good idea to, um, you know . . . yield?

It’s shocking how few people read Sir Isaac Newton.