Thursday, February 12, 2009

What was I thinking?

Good Heavens! I do know the first commandment of RVing – walk around your vehicle before pulling away from your campsite. But this morning I was distracted. Maybe it was the thought of the Tanger Outlet Mall up the street. Or maybe it was the prediction of a day when the high was going to crack 65. Who knows? But in any event I didn’t walk around my vehicle and by the time I thought about it, I was on the other side of the campground. So I looked in my side mirror and saw what I really didn’t want to see: I was dragging my electrical cord and water hose behind me. Yikes! I jumped out and stowed the hose (with its broken pressure regulator still attached) and the electrical cord with the bent prongs. Then I headed back to my campsite to check out the damage. As I approached I spotted a geyser that would have sent Old Faithful into a fit of jealousy. My puny attempts at shutting it down by turning off the faucet failed miserably so I headed to the campground office where I ran in, fessed up and asked for help.

I was very lucky that the woman behind the counter was totally non-plussed by my fervent “I’m soooo sorry". She said not to worry about it. Evidently my neighbour had already called them and help had been dispatched. Then the genial campground host told me about the time she had done the same thing – sort of. She had driven away from the gas station with the hose still in her gas tank. “Boy, you should have seen that mess,” she told me. So I allowed that maybe the water hose mishap wasn’t so bad after all – at least it was water and not gasoline!

So I left the campground and consoled myself at the Tanger Outlet Mall. I bought a nice Liz Clairborn black and white top to go with the black pants I was wearing (Presidents Day sale - $11.00!) and headed down the road to Salome. The sign as you enter town says: Salome – where she danced.

I booked into the Desert Gem RV Campground that I found in my Passport America listings. According to the listings this place was supposed to have WiFi and cable TV. Not so. Actually, there is WiFi but it is not free. Nope, you have to pay. Well, OK, I told myself, I can wait until tomorrow to use the internet. Then, as I went to plug my cord into the cable TV connection, the manager walks by and tells me that there isn’t any cable TV. “We used to try to bring it on satellite but that really didn’t work so we took it down.”

“Oh, well,” I replied, “I get really good reception on my antenna.”

“Good luck,” he replied. “You can’t get anything here with just an antenna.” I tried anyway. He was right. And this is Grey’s Anatomy night.

So I paid for the internet connection thinking I could watch TV over the internet. I have discovered much to my delight that in the US you can watch full episodes of your favourite TV show for free on the internet. The networks actually supply them on their websites. So I paid up for the internet connection only to discover that the connection is too slow to watch TV.

As I write this, the floor under my feet just started to vibrate – there’s a train passing by. I think I am between the highway and the train tracks. Did I say that today just wasn’t my day? I think I’ll just go to bed!

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