Reflections From the Fence: A Story of RV Door Locks and Storms -

In between life, death, doctors, shopping and other stuff, I am still cleaning out old emails and files. This story is from 2007, found buried in old emails. I have edited out portions, as looking back, reading with almost 10 years distance, I am not willing to share my observations made while under a lot of stress. I was not totally kind. Blue font is from the original email, black font are editorial comments added for this publishing.

April 17, 2007

Left Texas, weather overcast, get to Arkansas. (Town name removed for protection of the innocents that may live there now.)

Campground is in the back of a hotel, no biggie, been there, done that, okkkk.

Owner speaks English as a second language, makes conversation a challenge.

No wifi, no cable, electric 50 amp does not work, sewer connections broken, Man decides we are not gonna hookup water either (only to discover later that our onboard water has been used up, so, we have NO water at this point.)

OKKKK, we pull in, start getting set up and it starts raining, only rains when we set up these days. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Do our set up, and unload truck, including dogs, feed dogs, go to walk dogs (it has stopped raining for the moment) and find the place is invested with the biggest hills of fire ants I have ever seen. Yipppeee, this makes my day, NOT!

Okkkkk, about 2 hours later, I have 3 dogs in my arms that need to take a quick potty break and I go to get out of Tana, and the door lock breaks. Anyone remember our story from New Orleans, same thing, sorta, different failure, same result, we are LOCKED IN TANA!!!!!!!!!!!! No, I am not kidding.

Man had the phone number of the park/campground office on his cell phone, so, calls this guy who seems to understand us, but whom we cannot understand, and he tells this guy, come down here and see if you can open the door from the outside.

He sends his son, who drives around looking for us (Looked like he thought we should be standing out there waiting for him???? WELL DUHHHH, we are locked in!!!)

Anyway, Man sets off the alarm on Big Butt, to attract his attention - - it did.

But, then Man is yelling thru the door, please try to open it, and the damned alarm is still going off. DUHHH, Man, turn off the alarm! (>G>)

So, the guy gets the door open, offers to call a locksmith, nice offer, this is NOT a stickbuilt house, no locksmith is gonna be able to help us, thanks anyway.

OKK, Man takes apart the lock, it is broken, a part falls into his hand.

Now, we cannot close the outer door, because we cannot get out again. We are in a less than stellar park, kinda a creepy one, and we have to sleep with only the screen door closed, the main door remains hooked in the open position. OKKKKKKK - -

Skip to middle of the night, ohhhhh, midnight or so.

The weather radio starts going off, warning, watches, blah blah. I get out maps, turn on the computer, pull up Streets and Trips, try to find a station on the shitty tv that will show me one of those warning maps. 30 minutes later, and it is going off every 5 minutes, Man wakes up! Or, at least gets up. Maybe he was awake, don't know, did not ask him.

Now, we cannot sit through a rain storm with just the screen door, even with the storm inserts we have, because it isn't water proof. IF it rains, rain is gonna come in. Cannot shut the door or we are locked in again. I volunteer to sit out any upcoming rain in the truck. SIGHHH (Thought was, I could shut the door, keep water out of Tana and let Man out in the morning.)

Nother thing, they are saying 60 mile an hour winds and hail. I start to prepare to pull the slides in, 60 MPH winds are a bit much to sit through in a storm,

A hour or two later, I fall back asleep (as in passed out from exhaustion), Man sits up for I don't know how long. (No, I never did go sit/sleep in Big Butt, the worst of the storms passed us by. Thankfully.)

Cut to the AM. Got out of this town/campground. Blechhhhh

(As Man drives) Carol gets on the cell phone and calls the lock manufacturer, the nice gal there helps me find a few numbers of RV dealers in Little Rock and in Jonesboro that might have the lock, she does not know for sure, but will ship me one, IF I can stay or be somewhere specific, to accept delivery on Monday. SIGHH, let's try the dealers.

I call the first dealer, she stops me short, we don't sell that kind of RV, just the things that go in the back of a truck, they do not have the same door, "here are a couple of other numbers."

I end up with about 5 or 6 numbers, and most say they don't carry that brand of lock. The gal in Jonesboro, asks me what kind of rig, I say, Montana, she says, "we DON"T WORK ON MONTANAs" and she was not real nice about it. I asked her, not so nice about it, "YOU MEAN TO TELL ME YOU WON'T SELL ME A PART?????" "OHH", she comes back, "hold on", then comes back and says, sweetly, "no we don't have that lock". DUHHHH

So, I go thru all the phone numbers, and finally find someone who actually knows what he is doing. He has the lock, it is shiny silver, not black and he knows that the inside numbers don't mean much, and that it will fit. Several of the other dealers, don't know about the numbers, they are key codes, NOT model numbers! (2016 I have deleted purple words from 2007 version of this tome.)

So, he gives me great directions in, and he isn't chewing while he is on the phone with me, like one of the other guys I had previously spoken with. I say, HOLD THAT LOCK FOR ME.

We pull in, directions were great, lock had our name on it, price was right, took our credit card, very nice people, and they don't sell Montanas, they sell Jaycos. OKKKKK, we go out in the parking lot, Man takes the old lock off, puts the new one on, and in ohhhhh 30 minutes we are back in business. Thank them again. and off we go.

Found lunch, late lunch on the north side of Little Rock, Waffle House! Pigged out, smiled at our luck, no rain, no wind and a new lock on Tana.

Get to Jonesboro, campground is not much better than the last one. Ewwwwwwwwww, but I want to be here for research, so we grin (????) and bear it.

Go to set up, and even tho the day had been delicious, sunny, wonderful, guess what - -

IT RAINS ON US!!!!!!!!!! No, I am not kidding.

Life is grand, eh??

I am not proof reading this, nor spell checking, cell phone connection is too lousy.

Thus ends the story of the broken RV door lock and the storms. Cannot make this stuff up. Man and I love the RVing life, but, there are days that are not fun. Thankfully, there are not many of these.

Footnotes: The research in Jonesboro was good, goals were accomplished and a few extra goodies were found as well.

We were able to get out of Jonesboro before the next major rain storm came, we ran 90 miles to a campground we knew had concrete everywhere and sat out the storm, wet, but, not muddy up to our armpits.

My memory says the door lock has never broken again and has only needed minor adjustments since.

Another day, another trip, another city, another saga. Nope, you cannot make this stuff up. When it rains it pours!