I spent yesterday just goofing off. I had to send a fax to an insurance company, so I went to our bank, only to learn that this is a service that they no longer offer to customers. In a small town, with  no office supply stores, it took a couple of misses before I found a printing shop with fax service.

From there I drove another ten miles up the mountain to Pinetop-Lakeside, where I stopped at my friend Lyle Worman’s Pinetop Sporting Goods store. Lyle and I go back at least a lifetime, and we’ve gotten into misadventures from the Mexican border to the Painted Desert in that time. We didn’t get to visit much though, because he had a steady steam of customers coming and going.

Lyle said business had been dead until I showed up. I suggested that maybe he put me on the payroll, but the best I could get out of him was a stale piece of Halloween candy that I swiped off his desk.

When  I left Lyle’s shop, I went to Pinetop Book Exchange, a great little used book store that another longtime friend, Jim Lewis, owns. Jim and I go back as far as Lyle and I do, and when I still lived here we were the Three Musketeers. In fact, at one time or another, both of them lived with me for a year or more.

Jimmy was pretty busy too, but we swapped a few lies, and decided that the older we get, the better we used to be. Among his many talents, Jim is also a massage therapist, and he has a massage table right there in his book store. So when I told him that I was having twinges in my back, he threw me down on the table, kneaded here and pushed there, gave me a twist or two, and when I got back upright I was all better again!

A while after I arrived, Jim’s pretty wife Shar came into the store, and we chatted until almost closing time. They have not seen our motorhome yet, and mentioned that they were looking forward to seeing the Winnebago. But Miss Terry was home working on some projects (hey, we can’t both goof off all day!), and I was sure she wouldn’t appreciate me bringing home unannounced guests, so I suggested they drop by another time. The great thing about longtime close friends is that you can say “not now” and they understand and don’t get offended.

When I got back to the Elks Campground in Show Low, Miss Terry had the washing machine going, the place was clean and freshly vacuumed, and she was just finishing putting up the other set of  Levolor blinds in our bedroom. I felt guilty because she had been working all day while I was out playing, but she assured me that things usually go quicker and easier if I’m not underfoot. Yeah guys, I trained that woman well!

But I’m not a total clod. When Terry got finished, I took her out to dinner instead of making her cook. (Can’t you just hear that old male chauvinist pig country song Put Another Log On The Fire playing in the background?)

Whenever people ask Terry why she puts up with me, she always says it’s because I make her laugh and I let her cry. I got a chuckle out of her at dinner, when our waitress asked if I wanted a refill on my Coke. I asked her for half a glass, and when she brought it back, I said “I’m sorry, miss, I guess I forgot to tell you that I wanted the top half of the glass filled, not the bottom.” The young lady started to apologize, but then she realized what I had said, and we all had a giggle.

After dinner we made a quick stop at Safeway for a few things, and on our way out, Terry noticed that the Customer Service counter had a sign saying that they had fax service available. Go figure.

A couple of days ago, I wrote about the State Lines app for the iPhone. As it turns out, State Lines creators Chris Dunphy and Cherie Ve Ard are also fulltime RVers, and they developed this valuable tool with folks just like us in mind. I downloaded the app to my iPad, and I’m very impressed. They put a lot of effort into developing a first class resource that all travelers will appreciate. Cherie and Chris told me that a full size version of the app to better fit the larger iPad screen is in the final stages, and that an eBook version for those without iPhones or iPads is also in the works.

Another great iPhone/iPad app lists all Escapees RV parks nationwide, with information including location, address, number of RV sites and amenities, contact information, and much more. It’s a free app that you can download at this link. 

While I was goofing off all day, Bad Nick was hard at work pounding out a new Bad Nick Blog post titled Bitten By The Boycott. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – My wild oats have turned into prunes and All Bran.

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If you see Noah, tell him I’d like to swap a really nice Winnebago Ultimate Advantage motorhome for his ark!

It has been raining ever since we got back to Summerdale, and I’m starting to collect two of every critter I see, just in case. Here are a couple of photos of the puddles taken from in front of our motorhome yesterday morning. Everywhere we step, the ground is just saturated.

A lot of blog readers have e-mailed asking me how our insurance company is treating us since we were burglarized and vandalized the evening of December 4^th. I have held off on saying much, hoping to keep a spirit of cooperation going. But since that hasn’t done us any good, here is how the situation looks from my point of view. Please excuse the rant, but we feel like we are being victimized for a second time.

We have used PoliSeek (formerly AON) as our insurance agent for most of the ten years we have been on the road. First they placed us with Royal Sun Alliance, and when that company stopped covering RVs, they switched us to National Interstate. In all of that time, we have faithfully paid our premiums on time and have never had a claim.

We are supposed to have a disappearing deductible, which means that for every year that we don’t have a claim, our deductible goes down by 10%. We also pay extra for full replacement coverage of our RV and contents.

So far, I am very unhappy with the response from both PoliSeek and National Interstate. Our crime happened late on a Friday evening. We called the next morning (Saturday), and got a message to call back on Monday. So we were left to fend for ourselves all weekend in 12 degree weather in northern Indiana with an RV with a window busted out. We could not leave the RV parked and unsecured and stay in a motel or everything else in it could have been stolen. Fortunately, Michele Henry from Phoenix Commercial Paint opened her shop up for us so we could get in out of the cold over the weekend.

On Monday, three days after the incident, I talked to the first claims adjuster, and he e-mailed me a Vandalism Affidavit and requested that I fill it out, have it notarized, and return it to him by fax. He also said to send him a list of any items that were stolen. I did so, and called him back an hour or so later to tell him that they had been faxed, and got a message that he was out of the office. As it turns out, he was out of the office for the next week.

We managed to contact a different adjuster, who said she was filling in for him, and she asked me to mail her hard copies of the forms, which we did. When I asked her about specific repairs and what was covered and how to get the repairs done so we could get back on the road and to warmer weather to avoid an incoming blizzard, her answer to every question was “I don’t know, I’ll have to get back to you.” The shop that did the initial repairs so we could get out of cold, snowy Indiana is getting the same run around.

Once our motorhome was drivable again, the second adjuster said to go to Camping World in Robertsdale, Alabama to get an estimate for the repairs that are still needed. I did so and faxed National Interstate that information.

Monday, a week after I spoke to him, the first adjuster called back and wants to start from square one all over again, and when I asked about the repairs still needed, his answer was the standard “I don’t know, I’ll have to get back to you.”

I was told that our disappearing deductible does not apply, because we also kept our bus conversion insured with them until it was sold. As for our total replacement coverage, that apparently only applies to items not physically attached to the RV, and guess what, there’s another deductible that comes into play there too!  When I ask why, the answer is “I don’t know, I’ll have to get back to you.”

Yesterday I called PoliSeek, who is supposed to be my advocate, as I understand it. I was told that nobody there could help me, and was transferred to the original claims adjuster at National Interstate. He told me that “these things take time.”

How much time? It is now twelve days after we were victimized and we still do not know if we are on the hook for the repairs to our RV or if we will be reimbursed for our loss and damages. The shop in Indiana wants paid and has told us that if the insurance company does not pay them in a timely manner for the repairs, we are responsible.

The same claims adjuster called back later yesterday afternoon and told me the claim can take up to 180 days to settle. Then he e-mailed me more paperwork to fill out, more loss claims to have notarized and mailed in, and said he will turn it over to a field adjuster, who is supposed to contact us “soon” to make an appointment to come and talk to us.  

You can bet that I’ll be changing insurance companies and agents very soon! Some readers who use PoliSeek and National Interstate have reported good experiences with them, but they have totally dropped the ball on our claim, in my opinion.

Thought For The Day – Friendship isn’t a big thing. It’s a million little things.

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Terry and I can really feel the difference in comfort levels between our MCI bus conversion and our Winnebago Ultimate Advantage motorhome in this cold weather! The Winnebago is much colder inside than the bus.

When we built the bus, we added a lot of extra insulation to the floor, walls, and ceiling. We were in temperatures down to 10 degrees a couple of times and a couple of electric cube heaters kept us comfortable. Last night it was 16 degrees here in Lexington, Kentucky, we had both furnaces turned up, and we were still chilly! I think we need to look into a catalytic heater. We let our Olympian Wave 8 go with the bus, and now I’m wishing we had kept it! That thing sure put out a lot of heat, and used a lot less propane than the RV furnaces do.

My appointment at the VA hospital Friday went as well as could be expected, and we are leaving today, headed back to the Escapees Rainbow Plantation RV park in Summerdale, Alabama. No place in the country seems to be warm right now, except for maybe the Florida Keys, but we have had to cancel our trip that far south this year. At least Summerdale will be a little warmer than it is here. We’re about 675 miles away, so we hope to be there sometime Sunday afternoon.

Then I have to chain myself to my desk and get the new issue of the Gypsy Journal ready for the printer. The unplanned trip back up to Elkhart to sell the bus, and the burglary that happened there, have put me way behind schedule. The paper should be printing right now, and all we would have to do is get the new issue ready to mail out. I hope our subscribers will understand about the delay. Most folks have been pretty easy going when we’re late, but as a lifelong newspaper publisher, it eats me alive to miss a deadline.

A lot of readers have been asking how we are making out with our insurance company after last week’s incident. One writer went so far as to say that the theft and vandalism were only the start of our misfortune, and the real violation would come from our insurance company. Things are not wrapped up yet, but so far, I get the feeling he was not far off the mark.

I won’t go into a lot of details yet, because I don’t know what the final outcome will be, but so far, it looks like our “disappearing deductible” sure had the right name, because when we needed it, it disappeared! All I will say right now is that I think we’ll definitely be shopping for a new insurance company once all is said and done. Of course, I’m sure that they will be just as bad. What’s that they say about a rose by any other name?  

Meanwhile, Bad Nick is staying inside close to the heater outlet, and he posted a new Bad Nick Blog titled Keep It In Your Pants. Check it out and leave a comment.

Thought For The Day – He who digs a pit for others will fall into it himself.

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