Another week in Marion

Monday-Thursday (Jun 8-11):

This was a slow week for us here at the campground. We were waiting on the replacement awning to arrive and be installed before we could make plans to leave for Tennessee. On Tuesday we decided we would do some hiking around Old Fort which is about 10 miles from the campground. We found a trail that said it was moderate, but we when started up the trail it was very steep going up and down. So after a very short distance we decided to stop and see if we could find a different trail. We found another one located in the area, but after we had gone several miles down the road we that the road to this trail was closed. So we ended up seeing some nice country, but no hikes.

Although we did not get to hike, we took these pictures along the way

Our new awning arrived on Tuesday and was scheduled to be installed on Wednesday. They told us we were a "work-in" job, so we figured that the motor home would be in the shop all day. Early Wednesday morning we dropped The Duchess off at the service center, ate breakfast in the restaurant and then headed towards Asheville. One of Connie's crowns had come off on Tuesday and she had located an urgent care dental center in Asheville that could see she her Wednesday morning. After completing the paperwork (several pages), she went back to have an x-ray performed and the crown was cemented back into place. We did some shopping in Asheville, walked for a while in the local mall, ate lunch at McAlister's Deli before returning back to our campground. The motor home was still in the shop, so we went up to the local Lowe's to see if we could find a small piece of metal to put on the roof for our cell phone booster antenna. Since our coach is made of fiberglass and the cell phone booster needs a metal base, we will have to install the plate on our roof and then place the antenna on top of it. We came back to the service center and killed time by: Connie listening to an audio book and Mike reading his Kindle. The awning installation was finished around 5:00 PM and we were able to get back into the coach. We tested the awning and it worked fine.

New awning installed on The Duchess

On Thursday we were meeting with Mike Witt, a mobile RV Tech, to go over all of the systems in The Duchess and the maintenance schedules for the areas that need this. He arrived around 12:00 Noon and we were with him for around 4 hours. He also took a look at our refrigerator and it looks like it is on the way "out" and will have to either have a new cooling unit installed or be replaced with a residential refrigerator. We will deal with this issue later this summer. After spending 4 hours with Mike, we know a lot more about our coach and if we ever have any issues we can give him a call no matter where we are. Mike has owned several motor homes over the years and is currently looking for a "new to him" motor home for their winter stay in Florida.