Monday, December 8, 2008
Boulder County Fairgrounds, Longmont, CO: Oct 20-26
We extended our stay in the Boulder area one more week in order to play in a sectional bridge tournament in Longmont. We decided to try the Fairgrounds, which we had checked out in the past but had never stayed at. It also has a 2-week limit and is much more expensive than the State Park and not as nice. It is, however, a bit more convenient. The base fee is for no hookups, plus a varying fee for water, electric, or water & electric. We only wanted electric, and since the office was closed the day we arrived, assumed we had to park in one of the electric-only spots, which severely limited our choices, and it was a bit of a squeeze fitting into one. The next day we met the manager, who told us we could have parked in a water & electric spot and she would have seen that our water was not hooked up & only charged us for electric. But then later in the week she "caught" Doug adding water (via a 6-gallon jug that he made no secret of using) and got all snippy about it. Guess you have to tote water in from somewhere else to avoid the appearance of "stealing" some from the county!
Since the bridge tournament was also at the Fairgrounds, we could walk to the daily events. We did well enough and had lots of fun, so it was well worth the extra time. We played in some team events and enjoyed our various teammates.
Our trailer continued its campaign to single-handedly revive the country's sagging economy -- this time our refrigerator went out. A few years ago we bought a couple of those wireless thermometers & popped one into the fridge. Since then we have religiously checked the daily highs & lows in & out of the trailer and inside the fridge. Thursday, as we were getting ready for bed, we noticed that the temp inside the fridge was 50 degrees. Oops -- not good. The next morning we bought ice for the fridge & dry ice for the freezer. We mentioned our predicament to Kurt Simmons, a fellow Mensan, excellent bridge player, and gourmet cook who happened to be catering the tournament (not playing). He offered the use of fridge & freezer there for the remainder of the weekend, which would be perfect as long as we could find someone to repair/replace ours on Monday. Friday, between bridge sessions, we began calling around to RV repair facilities, none of whom seemed even remotely interested in looking at our fridge before the end of the following week, even though we explained that we were full-timers whose food would rot if something was not done pronto on Monday. We finally stumbled onto a RV-repair website listing a service provider out in eastern Colorado, not exactly on our planned route but close enough. This was at 10pm and we decided to call just to see if the phone number still worked. They answered!! -- not the repairman but his wife -- he was working on an RV needing an emergency furnace repair! When we finally talked, he knew exactly what we needed, was going into Denver Monday morning, and would pick up a new one and be ready to put it in on Tuesday morning. We bought more ice and hoped for the best!
Since the bridge tournament was also at the Fairgrounds, we could walk to the daily events. We did well enough and had lots of fun, so it was well worth the extra time. We played in some team events and enjoyed our various teammates.
Our trailer continued its campaign to single-handedly revive the country's sagging economy -- this time our refrigerator went out. A few years ago we bought a couple of those wireless thermometers & popped one into the fridge. Since then we have religiously checked the daily highs & lows in & out of the trailer and inside the fridge. Thursday, as we were getting ready for bed, we noticed that the temp inside the fridge was 50 degrees. Oops -- not good. The next morning we bought ice for the fridge & dry ice for the freezer. We mentioned our predicament to Kurt Simmons, a fellow Mensan, excellent bridge player, and gourmet cook who happened to be catering the tournament (not playing). He offered the use of fridge & freezer there for the remainder of the weekend, which would be perfect as long as we could find someone to repair/replace ours on Monday. Friday, between bridge sessions, we began calling around to RV repair facilities, none of whom seemed even remotely interested in looking at our fridge before the end of the following week, even though we explained that we were full-timers whose food would rot if something was not done pronto on Monday. We finally stumbled onto a RV-repair website listing a service provider out in eastern Colorado, not exactly on our planned route but close enough. This was at 10pm and we decided to call just to see if the phone number still worked. They answered!! -- not the repairman but his wife -- he was working on an RV needing an emergency furnace repair! When we finally talked, he knew exactly what we needed, was going into Denver Monday morning, and would pick up a new one and be ready to put it in on Tuesday morning. We bought more ice and hoped for the best!
# posted by Doug and Willie @ 9:49 PM 
