CHA CHING

 A new sign for the "Chance Ranch" in Tucson.

The good news regarding these larger RV rallies, is that there are all kinds of products and services available for the attendees.  Kind of like a Super Wal Mart or Target, where one stop is made, and you can take care of all your shopping needs.   The bad news is that it's pretty easy to drop a wad of money, in a pretty short period of time.   When the vendors opened up yesterday morning, many of them had this huge magnet, that for reasons I can't explain, was linked directly to my wallet.

When I stopped at one of the vendor booths to get a replacement LED light for my motion detecting, security porch light, I knew that the LED bulb was going to be in the $20 range.  When the salesperson explained that the cost of the updated model light, was only about $35 more than the cost of the bulb, he had sunk the hook in deeper than even he anticipated.  The newer light has several advantages over the older version that I have, so, when I walked away, I had a new bulb, and a new light.
  

The next booth that had this magnetic attachment to my bank account, was a mobile service company, that provided one service that I'm about a year overdue.  Our motor home has an Allison 3000 transmission, filled with synthetic transmission fluid.  The only initial service required is a filter change at 5,000 miles.  The next service is at 4 years, or 75,000 miles.  Our motor home is at 65,000 miles, and it's been almost 5 years since we took delivery of our 07 Monaco Camelot.  Two filters, and a draining/refilling of the Transynd synthetic fluid is scheduled for this morning at 9am.  This is one service that is essential, before we take off for Alaska in a few months.

Nancy has a list of things that she needs for her motor home, and on that list was a tire pressure monitoring system.  I directed her to Daryl Lawrence's booth, where she picked up the Tire Tracker system, that has several advantages over the Pressure Pro system that I have on our motor home.  One of the big advantages, is that the sending units that screw onto the individual tires, have batteries that are replaceable for about $1.50 each.  My Pressure Pro system has sending units that are good for about 3-5 years, then you have to buy new ones, at $35 each.  I have 3 sending units that need to be replaced, and 7 more that are on borrowed time.  That's $350 to bring my system back up to 100%, good for anther 3-5 years, where that same dollar amount will again have to be spent.  Using some logic, and not wanting to fall behind Nancy in the spending category, I popped out the wallet, adding to Daryl's bottom line for the day.

When our foray through the two large vendor areas was finished, and we decided to head back to our motor homes, for some reason, I had a little more bounce in my step.  Walking was easier, and even though the wind was blowing pretty good, it wasn't a tail wind, pushing me along.  What the heck was going on?  It was almost like I was gliding on roller skates, with no gravity pushing me down toward the ground.  Then, it hit me, and I knew what was happening.  I had just been relieved of so much money, I was almost lighter than air, and walking was a breeze without all of that weight!

Just before night fall, some of the coaches were having electrical power issues.  When you look at this spider web of cords, and boxes, it's not hard to understand why.