Saturday 24 October 2015

October 24th - Tucson AZ

The Bigfoot's screen door latch broke yesterday; cheap plastic, like a lot of RV accessories.  Luckily, Tucson is home of a gazillion RV's, so there is a wide selection of RV shops.  Having learned our Camping World lesson last year (expensive, limited selection, and minimum wage employees), I looked around and found just what I was after, the direct opposite.  Merrigan's Arizona Road-Runner RV  has been run by Rick & Betty Merrigan for over 46 years.  Free water fill for RV, free sewage dump, and you can live in your RV while they are working on it.  We hopped into the CRV and headed over this morning.  You know you're in the right place when there's a 25 pound orange cat sleeping on the main counter.  They had the exact part, it was cheap, and when I asked Betty if there was a metal upgrade latch, she snorted "Of course not; they've got a good thing going there!"  I wandered the aisles of new and used parts, admiring all the inventory.  Unexpectedly, they have an online presence, and tell you if you don't see what you need online, to give them a call and ask.  I took a card, and Betty confirmed they had no problems shipping to Mexico.  I feel better travelling just knowing they're in business.
The new latch was a direct replacement, which took 30 seconds to screw in.  The replacement of the latch was only possible, since after many fruitless searches last winter, the first thing I did when we arrived home in the spring was to throw all three sizes of Robertson screwdrivers in the Bigfoot tool kit.  Just try and find a Robertson screwdriver in the States....
  

This is a large RV Park, but the streets are all smooth, lovely pavement.  I've probably put more miles on my Lyric Runner here than I did all of last year.  Even Nancy has taken to tooling about on it, using it to motor over to Friday night's Chinese food truck and bring home supper.  I used it to head over to the pool this afternoon (pool was very nice, but too warm), then put it on the charger to bring the batteries back up to snuff (20 mile range means infrequent recharging necessary).


Giant Swallowtail- forewing span average 14 cm - they like our tree


Anna's Hummingbird

2 comments:

Meagan said...

ah to be in the warm sun instead of -6 and snow. Nice to see Kirk in a photo. Does mom have a guide to butterflies of the area yet? That hummingbird feeder seems pretty low, are there lots of hummingbirds?

Cam said...

about 3 all Anna's. I played my iPhone Sibleys bird guide song for hummer and it brought him right in
I have guide to N. American butterflies with me. but used internet.