Snowbird West, near the tiny town of Salome, Arizona, was actually quite a find. Down a washboard gravel road, about forty minutes from ANY amenities, NO electricity, water only available for a couple of hours a day (when the generator was on), and yet it has been a lovely spot to call home for now.
The attractions are: UPS and FedEx delivers there, it does have unlimited water (if you time it right), it’s perfectly okay to wash your rig or do repairs (frowned upon at most RV parks), there is a $3 pump out service available once or twice a week so you don’t need to move your rig to dump, and there is even a clubhouse and free coffee and donuts on Fridays. All of that for only $100 per month (with the Escapees discount).
Of course, the best part of all was being around so many friends, old and new. The place was full of Xscapers and felt like an un-official convergence with campfires nearly every night and people taking turns going in to town to pick up mail and packages. I will have a full report in the next blog.
Our priority though, was our refrigerator. Tom had been researching diligently and it seems we have the only model made that can not be fixed with a replacement cooling unit. Although some of the people he called still tried that approach first even though he had come to the conclusion that we needed a whole new fridge. It’s like no one wants to be bothered with the big job of replacing the whole thing, and we were not having any luck. We had been making calls all over the place and kept getting the same answers. “It will take three or four days to replace it,” “We’ll probably have to take it out through the windshield and there’s a 50% chance the windshield will break when we remove it,” “Yes, the windshield can be replaced but you may have to wait while we order a new one.”
And that was all on the assumption they could find a replacement fridge in the first place. We were getting discouraged and decided to get a dorm fridge to hold us over. After all, no more ten minute drive to buy blocks of ice was making it challenging to keep things cold.
Then our new friend Judy recommended RV Renovators in Mesa, so Tom gave them a call. The guy said yes! He could do it. And after hearing all of our sob stories and how we were without refrigeration for the past month he said “I’ll do the installation myself.”
We were shocked when he called back the same day and said the replacement fridge would be there tomorrow at 11am – could we bring the RV in at 1pm? “Heck yeah!” we said and then did a happy dance. But we didn’t get our hopes up too high because it was just two days before Christmas. We didn’t really believe the shipping could happen that fast. But we headed out the next morning for our two hour drive to Mesa and sure enough, we got a call while we were in route…but it was only to say the unit arrived early and they asked if we could we get there sooner!
Even after we dropped the RV off and went to go have lunch and explore the area, we didn’t fully believe they could have it done before closing time. And even when they called us at 4:30 to say it was done, we still half expected there would be a problem and we’d have to spend the night there as expected.
But our faith in humanity was restored!
They were true to their word, the work was done well, they managed to get the Dometic fridge out and the new Norcold one in – through the door (not the window), and we were good to go! It was a big hit to the pocketbook, but a huge weight off our shoulders. Plus I have SO much more room. So we headed straight to a grocery store to fill it up, and still made it home not long after dark.
It feels really good to have this problem behind us in time to enjoy Christmas and the New Year here in the middle of the desert with friends.
Happy Travels!
Peace & Love, Joy
