Wednesday, October 11, 2023 – I love KOA, I hate KOA . . . .

Windy!  Oh my gosh, WINDY!

It’s 11:00 AM.  We left Grants, NM at 9 AM, and for the last three hours (time change) we have been pummeled by sidewind gusts from the South of up to 40 mph.  So sayeth the official weather report for Holbrook, where we are currently parked in a state of limbo in the Holbrook, KOA back parking lot.  (The riff-raff room for any of you who ever watched “Ellen.”)  The winds were so strong we made several unplanned lane changes, as did several big trucks when they were passing us.  Seriously, I had Shawn standing by with her iPhone camera, ready to take a photo of any big SOB truck that might take off my left side mirror.  Yes, I have a dash-cam, but I wanted photos anyway.

I looked at the steering wheel a couple of times and figured I had about a 15 to 20 degrees of left turn dialed in just to keep the rig in my lane and that was enough for me to declare the day done.  We will resume driving tomorrow as the winds should stop at about 2 AM sayeth the weather bureau.  This shouldn’t delay our return to Phoenix as we had planned to stop at Flagstaff tonight and come on down to PHX tomorrow.  Now we will simply head to PHX from here.

Now, the interesting part of this Holbrook “limbo” situation.

We were about 15 miles west of Holbrook when I decided to call it a day, so Shawn got online and found this KOA and reserved and paid for a full hookup, pull thru spot for us.  We arrived about 20 minutes later and checked in, but not really.  It seems check in is after 12:00 and we have to wait.  Even though we were already assigned a spot, and I could see that the assigned spot was empty, we could not check in, AND, we could not park in that assigned spot while we waited as that is against the rules, so we are now parked in the of the back KOA in a lot near a maintenance building waiting for the empty spot to be officially empty so we can check in and move in after 12:00.

OK.  I love KOA’s.  I really do.  But this is the kind of corporate BS rules that are the reason I quit Motorola and started my own business.

OK.  Venting is over.  This is a very nice park, and the very nice lady at the very nice check-in counter was very nice and apologetic about the delay, but the rules are the rules.  Corporate, don’tcha know.

So why can’t I get the theme song from the Wizard of Oz out of my head?  We’re off to see the wizard . . . .

Note 1:  The wind continues even as I write this.  The whole rig is rocking.  It brings to mind the old sign, “If this rig is rockin’, you are probably at the wrong rig.”  Or sumpin’ like that.

Note 2:  The Grants KOA had a really nice free breakfast.  Pancakes, cereal, OJ, coffee, tea, and a couple of other things.  The pancakes were made by the coolest machine I’ve seen in a long while.  Just wave your hand in front of the machine and it makes two fresh pancakes and drops them onto your plate!  And they were very good pancakes!  I had four and took a video and will try to get it onto uTube and include a link.

Note 3:  The generator ran all day yesterday and has run all day today.  So, So far, So good.  Confidence level 99.5%.  One more day.  (Note:  Three "so's" in one sentence.  That's pretty Good!)

Later.  I’d say on the flip side, but this wind just might actually do that to us.

Rusty Pistons.