I’ve had my fill of just sitting on my a/ss being retired and all, so when I first arrived at the RV park in Milton Freewater where I’ve stayed the last 5 months, I let the parks handyman know what my skills were and that I’d be happy to help fix things that might need fixing. Eventually he tried me out, and pretty soon I was working on several things for him and the park.
Over the 5 months I was there, I ended up fixing these items:
- A contractors boom box, (battery was bad);
- Repaired a dryer (bad idler pulley);
- Repaired a coin operated washing machine (bad water valve);
- Found a bad circuit breaker supplying a range;
- Repaired a washing machine (bad brain board);
- Helped the handyman’s helper find a bad plug on his RV’s shore power supply;
- Repaired the dryer again (broken belt this time);
- Repaired the dryer again (bad thermal fuse this time).
- Replaced bad LED strips to restore operation of a 47″ Vizio TV. Owner got fired and never returned to pay and pick it up so I now have it sitting on my dash and use it instead of my tiny 35″.
So I had many fun things to work on. And the money I paid for parts was repaid by either cash in some cases or being allowed to stay a week past my leave date without charge. Only worth $125 in my estimation, not nearly enough to cover the labor if they’d paid someone to do that work I’ve listed above. The dryer broke 3 times and I’m hoping the 3rd time’s the charm and that it won’t happen again for many years. Damn thing. These newer laundry appliances (Amana’s in this case) are really delicate. I even spotted a weak point in the washer the handyman needs to watch carefully and that I might need to fix when I go back there in the spring.
One thing I got out of all this is that the handyman is so happy about all the work that he’ll make sure I get my spot back when I come back up there in April. The monthly at his park is $375/month in an area where it’s typically $600-$650 at other parks so I’m pleased I’ll get that prime spot in the park. Cost me less then $80 for those parts that weren’t reimbursed. My labor was only partially paid for with the free spot for a week but, [shrug], I did enjoy the work. Exercising the brain and all.
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So what was happening was that I was near leaving for points south in order to miss the cold miserable weather there in the Walla Walla valley but one day, I started to have pain and difficulty taking a leak. Not good timing. There is a large VA clinic nearby, and there’s a hospital that’s a VA partner [I thought…turns out it’s not part of the VA system] plus my family lives in the area. My daughter, son, sister, and BIL are all nearby. In Pahrump, my current VA home base, I have no such support system. I do like the ‘looks’ of the VA clinic in Pahrump and the VA has a partner arrangement at a newer, large Urgent Care Clinic here in town that’s ‘almost’ a hospital. But for most medical work in this area, I have to drive 55 miles or so to Las Vegas. Nice medical services there for Vets. Oh, and a huge Vets hospital there. But, no family, no friends here. Just me and my cat. Some very helpful people in the park to lean on if necessary though.
Eventually, I ended up in Walla Walla Providence hospital’s ER and had a catheter inserted due to a swollen prostate squeezing off the urethra. They have a separate Urology Clinic and I was lucky to get in to see a great urologist after 6 days with the catheter in, originally, I’d gotten an appointment for Feb. 15th and here it was near Thanksgiving. And the newer appointment date was just 2 days before I was supposed to leave the RV park. My rent would be due but I didn’t want to stay, because of the cold. But I didn’t want to drive down to Pahrump with a catheter either. Luckily, the Dr. decided it would be okay to remove the catheter there in his office so I had that done. And I made a future appointment for prostate laser surgery on April 26th, 2021 after discussing my options. He wanted me to stay in town a few days until they could be relatively sure the prostate wouldn’t choke up again and I stayed for a week beyond my departure date at the RV park. That’s where helping fix things around the park came into play and there was no effort by the park staff to get me to pay or leave.
And I had to travel up Deadman’s Pass above Pendleton. If you don’t know it, it’s a very steep pass that often gets early snows. And they often salt the road because it’s so dangerous. But the day I chose to leave, it was going to get up to 50 F! Yea! Here’s a link to Trip Check web site that some state’s DMV’s sign on for. They have hundreds of webcams pointed towards roads so they are very handy for travelers in dicey weather conditions. I spent an hour on it just before departure checking the passes on my route. Not all states sign up for the system, I’m happy Oregon did.
So here is the travel blog about my December trip from M-F Oregon to Pahrump, NV. As you can see, it was a nice sunny day on Dec. 7th early AM. My BIL, Gary, came over and helped me break camp.
No snow, plenty of sunshine, but cold. In the 30’s.
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