Every so often, our magnificent Ford F-250 Super Duty pickup truck and geezer transporter needs some preventative maintenance and today was the day. We drove Charlotte down to Minit Man 10-Minute Oil Change in Rockport. Almost immediately, the guy running the show came out, directed me into an appropriate bay and sent a flunky into the inspection pit to drop the drain plug. They topped off all the fluids, filled up the crankcase, put the proper air pressure into all the tires and had us on our way in about ten minutes. Good name, I guess.
We followed up on our chores by taking our Vornado heater we bought in 2014 in Coos Bay, Oregon, to the local mailing center to ship it back to Kansas for repair or replacement. It sort of crapped out a while back and, considering the exorbitant price for their heaters, we thought we should take them up on their 5 year guarantee.
Even returning it is problematic. Pesky consumers, like us, are required to call Vornado’s Disgruntled Consumer Abuse Line to get a pre-approval to return their failed products. When eventually connected with our personal abuser, numerous questions were asked, like the unit’s serial number, another number from the bottom of the failed component and which side I dress on. Only after this painful but necessary series of steps will the manufacturer e-mail a pre-paid mailing label to us to print, carry around and ultimately securely fix to the box we use to send the heater to the reluctant manufacturer. We did not save the original box so the mailing company only charged us $17 to bubble wrap the cull unit and box it up for pre-paid shipping.
We left with vague, recently-screwed feelings but soon they abated and we took off on a slow drive around the peninsula which separates Copano Bay and Aransas Bay. The road is a mostly-paved pathway along a slough and the Gulf of Mexico and many smart Texans or Jack Texans have built impressive estates with big architecturally inappropriate houses erected thereon. Other Texans have fashioned more rustic estates with decaying single-wide mobile homes surrounded by rusting junk and moderate piles of trash. Some of the trailers have been upgraded through the addition of unreinforced ashlar masonry structures entirely supported by the foundationless mobile home’s sturdy framing. There are many forms of interesting construction here.
We completed our circle by rewarding ourselves with tasty seafood dinners at Fulton Seafood Cafe and Deli. Peggy had Cajun grouper that she said was okay and I had the shrimp scampi which was great. Only about $45 later, we split and made our way back to Bay View RV Resort and the Barbarian Invader.
We got a few pix you can see by clicking here