The museums in Santa Fe are closed Mondays so we decided to get some mundane chores out of the way today so we could free up tomorrow for unfettered cultural and window-shopping activities.
The first item on the agenda was to contact Capitol Ford nearby in Santa Fe to discuss our pending truck engine replacement. After spending the better part of two hours in fruitless efforts to contact the appropriate person at the dealership by phone, we decided to go see the uncommunicative personally. Instead of speaking with the service writer assigned to ignore our phone calls, I elected to speak with the service manager.
The service manager was a very nice guy who was quite capable of answering all of my questions. After about 10 minutes I learned from the manager that:
1. Our truck replacement engine had not only been ordered but will arrive tomorrow.
2. It is possible to remove the current engine from the truck and to set it aside for inspection by the insurance adjuster from my horrible warranty provider, Alpha Warranty Services. This allows installation of the new engine into the truck.
3. My horrible warranty provider was not communicating with the Ford dealership, probably in an effort to avoid paying out any benefits.
4. If I had purchased my warranty from Ford, they would have replaced my engine for $0 instead of the $18,000 we expect to pay with the Alpha warranty.
5. The service manager seems to now be my service writer and future communications will be with him instead of Victor, the service writer who so steadfastly ignored me this morning.
This seems like it could have been accomplished by phone this morning, if the apparently deaf staff would answer it. Maybe the manager will be more adept at communicating.
After the fun at Capitol, we went back to Harry’s Roadhouse for breakfast but all the unanswered calls and personal visit to the dealership made it too late for breakfast. Harry’s did not have much on the lunch menu that interested me so I got a cheeseburger. Peggy got some salmon tacos and said they were tasty. About $25 out the door, minus drinks and tips.
Then the really dreadful stuff started for me. We went shopping, an activity for which I have scant interest and personally loathe. Peggy doesn’t seem to mind it and she is a clever and resourceful shopper but she would probably prefer I be tied up and gagged on the lower shelf of the shopping cart for the duration of the trip. We ended up getting most of the stuff we wanted but were again unsuccessful at getting any substantial liquor purchases completed. We have now been in four places with liquor, very little of which we desired and never at the volume or price we prefer to buy. Santa Fe is a beautiful place but buying liquor here is a pain in the ass.