Today we are scheduled to go back to Charlotte, NC, to get our replacement canopy. We reluctantly departed Stone Mountain and drove to Golden Gait Trailers near Charlotte, for the second time in two weeks. Ron Ulp, the guy who helped us when the awning was removed back in April was mysteriously absent from work on this day. Perhaps it was because he had ordered what appeared to be a shorter awning support system (the arms were shorter than the units removed) and the awning type was intended for an installation with a metal retracted awning cover, which our trailer does not have. There were some sheepish faces from the GGT staff when they told me that the stuff they had was the wrong stuff and it would be another week or two before they could get the correct stuff.
I quickly formulated another plan. I directed them to install what they had bollixed up and, surprisingly, it worked okay. The awning extends and retracts just like it is supposed to and I will have to be satisfied because we were unwilling to disappear for another week or two in NC before returning a third time. We don’t really have a fixed schedule but we have a very firmly flimsy plan about where we are going to go and when we want to be there so we felt obliged to accept what was ordered and vamoose.
After parting with the remainder of the $1501 they charged us to install the alternate awning we departed GGT’s spacious and very clean facility and continued our drive to a TT campground called Forest Lake near Advance, NC. Advance is near Lexington which is about 2/3 of the way from Charlotte to Winston-Salem. I only had to fiddle around for about a half an hour demonstrating my complete ineptitude at backing up a fifth-wheel trailer before we were safely ensconced in the space of our choice. The spaces are a bit close for our liking but certainly adequate. The campground also has a pond which I believe is the water feature that makes for the campground name. It is not very big for a lake but it did have some very healthy-looking geese swimming in it. However, after all our adventures for today we were pooped so we set up, climbed inside the trailer and had some drinks without scoping out the pond / lake before flaking out for the day.