Settling In

We left the fifth wheel at about 8:20 yesterday morning as we drove to Out of Africa for Josie's first day on her new job. We were met at the gate by her new manager, Sydney (a woman) and off she went to work.

I went to the post office in Camp Verde to get our PO Box and to try to find a FedEx drop box to return Josie's replaced phone. As soon as I got to the door at the post office, I realized that I locked the keys in the Jeep. Oh, well. We got the PO Box, finally, and I asked the clerk if they had a taxi service in Camp Verde since I locked my keys in the car and have another set at the campground, about 5 miles away. He suggested AAA. We discontinued our AAA membership before we left Surprise and joined the Good Sam Emergency Road Service instead since they would cover the Fifth Wheel in addition to both vehicles, and for less money than AAA. This was a chance to try them out.

A gentleman showed up after about 40 minutes, with his flatbed trailer in tow, and he had a "kit" that he uses to sort of "break" into vehicles to retrieve keys. It looked liked he was going to do some damage to the door, so I suggested he stop the effort and just drive me to the campground, get the spare set of keys, and drive me back to the car. He agreed, and by 11 AM I was on the road again. I would rate the new service a C+ for the first time. The guy that showed up drove from Mayer, near Prescott. I was disappointed that the Good Sam service had to go all the way to Mayer, 40 minutes away, to find a person to respond to my service call. We'll see how they perform in the future.

I then drove to Cottonwood to run a few other errands and got home at about 2 PM to rearrange our reservations for the next four months. It turns out that we can stay 21 days at each of the parks, so we don't have to move as often. We now have reservations until the first of March which is as far out as we can make them.

Josie's first day was a success. She said the work is fun and the biggest thing to learn is how to react and respond to people's stories for obtaining discounts. An example is a woman approaches the Admissions window and states that her son is only three years old and he is nearly as tall as she is. There are many different scenarios and she said that, in almost all cases, they let the people in with the discounts even though they are clearly lying. Good customer service, I guess.

Until tomorrow...