Deliveries

Today, we had the windows of the Jeep tinted. Since it is our Jee-rage (Jeep+garage), we didn't like that it was really easy to see everything in it. We didn't go with the super-dark, limo tinting, but it is nicely dark now, and a bit harder to see in from outside. Hopefully it will keep it a bit cooler when in the sun too. I'll put pictures on of it when I think to take them...

But... while we were at the tinting place, the UPS delivery guy came, and his truck was out front when we left to walk back to the RV campground (it was only about 1/2 mile away). I noticed that it indicated "Propane Vehicle".

UPS truck in Palm Desert

I asked him how he liked the Propane powered; he said that the state of California had given the vehicles to UPS as a test case and he had only had it for a few days. He said that when there is air in the lines, it sputters quite a bit, but once he'd driven it for a while in the morning, the air would work its way out and it ran quite well. He said it was very quiet too. I was thinking about the fact that we turn off the propane when we're driving down the road for safety reasons... I wonder what will happen the first time one of these "free trucks from the state of California" gets in an accident and explodes what a great idea that will be.

Taking this picture reminded me of taking a picture of another UPS truck - in Germany, when we were visiting there with Aunt Libby, niece Ginny, and nephew Ricky. Jimmy (my brother, who worked for UPS) had told me that the emblem on the side of the truck was a globe positioned for the part of the world where the truck was doing its deliveries (so it would be different in Germany than in the US). We saw one of the distinctive brown trucks on the autobahn, and as Dwayne passed it, I rolled our window down to take a picture of the emblem on the truck. Well, Dwayne was going a little faster than I expected, and I ended up getting a picture of a UPS driver who was quite concerned about why someone would be taking a picture of him minding his own business doing his job.

As we headed back to the campground, I mentioned to Dwayne that I wondered if that UPS truck had our Amazon Prime order on it as that was to be delivered today. This campground had told us that they did not accept USPS mail for the campground residents, but that UPS would deliver to the site if we made sure to put the site number on it. So... I did... but... it seems that UPS in this area, or UPS delivering for Amazon, turns the packages over to the USPS to do the delivery. When I checked on the delivery using the tracking number today, it indicated that it had been delivered, but it wasn't here at the Trek, and I had been here. I looked more closely - uh oh, it got delivered by USPS - will the campground have sent it back? We went to check, and they had it at the office. They were understanding that we tried our best to get it delivered without going through them... so it was ok. But she said that they would probably stop allowing any package deliveries at some point in the future.

Finally... I have a confession to a really stupid thing! When we were in Las Vegas, we had contacted the folks who sell the tire pressure monitors that we have as we had one that was always reading the same pressure and temperature; they asked us to send it back and they would ship us a new one. I told them when we were leaving Las Vegas, and they didn't think the package would make it in time. So, I looked up the campground where we were staying next (or, I thought I had), contacted them to make sure that I could have a package sent there (they said, "sure! no problem!"), verified their address, and sent that information to the tire minder folks for the new tire minder to be sent. Knowing that address and that getting packages was no problem, I also contacted the mail forwarding service in Livingston to send us our mail. All good, right?

Well, except, somehow I looked up the wrong campground in Palm Springs....
Instead of the Thousand Trails park, I looked up the Encore park (there is a relationship between the two companies where we get a discount for staying at Encore parks, but it isn't free like at Thousand Trails).
I now had two packages winging their way across the US going to a campground at which we had no reservation and no plans to stay there - oh my goodness, how stupid can you get????

So, I called the campground again (remember I had talked to them before, verified the address, etc.) and talked to the same sweet lady again (Genie). I confessed my idiocy and begged for mercy. She was so totally understanding! She said that they often have people showing up there thinking they have a reservation there when their reservation is at Thousand Trails. She said that sometimes searches on the internet for Thousand Trails in Palm Springs finds them instead of the Thousand Trails in Palm Desert. She even took my phone number so she could call me when both packages had arrived so I could make just one trip to pick them up.

Today, she called and let me know both packages were there... so we drove down there and I got to meet Genie. She is such a sweet lady. And now you know that retirement breeds lunacy...

A month of forwarded mail