Today has been a somewhat frustrating day. Actually, it started last night when we lost electricity from the RV park’s post that we plug into. Mark couldn’t make his morning coffee and that is never a good start to the day!
We had been waiting for today for the VA to be open so Mark could get registered here. We were hoping he could get coffee at the VA, but we arrived sometime after 7:30 am and discovered that they don’t open till 8:30 (unlike in Oklahoma). So we sat in a couple chairs near the coffee stand and waited for things to open. People kept passing us and greeting us. One invited us to a room where a free pancake breakfast was being served, but we’d had breakfast so we declined. After nearly an hour of waiting, someone walked by and said, “You look like you need these.” He handed each of us a mini candy bar and then said, “Happy Veteran’s Day!” That’s when it hit us why everything was closed at the VA!
From there we went to Walmart and Mark ordered a cup of coffee at the McDonalds inside. Another man also ordered coffee. Both stood there and watched as everyone who ordered food received their order. Finally after several minutes the other man made a fuss about Mark and him not getting their coffee. Turns out the manager had been rearranging the orders to make sure all the food orders got out first, but after this guy complained she finally got him and Mark their coffees.
When we got back to the RV park Mark went into the office to complain about our electricity not working. The woman at the desk said she’d call maintenance and Mark said he’d wait at our place for them. He took me and the laundry up to the laundry room so I could clean our clothes before we start work tomorrow, and then he went back to the RV. When I called him to let him know I was ready to be picked up, he tried to go back into the office to ask where the maintenance man was, but the office was temporarily closed. A little while later he went back and the woman asked if maintenance had come yet. When Mark said no, she said we could move to the vacant space beside our RV site. That meant pulling up the levelers, pulling in the slideout, and unhooking everything before driving around the park to get a good angle at getting into the new spot. Then everything had to be re-leveled, pushed back out and hooked up. Mark was going back and forth after we were finally settled so he could bring our outside stuff to our new site when the maintenance man finally showed up at our former site. When he saw Mark he said, “Was it difficult to move to the other site?” Mark said, “As a matter of fact, it was.” He told the man what all was involved and the man was apologetic, but by then we were settled in our new site.
In the meantime, nearly everything I had planned to do today involved using electricity, and by the time we finally had it, I had lost my momentum. I managed to get a few things done, but the day felt wasted.
I forgot to mention that one thing the pastor at the church we tried yesterday did was ask all the veterans to sit down. Then he told everyone else to go shake the hand of a veteran. For it being our first Sunday in the church, Mark got more handshakes than he probably ever has before. So to anyone who is a veteran, Happy Veteran’s Day!