4/29 Sunday The blog has suffered this week with the warranty work being done. Seems Mandalay failed us when they sent the wrong part. They were notified of the problem on Tuesday as well as being told the customer was waiting at the dealership, yet they now say they plan to ship the right part on Monday, a full week later.
We did take advantage of the time here in Kings Mountain, NC to go over to the Shiele Museum and Buffalo Nation exhibit in Gastonia. This was an interesting activity as they had some good exhibits of Indian life and culture from back in the 1600 and 1700’s. They had information on the way the Indians lived and of the various contacts with explorers and Army troupes sent to control the Indians and later to move them out of the area.
They explained the importance of the bison (Buffalo) to their way of life. The only thing they did not find a way to use was the grunting noise the bison made. By contrast, fur traders only killed the bison for the hides and left the rest of the animal for wolves. The government in Washington, DC decided that the bison had no real value and there were so many of them, (estimated at over two million) were killed off to drive the Indians from the area as the bison were an important source of food. The government finally put an end to the killing when there were less than an estimated 1,000 left. They had a picture of the skulls of bison that had been killed that were greater than a 2-story building with a man standing on the top of the pile. It certainly drove the point home just how many bison had been killed.
In addition they have many animals on display. Those who prepared these animals for display did a real good job of making both the animal look lifelike and the setting look something from a National Geographic program.
They also have a planetarium, but the show times did not work for us, plus the dogs were waiting in the car and the temperature was getting to the point we would not allow them to remain there. If you are in the area, this is a worthwhile stop.
The rest of the week was spent dong things around the coach and trying to get the warranty work completed. As one thing was done, it sometimes led to another issue. One case in point is the new wiper issue that turned up after the windshield washer hose was replaced and we were in the process of testing and adjusting.
Monday we will head to Freightliner hoping they can work us in to handle the issues. At the same time we hope to take a tour of the plant. Fortunately, being retired, it allows us the option to make our schedule up as we go along. This is one time that it is really working to our advantage.
