Whitehorst, YT - Freightliner 'Campground'

Oof-da. What a night. Even though the room was cool when we got there and the night clerk was put out when we asked for a heater since our room heater didn’t work, we thought the Days Inn was fine. However, the clientele was not. Why is it that kids have to run up and down at 6:00 in the morning? Where are the parents? Why is it that groups have to congregate in the corridor at 4:58 to plan their day? Why is it that the young woman had to sit in the hall to have an angry conversation with the person on the other end of the line? And, why, when Gary asked her to quiet down because there were people trying to sleep at 6:49, she had to begin to talk louder. What is wrong with these people? Self-centered, of course. It’s all about them.

We don’t sleep well in strange places and our lives are a bit topsy-turvy right now. It was not a good night. We were groggy all day.

We got to the Freightliner, talked with our new neighbors and went inside when it opened. We told the manager our story and he asked Andrew to look at our problem. And, he went right to work. Of course, Gary’s work and analysis was the key.

The manager then called Good Sam, or actually, the insurance company they use for our extended care insurance, gave an estimate for the parts and labor and Good Sam turned us down. Huh? Why? Well, the fan motor that failed had 4 bolts that sheared off and Freightliner is not putting that part in any more because it breaks. They now put in a 5-bolt part. Ah, Good Sam calls that an ‘update’, a new part. They will pay for a replacement of the old part if it breaks, which ours did not, or for 4 new bolts to replace the 4 that sheared off so we can put in the old part. But, our deductible is way more than 4 bolts so they will pay nothing.

I’m not kidding. In fact the guy at the other end of the line got quite testy with Gary when Gary was asking about this policy and explaining how we were at the side of the road with a busted fan motor.
But, if we put 4 bolts in again, it will break again.

'Nope, we don’t pay for updates.'

And, that was that - he was so dug into his position that we knew there was no hope. He could have said: Hey, I can’t approve this because this is what the policy says. But, here’s the Good Sam number and you can appeal this. Nope, not his style. No, and I mean NO.

OK, here we are, this part costs $1500 and then we have to pay labor. We’ve paid our insurance premiums for 8 years on this policy and this is the treatment we get. Hmmm.

Obviously we will appeal.

So here we are: Stuck down here in Whitehorse with the Fairbanks blues again. With apologies to Bob Dylan.