IDrive: NEVER EVER BUY A WD IDRIVE! Heres my story. Two doors, each purchased directly from WD local store (company owned). First installer shows up, its her 2nd job since being hired! I ordered IDrive ( HUGE MISTAKE) She had never installed an IDrive before, or a Wayne Dalton system. She had worked for other door companies. After 3 hours a 2nd installer arrived. He was to be with her orginally, but overslept (or somthing to that effect). Ok so by 3:00 pm the have the tracks in and the door panels installed. Inform me that the next day the opener guy will be here to install IDrives! Two days pass...still no installer. Finally, after rearranging my schedule they guarantee me he will be there. Since I have a garage full of tools ( more on that later) I make arragnements to have someone at my home. Again a no-show. Finally I call WD corporate. Within an hour I get a call from the local store: He will be there first thing in the morning. Another day lost, as I am unable to have someone at my home to cover for me. Well at least he shows up. Within 15 minutes he askes me who installed the doors? WD , I say, and he begins to argue with me! Turns out the install was so far out of plumb and that the I drives, he said, would not work. Mostly it turns out the overhead tracks needed to be fine tuned and raised/lowered. How do I know this? Heres where it gets fun. I tell the guy how upset I am about the service and he goes banannas on me. Ranting and raving, complaining about his drunk manager and on and on. I finally tell him he has to leave. I take pictures of the install and the subsequent repairs. I then redo the install myself. I complain to WD headquarters but to no avail - its a local issue and they will have a district manager call me. After about four hours I have the door tracks perfect. I have the openers still sitting there so since no cooperation from WD I go ahead and install them. Not that difficult to do and overall I'm pretty satisfied. Now about the refund for WD failure to install. Make a long story short: Small claims court, pictures are invaluable! Local WD must pay me for my time etc.! Corporate has to cut the check. I get a call from the office asking why they were cutting me a check for a court ordered settlement? Check you own phone records and complaints. To say they were rude isn't even coming close. They send the check ( yes it cleared). Three months later the west door IDrive acts up. I call customer service and a very knowledgeable lady walks me through the set up and viola - works perfect. Two months later the east door acts up. I call again (since I hadn't written down the entire sequence). Again the door works but she asks what part number on the circuit boards I have. Turns out WD knew that an entire production lot was faulty and I have the faulty circuit boards. They agree to replace one. This means I must use the orginal installer -their own company store. Guy shows up, muttering about IDrive crap and POS they are. Within 40 minutes he has the board installed and its working OK. He then trys to collect a service call fee from me. 20 minutes of arguing he learns this was under warranty. And he is ticked at me! Two months later...yep you guess it; the other door fails. I call WD. This time its entirley different. They have my phone number attached to technical service calls. And due to my sucsessful small claims action against they, they bar me from any help! Even their technician was stunned. So much so, he told me, once again what to do and sends me a new circuit board, under warrnaty. He tells me that they have nothing but problems with IDdrives etc. He was sorry that I had been treated so shabbily. He actually apologized for his coporate bosses actions! I install the board upon its arriveal (took about 20 minutes) and for a year both doors worked fine. Then, once again the west Idrive fails. I call tech service ( why bother with the local store?) and they tell me they are not allowed to provode me with any help (phone number). OK..I say - no problem. I wait a week and call from my neighbors house, and with the information taken from the 2nd circuit boards I am able to talk with a service tech. I am told that lot of boards was defective and that I could get a new board under warranty from the local company owned store. I had to chuckle, as the tech had no idea what I had been through. Of course I tried to get the borad from the local store and they refused. Oh I am still, as of this writing under warranty. For the past year one IDrive does not work. I am having the same reocurring problems with the second unit. Fortunately, I only need 1 side of my garage to open. Recently I called the local store and talked with the secretary. She knew who I was and I asked if there was any way I could get the door repaired. She informed that the manager had been fired, and she would figure a way for me to get it serviced as she knew how screwed I had been. She said aI would have to pay a $75 service call though. I described the problem: the motor is running but no engagement: thus no opening or closing. Local gal is qutie familiar with this problem too - motor shaft most likely has broken. "Happens all the time". Oh and before someone says the door is out of balance... its not. I have held off as I am planning on remodeling my home and will address the issue by going with another brand. Now the kicker: I am a licensed General Contractor in two states, Florida and California. I have over 30 years experience in all phases of construction. I have never had to take any supplier to court - ever! In fact, I have never had a lein filed on me, or been sued, and only once have I fired a subcontractor during the course of a project (drinking on the job). 30 years of business! The way I was treated by Wayne Dalton was disgusting. I urge you not to buy the IDrive - it is a piece of junk - even their own employees know this, and for that matter any Wayne Daltin product - period. To this day I am unable to get customer service to assist me via phone; a clear violation of their own warranty and guarantee. Despite WD firing the manager (who was resposnible for the faulty install) and the subsequent small claims suit - they hold me responsible. Remember their corporate philosophy that Wayne Dalton has for its customers. Thanks for reading this. Oh and by the way, our company no longer uses Wayne Dalton products, and I have convinced several other builders ( the local builders assocation) to not use their products. That wasn't all that hard to do --thanks WD. Somewhere in Florida.... As for what we've been installing: Liftmaster. No customer complaints or call backs. Average home value of install: 3.2 mil. Way to go Wayne Dalton!

Sounds like you had a wonderful trip and glad you all enjoyed it. That's a lot to cover in 11 days! Dh and I drove across country right after we got engaged, starting in No. California. We'd both been to the Grand Canyon before, but while living in Hawaii, we met a guy who grew up in AZ. He told us about this canyon adjacent to the Grand Canyon that he and his family used to hike into - the trail ends in an Indian reservation. We decided to do it on our trip across country. I'm not sure what we were thinking...while physically fit, we weren't big hikers and it was a 10 mile hike down, it was 100+ degrees (middle of July). We camped overnight and then hiked back out the next day. I was never so happy to get back to our car with A/C! From there we were headed to Denver, so we drove up through Utah along some deserted 2-lane highways, but the scenery was spectacular. We didn't make it to Bryce or Zion, but we have vowed that once all of our kids were old enough to appreciate, we were going to do a trip like yours. We'll probably just do Sedona, Grand Canyon, and then one place up in Utah. I assume you were driving from place to place? Did you get to stop at any of the pueblos? Those were really pretty cool. I agree with you about Vegas. Once was enough for me. We stopped there too on our trip from San Fran down to AZ via L.A then San Diego (our trip was very convoluted as we were all over the map visiting friends along the way). We just had an overnight in Vegas, but did hit a casino just for fun. Totally not my thing at all. Just too much for me. It was neat to experience once, but I have no desire to head back. Did you see the Hoover Dam too? Probably not as I imagine that wasn't on your way if you were coming from Utah. If you have any specific kid-friendly info of places you stopped, please share! I'm taking note of the Pink Jeep tour! Glad you had a great time but totally understand being a little bit too much togetherness! With four kids, I get that when we are having to stay in hotel rooms for any length of time.

I think the best tip so far for here (where I happen to live) is to have breakfast/brunch at a buffet, which WILL hold you till dinner. Then check out some of the nicer places for dinner. Even the coffee shops in the hotels are known to have good food. If you have never been to a Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum, I always say it is a must see. Going to Taqueria Canonita and watching the gondolas will be a very relaxing time. The "old town" show is Fremont Street experience. But please, do not walk down there at night. Please take a taxi. I haven't been there in a while, but the show has always been entertaining. Oh...and at the RIO, they have Masquerade in the Sky, which is a free show. I understand it has become a little risque since they re-opened it. Have fun while you are here.

Where I live its the winter storm of 95-96 and you just mention it and people remember or they heard of it. It was bad, stopped everything, there on the radio asking does anyone have skidoes to take people to their appointments dialysis to the hospitals, people ran out of all kinds of items, it was desperate times and no power and it went on for 6 days and my suite in bottom of parents was an icebox, I had broken my wrist in two places and was in agony but the pain pills looped me so only took once and that was it for those. Alot died from heart attacks from shoveling snow. ONE young lady radio announcer walked to work from her place and it was a long walk in deep, deep snow but she did it. The hospitals were working around the clock and they were stuck there unless ones that could relieve lived within walking distance and could make it. They were desperate for baby formulas, diapers, milk, bread and one store took huge advantage and hiked the prices and wow, it went into war to that owner doing that in desperate times and people banned that store for long time afterwards. You help people out not stab them in the back. Also alot died due they use things like bbq but didn't have it in open areas trying to give heat to their family. We had one day of power and heat and that was Christmas day and wow, we cooked and so we had turkey to eat after that and it helped lots. But our golden retriever we didn't have dog food to give to him as my dad always waited until last second and couldn't get it for him. He ate things he never touched and New Years my dad found him in rough shape and thankful we had our driveway plowed and roads plowed and dad took him to vets and found so much inside him when they pumped out his stomach. I got blamed as always over that. The power going out and my broken wrist was hardest on me and not able to help my dad and he shouldn't have been shoveling,etc. but I couldn't do it. And sitting in an icebox the whole time except for christmas day we got it back. kathy