It has now been over a week since we were informed that, to lessen the impact of a delay in optical tube availability, the mount portion of our combo would be shipped separately without waiting. That sounded good for me (I need the mount) and not quite as good for Len (who needs the OTA). Given that there is currently no mount in my observatory while Len does have other optical tubes on hand, it seemed to be the better of the two possibilities for a split shipment. Sadly, that was the last I heard – still no shipping info on the mount. I see that a few dealers are showing the bare mounts in stock so either they have been shipping some bare mounts or the dealers’ websites have bad info (or the dealers have been splitting up 10″ or 12″ combos). I don’t know what that means; I plan to contact the dealer Monday afternoon and see if there is anything to be learned. In what may turn out to have been a burst of inappropriate optimism we had accepted the dealer’s prediction that we would have the combo well before the NEAF trade show next month. We had started with the idea that we would pick the order up there but were assured we could have it sooner by letting them ship. Given that Meade pays the shipping, and that sooner sounded better than later, we agreed to that. If the delay continues, there is a danger that one or the other of us will lose interest and want to cancel. If that happens, the other, on losing the bundle discount, will surely decide to cancel as well.