10-31 Wednesday We departed Houston for the Texas Valley today. Although we were in Houston several days, we failed to make contact with several friends we really wanted to see. Not sure how the time got away from us, but it appears to be a characteristic of retirement. At least we managed to get all our Houston doctor business done; not an easy task for sure.
We had a late brunch with daughter Connie who recommended we take Barker Cypress to US-59 south to avoid construction on parts of Houston’s Beltway 8 and Us-59. Likely, in retrospect, we should have taken the Beltway and paid the toll. We drove 40 miles and it only took about 1-1/2 hours. No traffic, but lots of lights and slow zones. Finally we were on 59 and up to a steady 63MPH.
The drive was not bad as US-59 is mostly a 4 lane divided road. It is a little rough in sections, but not to compare with I-10 through Louisiana. As a side note, we hear that section of road may have been paved, but I find it hard to believe. We will learn for sure in December when we head to Florida for Christmas.
We zipped around Corpus and on into Kingsville, still making good time. Finally it was time to give it up for the day so we stopped at the Wal-Mart in Falfurrias. It is not a 24-hour store, but several other RVers and a few trucks made this home base for the night. We are less than 85 miles from our destination, so tomorrow should be an easy drive while putting us into the park with plenty of time to set up and do a little exploring.
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
October catch up
Frankly I got way behind on my blog. Sitting around getting the coach worked on did not make for much good news. Fussing about Dometic falls more in the category of a personal problem, so I became lax. Well, here are a few notes and things that did go on that made our October notable in our travels.
10-9 Tuesday Here we are on day 34 camping at Camp Mandalay Resort, but unlike the many previous days here, we are hitting the road today. Dometic is sending the refrigerator coil we need to a Houston repair facility where we will be for two weeks and at this time, this is the problem area that has held us hostage in Elkhart.
The problem we were having with the front A/C unit appears to be better since I spent an hour taping the transition area from the A/C unit to the RVs duct lines in the ceiling. The unit is still freezing up if run on automatic, so this still suggests there could be a refrigerant problem or poor air flow. I am now banking on the latter. Newmar has much larger vents so there is less restriction promoting greater cooling. Making this change on our coach will be challenging.
As we drove down the road today we saw many trees with their leaves reflecting the fall colors. The temp is high today but obviously there have been enough cold nights to tell the trees it is fall and time to put on the fancy colors. Due to the lack of adequate rains the colors are not as intense yet quite enjoyable to see. We are going to be on interstate roads for the next few days, so it will be interesting to see if the colors continue.
10-10 Wednesday Today will just be covering a bunch of miles quickly. With about 1080 miles to cover in three days at an average of 58 miles per hour, we need to stay focused. We did hit the road early so the 420 miles in one day still had us off the road early enough to have some down time. We took advantage of a Wal-Mart parking lot just south of Little Rock for the night as well as the opportunity to make three trips to the store for groceries and new lounge chairs with the other two trips to get things we missed the first time. We may not have paid rent for the night, but it was clearly not a ‘free’ night!
10-11 Thursday On the road again early, we are headed to Plano, Texas northwest of Dallas. We have stayed at Lavon Lake before but elected to stay at another park so we could have 50-amp power. We are anticipating it will be more than a little warm in Texas, so 50-amp power will allow use of both A/C units. The last time we were at this lake the water was quite low, but this time with all the summer rains, the level was about as high as the lake was designed to hold.
10-12 Friday Daughter Storm took the day off to visit with us. With her work responsibilities, taking off normally means the work is piling up on her desk. Even though she had left messages she would be out until Monday, her Blackberry went off several times. Today was just a fun day of catching up and telling stories. She did get up and make a lemon cake early so we would have a special dessert to enjoy – a dessert we both enjoy but neither of us normally would have otherwise. We were so busy catching up we never left the RV.
10-13 Saturday Today we went to see Storm and Wes at their home. They are very fortunate to have such a nice home and they have worked hard to decorate and do maintenance work around the house creating a very attractive home. They are very particular about the appearance of their property and that of the neighbors. Storm was laughing about how Wes had even gone down the street and edged the neighbor’s sidewalk thinking the house was empty. When he was finishing, the owner came out and thanked him. Seems the owner would rather play golf than edge. Storm prepared a very delicious meal early enough that we had time to all return to the RV so Wes and his daughter Catlin could see our new unit.
10-14 Sunday Leigh has a sister living south of Arlington, TX (between Dallas and Fort Worth). We decided, rather on the spur of the moment that we would try to surprise her and drop in. Leigh called to be sure she was not leaving to go somewhere and Kathy caught on where we were when Leigh called out a highway sign in Dallas as she was trying to keep me in the right lane. If you have driven through the downtown area of Dallas, you will understand why it is wise to have a navigator, especially when you have a rig almost 50’ long you are driving.
We arrived at Kathy and Frank’s and she was standing in the yard waving. The entrance road runs behind the house so she was able to see us turn in; it is really hard to hide a large motorhome. When Leigh let the cat out of the bag, Frank left almost immediately and bought ribs and other food for dinner. The sisters had not seen each other for over 6 years, so there was some catching up to do. Although they communicate by Internet messaging, it is not the same as in person.
Kathy and Frank had moved to this home about a year ago from the Oklahoma City area. The property is on some acreage and they have created a very attractive and comfortable home. Kathy is into irises and the yard is loaded with carefully marked plants. The two of them have some grand plans to expand their activity and enlarge the yard. Frank found himself growing watermelons and his crop is really growing very well. One of the melons caught under the edge of the porch and was forcing the porch up as it filled out. That represented some real power!
Their home is on a hill and they report the wind blows up there all the time. I think they may even look into a wind generator and maybe sell some power back to the local utility company. There is a very informative article in Popular Mechanics about installing a wind generator for the home. For them, this could be a real important addition to their property. While we were there, due to the winds, I even ran two of the RV slides in during the night to lessen the effect of the wind on the RV.
We really had a great time there and look forward to going through Dallas and stopping there again.
Following this visit it was into Houston, it was time to make the rounds of doctors to get things arranged for the next year. It also gave me time to go by Jerry’s tech lab to get a few ‘government’ projects done. It is really nice to work in a facility that has equipment in great condition. The students were very well behaved and knew what was expected of them and what they needed to do in class. It made things move smoothly for everyone in the program and a very relaxed, smiling instructor. I wanted to make a few racks to store things in the RV basement to make thing more organized and neater.
We think that the refrigerator is finally fixed and working. The repair facility replaced the coil on the back as it tested as having a partial blockage. It took them a little over a day to do the work as someone at Mandalay had put a screw in during construction that they had extreme difficulty getting to. Sometimes those making something like this do not consider the possibility of repair and the person who must attempt this repair.
10-9 Tuesday Here we are on day 34 camping at Camp Mandalay Resort, but unlike the many previous days here, we are hitting the road today. Dometic is sending the refrigerator coil we need to a Houston repair facility where we will be for two weeks and at this time, this is the problem area that has held us hostage in Elkhart.
The problem we were having with the front A/C unit appears to be better since I spent an hour taping the transition area from the A/C unit to the RVs duct lines in the ceiling. The unit is still freezing up if run on automatic, so this still suggests there could be a refrigerant problem or poor air flow. I am now banking on the latter. Newmar has much larger vents so there is less restriction promoting greater cooling. Making this change on our coach will be challenging.
As we drove down the road today we saw many trees with their leaves reflecting the fall colors. The temp is high today but obviously there have been enough cold nights to tell the trees it is fall and time to put on the fancy colors. Due to the lack of adequate rains the colors are not as intense yet quite enjoyable to see. We are going to be on interstate roads for the next few days, so it will be interesting to see if the colors continue.
10-10 Wednesday Today will just be covering a bunch of miles quickly. With about 1080 miles to cover in three days at an average of 58 miles per hour, we need to stay focused. We did hit the road early so the 420 miles in one day still had us off the road early enough to have some down time. We took advantage of a Wal-Mart parking lot just south of Little Rock for the night as well as the opportunity to make three trips to the store for groceries and new lounge chairs with the other two trips to get things we missed the first time. We may not have paid rent for the night, but it was clearly not a ‘free’ night!
10-11 Thursday On the road again early, we are headed to Plano, Texas northwest of Dallas. We have stayed at Lavon Lake before but elected to stay at another park so we could have 50-amp power. We are anticipating it will be more than a little warm in Texas, so 50-amp power will allow use of both A/C units. The last time we were at this lake the water was quite low, but this time with all the summer rains, the level was about as high as the lake was designed to hold.
10-12 Friday Daughter Storm took the day off to visit with us. With her work responsibilities, taking off normally means the work is piling up on her desk. Even though she had left messages she would be out until Monday, her Blackberry went off several times. Today was just a fun day of catching up and telling stories. She did get up and make a lemon cake early so we would have a special dessert to enjoy – a dessert we both enjoy but neither of us normally would have otherwise. We were so busy catching up we never left the RV.
10-13 Saturday Today we went to see Storm and Wes at their home. They are very fortunate to have such a nice home and they have worked hard to decorate and do maintenance work around the house creating a very attractive home. They are very particular about the appearance of their property and that of the neighbors. Storm was laughing about how Wes had even gone down the street and edged the neighbor’s sidewalk thinking the house was empty. When he was finishing, the owner came out and thanked him. Seems the owner would rather play golf than edge. Storm prepared a very delicious meal early enough that we had time to all return to the RV so Wes and his daughter Catlin could see our new unit.
10-14 Sunday Leigh has a sister living south of Arlington, TX (between Dallas and Fort Worth). We decided, rather on the spur of the moment that we would try to surprise her and drop in. Leigh called to be sure she was not leaving to go somewhere and Kathy caught on where we were when Leigh called out a highway sign in Dallas as she was trying to keep me in the right lane. If you have driven through the downtown area of Dallas, you will understand why it is wise to have a navigator, especially when you have a rig almost 50’ long you are driving.
We arrived at Kathy and Frank’s and she was standing in the yard waving. The entrance road runs behind the house so she was able to see us turn in; it is really hard to hide a large motorhome. When Leigh let the cat out of the bag, Frank left almost immediately and bought ribs and other food for dinner. The sisters had not seen each other for over 6 years, so there was some catching up to do. Although they communicate by Internet messaging, it is not the same as in person.
Kathy and Frank had moved to this home about a year ago from the Oklahoma City area. The property is on some acreage and they have created a very attractive and comfortable home. Kathy is into irises and the yard is loaded with carefully marked plants. The two of them have some grand plans to expand their activity and enlarge the yard. Frank found himself growing watermelons and his crop is really growing very well. One of the melons caught under the edge of the porch and was forcing the porch up as it filled out. That represented some real power!
Their home is on a hill and they report the wind blows up there all the time. I think they may even look into a wind generator and maybe sell some power back to the local utility company. There is a very informative article in Popular Mechanics about installing a wind generator for the home. For them, this could be a real important addition to their property. While we were there, due to the winds, I even ran two of the RV slides in during the night to lessen the effect of the wind on the RV.
We really had a great time there and look forward to going through Dallas and stopping there again.
Following this visit it was into Houston, it was time to make the rounds of doctors to get things arranged for the next year. It also gave me time to go by Jerry’s tech lab to get a few ‘government’ projects done. It is really nice to work in a facility that has equipment in great condition. The students were very well behaved and knew what was expected of them and what they needed to do in class. It made things move smoothly for everyone in the program and a very relaxed, smiling instructor. I wanted to make a few racks to store things in the RV basement to make thing more organized and neater.
We think that the refrigerator is finally fixed and working. The repair facility replaced the coil on the back as it tested as having a partial blockage. It took them a little over a day to do the work as someone at Mandalay had put a screw in during construction that they had extreme difficulty getting to. Sometimes those making something like this do not consider the possibility of repair and the person who must attempt this repair.
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