Chasing Warm

In spite of our great hopes to spend a few nights in one of those right-on-the-beach, free (or cheap) state parks, it wasn't to be, this time around anyway. Call us cowards, but we didn't want to chance getting to the notoriously wonderful Galveston Strand only to find no spots available. So instead, we called around to a few affordable parks in close proximity to a beach in close proximity to Galveston...and we found Quintana Beach County Park near Freeport, TX. There we planted ourselves long enough to file our tax return with the local H&R Block.


To our disappointment, with the exception of the day we arrived, the weather was in the 60s throughout our entire stay. I expect the locals were loving it, but I was hoping for temps in the 70s at least. Still, we spent a little time on the beach...such as it was. As long as we looked at the sea and not the land, the scenery was beautiful.

While we were "unpacking" the coach and putting out the slides, I happened to notice something I'd never noticed before-- water stains on the back corner ceiling of the bedroom! Not good. They were old enough to be dry, but ceiling water stains are always bad news. Mark immediately investigated, and discovered that the back cap of the coach had separated just under the roof overhang. When did THAT happen?! we wondered. And since we had just had the back cap repaired at Alfateers, Mark got on the phone, called them, and left a message. Within the hour, the owner, John, called him back and made arrangements with us to get a mobile repair service out to make the repairs at Alfateers' expense. By the next day, the repairs were made and our minds put at ease about future rainy days. Alfateers definitely stands by its work!

Apparently we must be craving another cruise, because the only thing we seem to be able to think about these days is warm weather and beaches!  From Quintana, Texas, we bee-lined to Pensacola, Florida, where we expected to find a nice warm beach.

We intended to stop overnight at a Walmart near Lafayette, but none of them were allowing overnight campers. In our search for a sleep spot, we discovered the Louisiana "Welcome Center" just past Lake Henderson on I-10. This place was wonderful! They not only allow overnight stays, but they actually welcome them. There were abundant spaces for both RVs and trucks, each with a separate area, and they also provided onsite security from dusk until dawn. We got a good night's rest, and took off for Pensacola early on Saturday.

The park we booked in Pensacola was not near the beach, but our stay was short and it was cool and rainy through the weekend, so it didn't really matter. We did take a drive along the Pensacola Beach Strand on Monday, the last day of our stay, stopping to sit for a while on the sand and enjoy the sounds of the ocean.

Sometime between getting our oil changed and arriving in Quintana, Mark noticed a nasty spattering of black oil all over the front of the car. Anchia's Fleet Care, the folks that changed our oil in Houston, must have overfilled the oil reservoir, because oil was spraying out of the engine as we drove down the road. Mark found a CAT service center close by and we stopped on our way out of Pensacola to have them check it and, if necessary, pump out the excess oil. It turns out our oil reservoir is only four gallons, as opposed to the eight gallon reservoir in most trucks. Anchia's failed to check that little detail and put in TWICE the oil they should have! This experience has reinforced with us the importance, the necessity really, of taking our rig to a CAT service center for everything engine related. Next time we'll know better. By late morning we were on our way again.

It seems the Walmarts in Florida have decided to say "No" to overnight camping courtesies for RVs and truckers. The trip to Gainesville was too long to make comfortably in one day, so we would need one dry-camping stop. Since Walmart was not an option, we decided to stop at every rest area until we found one without a "No Overnight Parking" sign-- a few of which we'd already taken note of along the way. To our relief (as we were both very tired by this time), the very next one fit the bill and we found a spot where we could put down our jacks and open both our slides. In the end this turned out to be a much better option.

Next morning, before we'd gone a mile down the road, we were being pulled over by the Florida Highway Patrol! "Is everything okay?" he asked. "Yes, why?" I responded. He proceeded to inform us that one of our basement bay doors was wide open. Mark had forgotten to latch the door to the battery compartment, and it had sprung open without our knowing. Now, what are the chances that a highway patrol car would be right there just as we were getting on the freeway... and actually notice that open door??? God really is good to us.

We've had three wonderful days in Gainesville with Paul, Amy, and Lee, visiting, catching up, and reminiscing. Lee has turned into an amazingly good cook and prepared two absolutely delicious meals for us. At the end of April we'll be back, but tomorrow we begin our month-long tour of Florida.

I'm very much hoping to find warm air soon. I know it's only March, but this IS Florida, after all ...and I was led to believe there would be warm air.

Rest Break in Central Texas

I'm sitting at my kitchen table, in Columbus, TX, gazing out at green grass, an overcast sky, and trees just beginning to green up. It reminds me very much of Minnesota in April... or May. We've been in central Texas for the past five days, following a grueling three-day travel spurt from Mesa, AZ.

When we made our travel plan, we decided we would push hard the first couple days out of Arizona and then stop for a few days to rest. We reasoned that since we would be "camping" at a Walmart, from which we generally get an early start in the morning, that we could cover more ground-- say, 350 miles or so each day. To you road-trip junkies, that probably sounds like nothing. And in my younger days, when the family and I routinely made trips from Idaho to California in three days, 350 miles would have seemed like poking along. But now, 350-mile days just make me tired and cranky. At the end of the day my body hurts, I have trouble smiling, and I generally feel like I've been tortured. Of course, Mark is totally unaffected (not!) After a short conversation about it, we have decided that even when we plan to dry-camp at a Walmart or truck stop, we will keep the miles to something around 250 and take longer rest breaks... for sanity's sake (not to mention marital health).

A view from our window out to Lake Medina

Our first resting stop was at a little off-the-beaten-path Thousand Trails park on Medina Lake, just east of San Antonio. Getting there reminded me of dreams I have of driving down wide roads that get progressively narrower until my car is impossibly wedged between two cement walls or dirt barriers. Fortunately, we made it to the park without encountering any wedging problems. (Nightmare averted.) The campground was not fabulous; it had no full hookup sites (at least none available), and only 30 amp power, but it was good enough for resting. We found a spot right by the lake and had very few neighbors for most of our three-day stay. The highlight of this campground was its deer population. At dusk, they would wander through the campground--on either side of our coach-- munching grass, dancing, and playing, on their way down to the lake for their evening drink, completely unafraid of the resident humans. The herd had to number somewhere between forty and fifty, with at least two bucks that we could identify. It was a delightful experience. I wanted to include a video I took of the deer, but sadly the file was too large for the blog size limit.

The gravel is where RVs used to park before the ground
gave way.

We arrived in Columbus on Saturday. The campground sits on the edge of the Colorado River. As a matter of fact, some of it sits IN the Colorado River, due to some serious erosion that was caused by the hurricane that wreaked havoc last year on Houston and the surrounding areas. It's a smallish park, and all of it's 50 amp full hookup sites were filled up, so we ended up again in a 30 amp site with no sewer. The sewer hookup isn't much of a problem for two or three days because our tanks will handle us that long and we just dump at the campground's dump station on the way out. It's the power that can make things a bit difficult. For instance, we can't run our basement air conditioner or heater on 30 amp power. On cold days, we can use the gas furnace, but on hot days like yesterday, we have to rely on the smaller rooftop cooler, which doesn't really reach back into the bedroom very well. The nights are still cool, though, and we slept with open windows.

Today I learned a little bit more about what it means to plug into 30 amp power when your rig is designed for 50 amp. You can't run the washing machine, the water heater, and the frig while simultaneously trying to bake something in the convection oven. About five minutes into baking muffins in my electric oven, it suddenly lost power. "The oven shut off!" I barked at Mark. "Do something!" While he hurried outside to "do something," I went around shutting off all things electric and switching over to propane all the appliances that can run on either propane or electric. In moments he had my oven working again. We'd blown the breaker. Thankfully, the muffins turned out fine in spite of their little ordeal. It looks like I still have a few things yet to learn about this lifestyle.

Tomorrow morning, we're heading for Galveston Island with a short stop in Houston for an oil change...one of those little inconveniences of living in your vehicle. Hopefully it will go smoothly and quickly.

Deer at Medina Lake campground.