In Texas and Lickin' my Wounds!

Yeah, That's what I said;  LICKING MY WOUNDS!

We pulled out of Abita Springs, just north of New Orleans right at daybreak.

We topped off our fuel tank (Gulp!-------$242).

And we pulled out onto I-12 (which blends into I-10 in Baton Rouge) and put the Rig in Auto-Pilot.

We stopped to Pee twice, and eat Lunch when we crossed into Texas, otherwise, we cranked.

We ran at 70-73 mph, (cruise control) the whole trip except when one of the many Brain-Dead drivers, that populate the Roads of America, tried to kill us.  This only happened every hour or so, so I guess most of these "Zombie Roadies" were busy preparing for Halloween ..... or whatever.

Anyway, we rolled up to San Antonio, and took a left in to the "Hill Country" of South Texas.

It really is beautiful, and we are going to drive back through there and catch some good Pics to share in a couple of days.

And, there I was, over 9-1/2 hours of jockeying a Big RIG on the Interstates, Back aching, eyes burning, arms weighing over a ton each, and what happens?

There we are less than to miles from our CG, and my Garmin decides to Piss in my Oatmeal.

That;s Right, Piss in my Oatmeal!

The map system tells me to turn right onto a little street called, what else "D" street.

Hell, I didn't know!

I've never been here before.

Well, it turns out that my CG is very near a booming Lake area, Medina Lake.

It is booming so much that many of the aggressive developers have gone out and run bulldozers through teh Mesquite trees and Cactus, and Rocks and Sand, and marked off hundreds of streets.

They even put up signs with proper names on them.

So, some A-Hole at Garmin, went and added these unreal streets to their maps.

So, what is the Big Deal?

OK, These streets are wide enough for one car to go down.

I own a 42-foot, Rig with a 18-foot Jeep tied to it's tail.

Try to make a turn at an intersetion that is this narrow.

I only drove 6-blocks and made two turns before I got to a real Road.

I figure that I only took out 6-10 Mesquite trees and a couple of Cactus with the RV.

Needless to say, I now need; not only a good wash job, but also a good Buff and Polish of the paint job.

Anyway, we checked in to the CG, and went over and selected a campsite.

I unhooked the Jeep, and?

The Battery was Dead.  I had put the ignition key in the wrong position, and the RV sucked down the RV battery.

I had to bum a Jump off of a fellow camper, and we backed into our site.

What else could go wrong?

You will not believe this, but You remember that our trip started two months late while we waited for some major parts for the Fridge?

Well, We opened the door, to assure that it had switched voer automatically to AC fro Propane, and

OH Yeah!

The Freakin' Freezer Temp was 35, and the Fridge temp was 48!

The damned newly rebuilt Fridge was not operating properly.

We walked around and cursed for a while and then after we calmed down, we opened some nice Chardonnay, and went Zombie for the night.

We got up this morning and those temps had dropped to 31 and 35, so we had hope that we could use the Fridge after all.

But, again, Murphy stepped in, and while we took a midday trip to Bandera, the temps had drifted back up to 33 and 37.

I called the brilliant people at Camping World, and they gave me a list of things to test and check tomorrow and call them back.

Banderas was cool,and I will write about it tomorrow, but right now, I think we have another couple of bottles of that Chardonnay somewhere, and ........ you know ....... What the Hell!

We are on Holiday! What else could go wrong?

G'Day!

On the Road ..... finally!

You would not believe what we have gone through over the past week.

You think that this picture is of an RV, Right?  Nope, it is a used RV wrapped around a new Fridge!


As the old Country song says; "I been Lied to and ..............".

Anyway, the Fridge is completed (or so I have been promised?)

And, early in the morning we are going to drive down to the CW store, long before they open, and load up our new Fridge with food, and finally head to Texas.

I am going to try to get on the road early enough to get out of MB, and on the South side of Atlanta by tomorrow afternoon.

If all goes well, I will pop into a campground for thenight and get a good nights rest and continue on from there down to Baton Rouge.

I figure that two long days of driving, and I can make up for one of the days we lost.

But, I am not going to push it.  IF I have problems, or get tired, or whatever, I am going to pull into a truck stop or a Wally-World and shut down early.

I have done those 10-hour-plus driving days, and they really pull you down.

I don't need that.

So, I will have to play this whole first part of our trip to Texas by ear.
What does ON-THE-ROAD look like?

Check it out!

On the Road .... Again

IT feels SO GOOD to be on the road again!

Helen and I spent all day yesterday loading the RV up with our stuff.  It actually turned into a bit of a challenge.

You see, we both have a lot of Family and many old Friends in Lynchburg VA.  We were both born and raised in the area, and sad to say, we do not get back there as often as we should.  So, we will try to get in all of our Holiday visiting with people early, before we head to Florida.

Because we were going to Lynchburg for a couple of weeks, we needed to pack at least a few strategic pieces of clothing for the Cold, while saving as much of our storage for our warm weather clothing that we will need when we get to Florida.

We finally got the clothing thing done, and then we packed all of those things you believe you will need, but you rarely end up using.  Then late last night we loaded all of the perishables we might want over the next few weeks, and finally finished around 6:30 PM.

We got a good nights sleep, and were up, and at it, this morning at 6:30AM.  You know, doing those last few things that you forgot the day before.

We said our Goodbyes to our friends, and hit the road.

It was a pretty uneventful trip, except for the last couple of hours as we neared Lynchburg.  The wind had gotten up, and I was doing some of that White-Knuckle driving.  But all ended well and we are now all hooked up at our daughters house.

One thing that might be of interest to you RVers.

We retired to the Myrtle Beach area of SC, and our previous most efficient trips were up some back roads, over to US-95, and then onto US-40, and then taking NC-86 from Hillsborough over to Danvile VA, where we took US-29 to Lynchburg.

I had been told that US-74 was completed from Lumberton, NC over to Rockingham,NC.  so I put it into my GPS software, and boy was it a nice drive.

So our new route will be from our home over to Chadbourn, NC (about 35 miles of 2-lane).  At Chadbourn, we took US-74, all the way to Rockingham, where we then took US-220 to Greensboro, NC.

Greensboro itself has about 6 miles of dangerous driving (narrow roads, heavy traffic, several lane swaps, etc.), but you are out of there in just a few minutes, and then it is smooth sailing all the way to Lynchburg.

And, according to my Garmin, it was about 15 minutes quicker than the old way.