The Best Laid Plans . . .
Well, we pulled out of site 80 at Galveston Bay RV Park at 7:30am, right on schedule. And then drove a whole 6.7 miles to Taylor Automotive in Dickinson, TX.
We were there to have the passenger side rear axle oil seal replaced before we head out for this year. After we got the RV checked in, Jan and I headed out in the truck up to Webster to have breakfast at The Egg and I. Love their Hazelnut coffee.
After breakfast we drove over to one of my clients for one last hand-holding session. I think he’s suffering from premature separation anxiety.
By this time a couple of hours had elapsed so we drove back down to Taylor’s to check in to see how things were coming, and also to pick up a couple of things from the rig. When we got there I was glad to see that the rig had been pulled around back, but unfortunately they hadn’t started on it yet. Since it was now almost 11, it was pretty obvious that we wouldn’t be on our way by noon, which meant we would probably end up spending the night in a hotel.
We decided to while away the afternoon at Brandi’s since it was nearby. Finally about 3pm we head back to Taylor’s to pick up some clothes for the hotel, and also feed the cats.
But that didn’t quite work out. About 10 minutes before we got there, Taylor’s called and said there was a problem.
Ruh Roh!
It turns out that after getting the tires off, they were unable to get the brake drum off the axle. They tried every way they could, but no luck. Said they’d run into this before, and I would have to go to a dedicated truck repair shop that was set up for this.
I’ll probably wait until Las Cruces to have it checked out by Rush Truck Centers. They did a good job for us last year. The seal is not really leaking, it’s only weeping a little bit, so it should be OK.
The really nice thing in the middle of all this is that Taylor Automotive didn’t charge me a single cent for the attempt, even though they spent a couple of hours on it. Bill, the service manager said if they can’t fixed it, they don’t charge.
So, Taylor Automotive in Dickinson, TX – Well Recommended.
We then checked with Galveston Bay RV Park to see if they still had our space open. Lucky for us it turns out that they did. In fact they had two other open sites from people who had also left today.
So rather than park back in our old space, which takes a little maneuvering due to the angle of the turn necessary to get into and out of it, we parked in one of the pull-thru sites near the office. Easier to get into, and cheaper.
So our first day of travel for this year covered a whole 13.4 miles. We’re off to a running start, I tell you.
Since we were here for an extra night, we decided to check out a place we’d wanted to try, but didn’t get the chance: Bone Daddy’s House of Smoke.
Bone Daddy’s is the latest entry in the restaurant genre known as ‘Breastaurants”. Except that unlike Hooters and their chicken wings, Bone Daddy’s concentrates on BBQ.
And a really good BBQ it was. Their sauce was good, tangy with some heat to it. And some very tasty beans and fried okra to go along with it.
Definitely worth going back. And the scenery is nice, too.
Tomorrow we’ll head out to the Canyon Lake area in the Texas Hill Country to spend some time with our friend Gina before we head further west and meet up with Nick and Terry somewhere down the road.
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Thought for the Day:
“They keep talking about drafting a Constitution for Iraq …. why don’t we just give them ours? It was written by a lot of really smart guys, it has worked for over 200 years, and we’re not using it anymore.” – Larry the Cable Guy
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