Daily Archives: May 5, 2014
Missed It By That Much!
After pulling out of our site here at the Colorado River Thousand Trails a little after 9:30,
we stopped off and got the toad connected at the park hitch-up spot and were headed out a little before 10am.
Our first stop was about 45 miles down the road at the Flying J in Brookshire, the first time we taken on diesel since November 24, 2013. What can I say, it’s been a slow year so far.
We had already scouted out the RV lanes here on one of our trips past here in the truck, but that didn’t prepare us for the problems.
Coming off the Interstate and coming down the side road, you have to make a left turn into the Flying J, and then immediately, another left turn. And before you’re even clear of the entrance you had to make a 90 degree right into the pumps. You can’t really stop because otherwise you’re completely blocking the main entrance to the place.
The first complication came because there was a big delivery truck parked right along the front edge of the lot. For reference, it was right behind where you see my truck in the photo.
Of course this meant that I couldn’t swing left as far as I wanted before I made the right turn into the pumps. Which meant I had to come in at more of an angle than I wanted. Of course as soon as I was parked at the pumps, the guy came out and left in the truck. Of course he did.
While I taking on 96 gallons of diesel, I dumped a bottle of Diesel Kleene in the tank too.
I never thought too much about using fuel additives, until I talked to a lot of the truckers in the oil patch when we were gate guarding. They said their companies had done comparisons between groups of trucks with and without Diesel Kleene, and they definitely saw a difference.
So now it was time to try and get out of here. I put Jan out back by the toad and turned up the volume on the backup camera mic so I could hear her. Then, keeping to the left as much as possible, I started to slowly pull forward, listening for Jan to scream. One problem was the fact that I had the same big concrete pillar on the driver’s side, only a few inches from that side too.
Jan said that the rig came so close to the pillar that she couldn’t have gotten a finger between it and the rig. Then as soon as the rig was clear I had to move more to the left so I didn’t drag the toad across the pillar. Jan said on this one she could have gotten her finger between them, but wouldn’t have wanted to.
Finally , to the amazement of onlookers, and even ourselves, we inched out of the space and got back on the road.
About 12:45 we pulled into the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails, found a 50 amp site, and got set up. We seem to be creating a pattern here. The first time we were here, we were in site E60, next time it was E59, and now we’re in E58.
And this time we’ve got a tree.
One thing I was happy to see was that my shear pin repair was successful. At least so far.
Or, at least twice so far.
It came in with no problems when we were ready to leave Colorado River, and then went out just fine here at Lake Conroe.
Just hope it continues that way.
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Thought for the Day:
We rarely think people have good sense unless they agree with us. – Francois de La Rochefoucauld
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