Our RV Adventures

Jan and I decided to have breakfast this morning in Livingston before we left, and Lone Star Charlie’s had really good reviews so off we went. And the reviews were right. Great omelets, great bacon, great biscuits, and great grits. Everything was seasoned perfectly. And the coffee was good too.

But getting back to Chris and Charles’ site is where the Oops! comes in. Jan suggested I back in so I would be heading the right way to hitch up before we pulled out this morning, so I pulled past the driveway, started to back in, lined up the driveway in my outside mirror, and with a quick ‘CLUNK’, my rear wheel was hanging in midair, just spinning along. With the sun in my eyes, I had not noticed that the driveway passing over the culvert was inset, and I was now hung up on the curb. It’s like that on both sides, why I don’t know, but I didn’t notice it.

My first thought was that maybe I could get the rig in front of the truck, hitch up and then pull it out. But a quick look showed that I would probably rip out brake lines and the gas tank if I did that. About this time, Dennis Hill drove by on his Harley, and I was busted. No way I could deny this ever happened now.

It was very apropos that to get me out of this situation in her driveway, I called the Good Sam Emergency Road Service that Chris had sold me. Johnny of Smith’s Towing, showed up about 45 minutes later, unfortunately not before Dennis did, but pretty quick.

He agreed there was no way to pull it out without damage, so he put a trailer hitch bar into the receiver on my truck, extended his boom, and attached a cable to the hitch.

Then he lifted the rear of the truck up to clear the curb, and then retracted his boom to move the wheel back onto the driveway.

So now I was able to turn my front wheels and back up with no problems.

 So finally we were on our way a little before 1pm, only about 45 minutes late. But it wasn’t like we had a schedule to keep.

After a nice drive through the country, we arrived at the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails about 2:15pm. We tried to find a site in our usual ‘E’ section, but they were all full, so it was off to wander around the park looking for an open site. We finally found one in the ‘F’ section, and unlike many in this area, the one we found was very level. And even better, these sites are paved, unlike the ‘E’ area, which are grass/mud. So we were very quickly parked and set up.

About 5:30, along with Lynette and Mac McHenry, we headed out to The Fish Pond Restaurant, where we ate right after we got here last week.

Last time I had a Ribeye and Jan had the Fried Catfish, both very good. But this time I went with the Master Burger Double Cheeseburger and Jan had the Steak Fingers, very good.again.

This is a place that has big enough menu, that you can keep going back and not repeat yourself. Hopefully we’ll go back again too.

Tomorrow we’ll head down to Friendswood to have Thanksgiving Gumbo with Chris, Linda, and Piper. Then Jan will stay over  and puppy-sit for a few days while Chris et. al, are out of town.

I mean, how could you not want to puppy-sit a face like this.

__________________________________________________________________

Thought for the Day:

“‘On with the dance, let the joy be unconfined!’ is my motto, whether there’s any dance to dance or any joy to unconfine.” – Mark Twain

fsdgsfdg

Chris and Charles Yust pulled out of their site here at the Livingston Escapees Park about 8am. But I only know that 2nd hand from Jan since they did it so quietly that I never woke up. Which is surprising since their engine was only about 10 feet from my bed.

We’ll head back to the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails tomorrow morning, but in the meantime, I wanted to use Charles’ pressure washer to try and remove the drilling mud residue from the roof of our rig.

I made up a bucket of water, Dawn, and Awesome, and started in on the front cap and the edges of the windshield that I hadn’t done originally when it looked like this.

I used my long-handle scrub brush to spread the cleaning solution around and then let it soak for a few minutes. Then I used Charles’ Karcher Pressure Washer to hose it off.

I was pleasantly surprised to see all the mud came off the front cap and windshield and left things sparkly clean. I was much less pleased to see that the mud at the top edge of the roof wasn’t touched. So it was up on the roof, after all.

Once up there I had Jan connect a line to lift the brush, the bucket of cleaning solution, and the pressure washer up there with me. And it was even worse than I thought when seen from the ground.

The front 10’ of the roof was pretty much solid black with the mud, as well as the front AC cover and the vent fan cover. I found the AC and vent covers cleaned up very easily, and there was a 2 foot wide strip of smooth plastic that did as well. But the regular roof surface, a pebbly vinyl-looking area, just refused to clean up.

My next attempt was a can of Gunk Engine Degreaser to see how that worked. I sprayed it on a small area, let it sit for a few minutes, and then tried again. And again with no luck. By now I was running out of time, so I wrapped up and put things away, to try another day. I guess I could always just spray paint the roof white again.

I had told Dennis Hill yesterday at his party that I would come down and take a look at his computer problems, so Jan and I headed down there a little before 3pm. Although we spent more time talking to Dennis and Carol than working, I was able to get most of Dennis’ problems worked out.

Later, we all headed out to eat dinner at Texas Pepper, a Mexican place they like. And for good reason, as all our food was really delicious.

Getting back to their rig, we talked a while longer, before it was after 7:30 and past Jan’s bedtime. Or at least when she starts to fall asleep, so we headed home.

Luckily we won’t have to be up too early for our trip back to Conroe tomorrow.

__________________________________________________________________

Thought for the Day:

If at first you don’t succeed, try doing it the way your wife told you.

asdfadsf