Our RV Adventures

Today started with hot coffee and a plea for help on Facebook. Donna Huffer and Bob Parker were having electrical problems with their Discovery so I went over about 12:30 to see if I could help.

At first we thought it was a problem with the transfer switch since everything worked OK with the inverter on, but on shore power, nothing was getting through to the coach from Line 2.

But tracing it out finally led us to the output relay board on the circuit breaker panel. Power was coming in to the panel, through the circuit breaker, going into what I think is the EMS (Electrical Management System) board, and then not coming out.

I tried to find a copy of the manual for this Intellitec Model 900 system Bob has, but every link I found online was dead. So no help there. I finally headed back to our  rig about 2pm because I told Jan we’d go out shopping about then. Bob was going to follow up with the Intellitec people to see what they said.

Jan and I headed out a little after 2pm with our first stop right down the road at Omega Farm’s RV Park. We have to be out of here at the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails on Friday before we head over to Escapee’s Park in Livingston on Saturday. We can only stay here for 5 days if we want to be able to come back here on the 26th for a two week stay. I had hoped to be able to ‘buy’ a day here, but found out that it still counts against your in/out days. And complicating things is the fact that we need to be down in the Clear Lake area for Jan’s oncologist appointment Friday afternoon. So it’ll be easier to just move a couple of miles down the road for one night.

Next up we stopped at the Love’s Truck Stop one exit up north on I-45 because I need another bottle of Diesel Biocide to prevent algae growth in our fuel tank with all the cold, wet weather we’re having. But no luck.

Nick reminded me that the last time we bought some, it was at an Academy Sporting Goods in their boating department. So I’ll try there tomorrow.

By this time Jan was getting hungry so we made another run at El Bosque, tracking down their new location. We had tried to eat there Sunday night but found they had moved to the new location, so we ended up at the Ryan’s across the street.

The food was just as good as we remembered it, the new location is very nice,

much larger and brighter with a lot of windows. But as one reviewer wrote on Yelp about the new location, the wait staff wandered around like ‘lost puppies’. We would ask our waiter for something and he would disappear for several minutes, then come back out of the kitchen, see us, and suddenly remember what he was supposed to do for us, and then scurry off to get it. Like he said, “Lost Puppies”.

Our last stop for the day was the really nice Kroger’s over in Willis for a few things before we finally headed home.

Thursday night we’re driving down to Katy to have dinner with Brandi, Lowell, and Landon at Little V’s Vietnamese Bistro, one of our all time favorite places. And hopefully we’ll be able to have dinner Friday night with Chris, Linda, and Piper when we’re down in Clear Lake for Jan’s doctor’s appointment.

And even better, no bells.

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Thought for the Day:

Karma is often cruel, but it is righteous.

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Tuesday:

Recapping our day off the gate, we finished up by having a great steak dinner at Solodak’s Beefmaster, a place we pass every time we travel to and from Bryan/College Station. And lunch or dinner, the parking lot is always full, a good sign.

And our experience was no different. Our steaks, Jan’s Sirloin, and my Ribeye, were great and so was the price. A really good meal.

We got home at little before 8 to find that Charlotte, our relief guard, had things well in hand and had done a good job working our gate.

Wednesday:

Today our drilling rig, that’s been here since the first week in September, started moving out to their new location about 10 miles away. Of course the first thing Jan wanted to be sure of is that they didn’t forget Russell the rig dog. One of the guys said Russell had already moved to the new site. Said they just opened the truck door and he jumped right in. He said they’d bought him a new fluffy bed and put it right next to the heater in the common room and he made himself right at home. Turns out that the rig originally adopted Russell when they were on a location in the Dallas area and he’s been with them ever since.

Thursday:

Our frack started moving out today, with a lot of big stuff coming out of the pad right next to us.

But at least no more sand trucks are coming in and out.

Found out that even though, the frack crew is all headed to a new job near Shreveport, all the equipment is headed back to their yard near Longview to be reconditioned, as it is after every frack. The crew in Shreveport will be using fresh equipment

Friday:  Starting to Break Down

I spent the time behind trucks today breaking down our canopy and the rest of our camp. I wanted to get a jump on this since it’s supposed to start raining tonight and continue through Sunday morning.

Saturday:

So by the time Saturday rolled around, we were working completely out of our truck (and staying much warmer) and everything else was packed away and ready to travel.

Sunday: Leaving the Gate

I had hoped that I would be able to get a couple of hours of sleep after Jan relieved me at 7am, but that was not to be as we were notified that our replacements would be arriving closer to 9am than the original 10am. So I was up about 8:30 and got the rig ready to move out of our spot so our replacements could pull right in and park.

But because of this early start, we were able to pull out about 9:45am and get on our way. Our first stop was the Buc-ee’s on I-45 in Madisonville for diesel (at $3.39 a gallon) and breakfast kolaches for the trip. Then it was on down south to the Two Texan’s Truck Wash in Huntsville where I hoped to get all the dust, dirt, and drilling mud washed off our rig. But that didn’t work out.

I found it pretty much impossible to nail the guy down on the price. Finally he said $2 a foot, which would be $80, about twice what Blue Beacon charges. Then he wanted to charge an extra $1.50 to $2.00 a foot for the roof. So we were looking at $160 for what Beacon charges $40 – $45 for. No way.

So it was back on the road, still dirty but no poorer, for the last 25 miles to the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails. Luckily we were able to get a site in the ‘E’ area, in a site we’ve stayed before, E-59.

By the time we got backed in, plugged in, and set up, I was running on flumes, so a nap was in order

Later we met Lynette and Gregg McHenry, their friend Arlene, and Donna Huffer and Bob Parker at El Bosque for dinner, only to find that location had closed. So rather than track down the new location, we adjourned to the Ryan’s across the street for our usual great meal there.

And our usual great time.

Monday: Our First Day of Freedom

We started out by sleeping in, in fact I didn’t get up until about 11:30. But ironically, that’s the time I usually got up when we were on the gate. Of course on the gate I wouldn’t have gone bed until about 7:15 am when Jan relieved me. So this was much better.

A little before 2pm Bob Parker dropped off his NetGear WiFi router for me to take a look at for him. There’s a problem with the WiFi setup or the configuration. I’ll take a look on Tuesday.

After a nice two hour nap, we got ready to meet everyone for dinner at The Fish Pond Restaurant, which is part of the Convenience RV Park and RV Parts Store about 4 miles north of here.

We had a big group with Jan and I, Donna Huffer and Bob Parker, Lynette and Gregg McHenry, their friend Arlene, Debi and Ed Hurlbert, and Rick and Janice Binns.

The Fish Pond, a downhome type of place, turned out to be really good, with ribeyes (mine), catfish and shrimp (Jan’s), Chicken Fried Steak, Hot Beef plates, etc. Of course as usually when you get a bunch of RV’ers together, we spent a couple of hours just talking after we finished eating.

A great meal with great friends.

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Thought for the Day:

Scientists say that a long, long time ago nothing exploded and created everything. How does that work exactly? I think they left something out.

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