Our RV Adventures

Jan and I decided to start our trip day with an early breakfast at Cracker Barrel. And unlike going to Cracker Barrel on a Sunday around 11am, going before 8am is a breeze. We were in and out in about 45 minutes, and Jan even came home with a moose.

Yeah, I know they call it Sven the Reindeer from Walt Disney’s Frozen.

But I’m sorry, that’s a moose

Getting back to the rig, we were hitched up and on the road by 10am. We had decided beforehand to try one of the several ‘shortcut’ routes out through the countryside this trip, instead of our normal Interstate route which racks up about 120 miles.

The ‘shortcut’ route is about 107 miles, which Google maps says is the absolute shortest route, coming down I-45 to the FM-1488 exit, and then cutting across through Magnolia, Hempstead, Bellville, and then back onto I-10 about 9 miles east of Columbus.

Delorme Street Atlas said the route would take 2 hours and 50 minutes, and that was pretty close. We pulled up at the Colorado River Thousand Trails guard shack 2 hours and 46 minutes after we left Lake Conroe.

In comparison, our normal 120 mile Interstate route takes about 2 hours and 5 – 10 minutes. Plus our gas mileage dropped from our normal ~ 8.5 mpg to about 6.2 mpg, due mainly to two factors.

First, the majority of the trip the speed limit  on these fairly narrow two lane FM roads is 50 mph. So since my Allison transmission won’t upshift into 6th gear until about 52 – 53 mph, I ended up in 5th for most the trip. Not very conducive to gas mileage.

And second, the roads were pretty curvy in places, necessitating even more slowdowns, as did the number of small towns along the way with 30 mph speed limits.

Plus I found myself a lot more tired when I got here. When we do the Interstate route, I pretty much put the speed control on 60 and just go. And except for our normal potty break around Brookshire, we never slow down until we’re at the exit for SR-71 at Columbus.

So, boiling it down, we’ll probably never go this route again. It takes longer, and uses more diesel. enough more that it overcomes the $6 in tolls I pay on the Sam Houston Tollway. And as I said, it’s more work. As I’ve mentioned before, the traffic doesn’t really bother me, especially since we’re moving on Sunday.

Now, as I was outside setting up, Janice Evans walked by and mentioned they do another ‘shortcut’ route, so I may check that one out with Dave when I get a chance.

I was looking at my trip odometer for 2015 and found we did 5345.2 miles for the year, a couple of thousand miles less from our normal mileage due to sitting in the back of an RV Repair place in Prescott, AZ for two months, waiting on our blowout repair.

We’ll probably do a good bit more than that this year since we’ll be going down to Tampa and West Palm Beach, FL, and then all the way to Essex Junction, VT, and then back to Houston. And probably a lot more.

I mentioned yesterday during my water heater repair saga that Nick and I  had run into this same problem at the Indian River Thousand Trails in Batesville, IN a few years ago.

Well, here’s the rest of the story.

“A few years ago, while we were staying at the Indian Lakes Thousand Trails in Batesville, IN, a couple parked next to Nick and Terry were having the same problem. I don’t remember if their rig had been in for repairs or what, but they also only had lukewarm water.”

From Larry Merritt

That was us. It was a new water heater that Camping World had installed. The mechanic had installed the bypass upside down. The water heater is still keeping the water hot in our 2005 Winnebago Adventurer.

I did not realize Larry and his wife were blog readers. It just goes to show you how small the RV world really is.

After dinner tonight I got on the glass replacement of my son Chris’ Galaxy S5 cellphone.

Here’s the starting point. I’ve got everything laid out and really to go.

And here you see what the playing cards are for.

I used the hair dryer to heat up the phone and the infrared thermometer to monitor the temperature. When the temp was right, I used a razor knife to slightly pry up the glass and a playing card to keep it separated as I work my way around the edge of the phone.

It actually went a lot smoother than I expected. I stopped here for the night and will pick it back up tomorrow.

ACTUAL COMPLAINTS RECEIVED BY “THOMAS COOK VACATIONS”

“I was bitten by a mosquito. The brochure did not mention mosquitoes.”

“No one told us there would be fish in the water. The children were scared.”

“It took us nine hours to fly home from Jamaica to England. It took the Americans only three hours to get home. This seems unfair.”

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And Nick helped!

Well, our scheduled walk with Garland and Valencia this morning was called on account of rain . . . that never materialized.

The Weather Channel had predicted rain around noon, and the Rainy Days weather radar app show a large rain storm moving in from the southwest. But after we cancelled our walk, it never showed up. It just split apart and went around us.

But as it turned out, it worked out well for Paula and Rob Kingsbury. They’re parked two spaces down from us and we met them a couple of days as we were finishing up our walk.

They were just getting set up with their new Forest River Wildwood X-Lite on their first trip out. Paula Kingsbury happened to mention that they couldn’t get their water heater to work. Of  course Jan volunteered, “If you don’t get it fixed, let Greg know. He’s good at fixing stuff.”

That’s my Jan!

Well, this morning Rob showed up to see if I could take a look at it. So a little later I grabbed my voltmeter and headed down there to take a look.

Turns out they have a Suburban SW6D, which is a 6 gallon Gas Only model. I did confirm that it had never worked since they picked up the camper, and didn’t put out hot water, so I had to keep that in mind as I investigated the problem.

The power switch was lit, and the DSI Fault light was off, so it looked like the 12V DC power situation was probably OK and the electronic igniter was working.

I next checked continuity on the two solenoid gas valves which were OK. Then while I was looking at the manual, the unit came on, ran for about 5 minutes and then shut off.

But when they checked, there was still no hot water. So I went back to the rig to do a little Googling, which gave me a couple of more things to check. But again, no luck. The unit would come on every once in a while, but still no hot water.

Finally, as we were inside talking about other stuff, I noticed the unit come on and shut off a few minutes later. So since I was standing at the sink, I turned on the hot water and put my fingers in the stream. It came out very hot for a couple of seconds and then went lukewarm. And it kept running lukewarm for a good while, longer than I would have thought it would under the circumstances. And this started a tickle in my brain.

It reminded me of something I’d seen before, but I couldn’t quite grab it. But as I stood there feeling the water stream, it finally clicked.

It was the much-fabled, almost legendary, Nick Russell repair. Yes, Nick, once upon a time, actually repaired something.

A few years ago, while we were staying at the Indian Lakes Thousand Trails in Batesville, IN, a couple parked next to Nick and Terry were having the same problem. I don’t remember if their rig had been in for repairs or what, but they also only had lukewarm water.

In this case we could feel that the water heater was hot, but again, no hot water. We were all looking at  the drain and bypass valves in the water bay used to winterize the rig. At some point, Nick reached in and turned a valve, and presto, they had hot water.

The valve Nick turned was the the Bypass valve, which actually connects the cold water input to the water heater and the hot water output together, ‘bypassing’ the water heater. So the hot water output was being diluted with the cold water, resulting in the lukewarm output.

So I started looking for the bypass valve, finally finding it behind an access panel underneath the sink. And the bypass valve was closed!

Crossing my fingers, I opened the valve and voila, they had hot water.

And here’s the happy couple, Paula and Rob Kingsbury, excited now that they’ve got hot water.

Thanks, Nick.

Later, about 2pm, Jan and I drove over to the Kroger’s in Willis to pick up a few things before we leave Lake Conroe tomorrow morning

Getting back to the rig, I replaced one of my sewer hoses because it had developed some pinhole leaks. I had ordered a new one from Amazon, one without the end connectors. So today I took the connectors off the old hose and installed them on the new one. The hoses are much cheaper this way.

I learned a while back that the easiest way to get the connectors on is to first soak the hose ends in hot water for about 30 seconds or so, and then the the connectors just slide right on. Easy Peezy!

About 4pm, our friends, Garland and Valencia Scott, picked us up and we headed out for El Bosque, our favorite local Mexican place.

I had the Fajitas de la Diabla. I’m not sure what a ‘She Devil’ has to do with it, but with beef, chicken, and shrimp, as well as onions, mushrooms, green peppers, and jalapenos, it was really good, maybe the best fajita dish I’ve ever had. Really good.

Jan had the Stuffed Avocado, which she said was not quite as good as the same dish at the Los Cabos Mexican Restaurant over in Columbus, but really good just the same.

We had our usual great time talking with Garland and Valencia. Valencia worked for Chevron for many years, and Garland spent 31 years with the Houston Police Department. So we really  enjoyed listening to some of Garland’s many stories about the police department.

Hopefully we’ll be able to get together again when we get back here in a couple of weeks.

Getting back to the rig, I plugged in our engine block heater, and then disconnected and stowed away the water and sewer hoses.

I wanted to get as much done as possible before tomorrow morning because we’re going to have breakfast at Cracker Barrel before we head out for Colorado River Thousand Trails later in the morning.

Winston Churchill was the first, or one of the very first people to use the acronym OMG (Oh My God)  in a letter . . . in 1917!

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