Our RV Adventures

First off, some pet peeves of mine.

First up, read the all the other comments before you post a comment on Facebook, especially on one that asked a question about something. Being the 14th person to answer the inquiry doesn’t add to the conversation, especially if your answer disagrees with mine.

Second, please don’t turn on your emergency flashers in heavy rain. Although legal in a few, it is illegal in most states.

The reason I bring this up was due to the fact that recently we were driving in the rig when a heavy rainstorm came up. I slowed down a good bit and a lot of cars passed us, just flashing away.

The trouble was that as soon as they all got about 50 yards ahead of us, all the yellow and red flashing lights coalesced into a blinding mishmash reflecting around in the rain. You no longer had any idea how many vehicles were ahead of you, or how far ahead they were.

Plus I don’t think many people realize that when your emergency flashers are on, your turn signals don’t work. So you can’t safely signal a lane change.

But the real problem is the number of deaths this has caused, including wiping out an entire family.

Picture this. You’re driving your semi along in heavy rain, pretty much following the ‘colorful mishmash’ ahead of you. But what you don’t realize is that a family has pulled over onto the shoulder to safely sit out the storm, and turned their flashers as they’re supposed to.

And you, following all the flashing lights in front of you, slam into the rear of the family car at 50mph.

And it’s happened a number of times around the country.

About 4pm Jan and I out to the Fish Pond restaurant north of here on I-45 to meet our old friend’s Debi and Ed Hurlburt for dinner.

But our first stop was at the park dumpster to throw in three MORE bags of bad food from the fridge and freezer.  &*^%^&&%!

Jan had the Catfish Platter,

while I had the Chicken Fried Steak with Fried Okra and Mashed Potatoes.

I must say I was simply aghast at the fact that a waitress at a restaurant in Texas asked me if I wanted white or BROWN gravy on my CFS.

Oh, the horror!  Is nothing sacred?

As is usual with our dinners with Ed and Debi, we spent the usual 3 hours just talking about anything and everything, not leaving until after 7:30.

Hopefully we’ll be able to get together again before we leave for Colorado River on the 27th. But then they’ll be following us over on the 29th, so it’ll all work out.

Tomorrow afternoon we’re heading down to Brandi’s and Lowell’s to meet them at the Rainforest Café in Katy Mills Mall to celebrate Landon’s 7th birthday.

Really looking forward to it.

ghdghdghdgh

Finally.

Since we got into Poche’s RV Park last night and pretty much just collapsed without dinner, we were hungry this morning. So after we pulled out about 9am, our first stop was about 15 minutes away at the Cracker Barrel in Lafayette.

We’ve stopped here before, so we knew they have a number of long RV spaces in back, and we left the generator running for Miss Karma so she stayed cool and comfortable while we were inside.

Jan had her usual Old Timer’s Breakfast,

while I tried their new Pecan Pancake Breakfast.

Don’t know what’s in these besides just pecans, but they’re really, really good, with a unique taste.

Our next stop was the Rest Area at the Texas border for a bathroom break, and then it was on to the Buc-ee’s in Baytown, 90 miles further along. I noticed yesterday when we stopped that they had diesel for $2.11, the cheapest I’ve seen recently, so I wanted to top off. That way we won’t have to worry about it when we headed over to Colorado River on the 27th.

Coming around the Sam Houston Tollway, we got on the Hardy Toll Road, missing the majority of the Houston rush hour traffic heading north and encountering only a few slowdowns.

We pulled up to the Lake Conroe TT ranger station right at 4:30 and got checked in. And found of course, the rules have changed once again. In the past I would just go ahead and pay for our days ($5/day since we’re out of our free days), and the $3/day for 50 amp, so $8/day, and then just call them with our site number after we got parked and set up.

But apparently not enough people were calling in with their site number, so they said they never knew what sites were open and which ones weren’t. So now they take and hold your driver’s license until you come back with your site number. Then they give you your license back, as well as your packet of information, which includes the site map.

So anyone coming here for the first time doesn’t get a site map showing them what sites are what, until after they’ve already found a site.

Am I missing something here?

I told the lady that we weren’t going to be going back out tonight, so since they wanted everyone’s site number quicker, did they still want me to call them with my site number like I always do?

She said, “No, just give it to us tomorrow when you come out.”

“But I thought you wanted the site numbers quicker, but you don’t want me to call you? I can just wait until tomorrow or even the next day?” She looked confused for a moment, and then said, Yes”

Am I missing something here?

Plus, as busy as the ranger station can be with 3 or 4 RV’s checking in,  now they have every RV’er coming back again to the ranger station, so they’re essentially now handling twice as many people.

Am I missing something here?

I don’t think anybody thought this all the way through.

It does however look like they going to do a good job on the repaving, at least on the entrance area up to the Activity Center. They’ve taken the old asphalt up and have a hard gravel and dirt base underneath. If they don’t cheap out on the asphalt thickness and quality, it should last a long time.

But then this is ELS we’re talking about.

After getting unpacked and set up in G-37 and we rested up for a while, Jan decided that she did want to go out to get something to eat after all. So a little before 6pm we headed out for the Whataburger in Willis.

And of course I had to stop at the ranger station to get my driver’s license back. There were 3 RV’s lined up trying to check in, and four cars parked around trying to get their licenses back, and all of us crowded shoulder to shoulder into that small building.

I don’t think anybody thought this all the way through.

kjl;kj;lkj;