Our RV Adventures

Today was another of our semi-monthly  travels, from the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails all the way to the other side of Texas, well, the other side of Houston anyway, to the Colorado River Thousand Trails in Columbus, TX..

But first up this morning we did our usual pre-travel breakfast at the Conroe Cracker Barrel, but a little different this time, because we were joined by our soon-to-be-ex next door neighbors, Brett and Frankie O’Neal. They’re heading for Florida on Tuesday so we probably won’t run into them again for a while, but we’re looking forward to it when it does happen.

Getting back to the park about 9:45, we were hooked up and moving out by 10:30. One nice thing about the side-by-side sites in the ‘F’ section is that most of them are long enough to allow us to hitch the toad before we pull out, saving us time since we don’t have to stop again at the front of the park to hook up.

Our trip today was a lot less windy than last time, at least the first part of it. It seemed that the further west we got, the windy  it got, especially the last 20 miles or so.

About 15 miles out from our Columbus exit, we stopped off at the Oasis Truck Stop for coffee and a potty break. Coming back out, I did my usual walk-around and discovered we had a problem. The front of the truck was covered in oil, as well as a lot was scattered over the back of the rig.

After looking things over through the oily mess, I couldn’t see anything obviously  wrong, so I decided to proceed on Colorado River, keeping a close eye on my gauges. I hadn’t noticed anything out of the ordinary on the trip, with all my gauges showing normal.

And it was the same on the last 20 miles too. My oil pressure was good, turbo pressure was good, water temp was fine, everything was fine. And the engine started right and sounded normal too.

So after I get the washer finished, I’ll dig out the pressure washer and clean things up a bit to make it a little easier to see what’s wrong. Of course the first thing I’ll check is the breather tube, and then go from there.

I’ve seen this occasionally in the past when using the PacBrake exhaust brake a lot in mountainous areas, and you get some blow-by coming out, but nothing like this amount, and I wasn’t even using the PacBrake today at all.

We got into the Colorado River Thousand Trails a little after 1pm, and found ourselves greeted by our friends Jim and Perri Dean as we waited at the gate for the ranger to check us in. They were hoping to see Karma but she hadn’t come out of hiding yet, so maybe next time.

As it turns out, we ended up in the ‘A’ section, right across the street from where Karma lived before we adopted here, So it will be interesting to take her back to visit and see how she reacts. I’ve got a harness for her now so it should be pretty safe.

For dinner tonight Jan heated up our leftover fajitas from last night’s visit to El Bosque, still delicious.

I didn’t do anything on the washer today except roll it back and forth in the rig when we traveled. But I’ll be back on it tomorrow.

Thought for the Day:

One of those headlines you know you probably shouldn’t read, but you just have to.

Meerkat expert cleared of assaulting monkey trainer in love spat over llama-keeper.

And then you’re kind of disappointed you did.

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I was up early this morning hoping to get my new washer drain pump configured and installed. Or at least configured. Thanks to Jan’s bright idea about rolling the washer into the bedroom when we travel tomorrow, I don’t have to get it re-installed today.

As I stood there staring at the pile of parts I bought at Home Depot yesterday, I tried to remember what I had worked out in my head, but when I did, I didn’t like it anymore. So I started holding parts together until I came up with a new way to do it, and one that was actually better.

Starting with the old pump input/output manifold,

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I cut off the input end to use,

along with the original drain hose.

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By cutting the hose down, and then inserting the plastic piece into the hose end,

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it gives me something to clamp down on. Then after soaking it in boiling water, I slipped a ring of heavy vinyl hose over the end to bulk it up,

so that it would closely fit into the rubber hose coupling shown before.

This finished up the input part of the pump.

Next I cut off the small end of the I/O manifold and inserted it into the end of the drain hose that exits the washer.

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This let me use another piece of the black rubber hose to make a new coupling for that also. Then I placed it into the washer to check it out. There will be clamps on the smaller coupling as well.

Then to check out the placement, I temporarily mounted the pump in place to the angle stock and hooked up all the hoses. At this point I couldn’t go any further because the screws I had to mount the bar stock with weren’t big enough so I planned to pick some more up this afternoon while we’re out to dinner.

But right now it looks like it will work, but I was out of time.

While I was working on this, Jan was outside bailing out the backset floorboards in the truck. On our trip home last night we both remarked how fresh the newly washed laundry in the backseat smelled.

But as it turns out, it wasn’t the laundry, but the laundry soap, liquid Tide to be exact, that had leaked out onto the floor. So Jan was trying to scrape up as much as she could and funnel it back into the jug. I’m still not sure how we’re going to get it all out of the carpet. But I know when I do, it will be really, really clean.

About 4:15 we left the park, followed by Brett and Frankie O’Neal, all heading into Conroe to have dinner at El Bosque Mexican Restaurant.

Finally I was able to get my Fajitas Fix with an order of their delicious Fajitas Poblanas.

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And it was $4 cheaper than my Fajitas at La Brisa the other day, for a lot more meat.

And this time we had a big group, the infamous El Bosque Nine shown below.

Left to right: Rick and Janice Binns, my empty chair, Brett and Frankie O’Neal, Debi and Ed Hurlburt, and Randy Lazarine.

After our great meal together, Jan and I drove over to the nearby Wal-Mart to pick up some prescriptions, and a couple of other things, including the new bolts I need for the washer repair.

Karma the cat doesn’t know she’s Karma the cat. She has no recognition of any name, Karma, Emma, the name on her second hand tag, Hey You, or anything else. This, even though we use her name every time we talk to her, or feed her.

She does respond when she sees me making coffee, because she knows that creamer is in her immediate future. Or if she hears the “Squuaakk†noise of whipped cream, but that’s about it.

Well, she does understand “NO!â€, mostly I guess because when she starts to scratch on our leather captain’s chairs, I yell “NO!†and squirt her with a spray bottle.

Tomorrow we’re heading back to the Colorado River Thousand Trails for another two weeks. Looking forward to it. Of course I’ve still got my on-going washer repair to finish up, but I’m actually looking forward to that too.

Thought for the Day:

No husband was ever shot while doing the dishes!

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