Man I’m standin’ out in the rain
Yeah flood water keep a rollin’
Man it’s about to drive poor me insane

My last post said we were determined to see Austin, Texas. We had hoped to see some sights, like the Texas Museum and the capitol building, then check out some of the restaurants and clubs. The music scene is obviously very active in Austin.

Mother Nature dashed our plans. On Wednesday morning, we started receiving weather alerts. There were warnings of severe thunderstorms with winds up to 50mph. A tornado watch was in effect (a tornado warning means a funnel cloud has been spotted and you should take cover, a tornado watch is a lower level alert).

By 11:30am, rain was falling, the wind was picking up and I was making plans to deal with severe weather. Our thoughts of heading downtown evaporated. It seemed prudent to stay put and deal with whatever weather challenges were ahead of us. Not to mention that it wasn’t exactly good weather for sightseeing.

It became very dark outside. It seemed like it was dusk after sunset at noon. The wind was whipping the trees and I was concerned about branches or even trees blowing down. I closed the bedroom slide on the passenger side – this was the windward side of the coach – to prevent water ingress. After a couple of hours with no catastrophic events, the rain lessened. Eventually we had periods of drizzle mixed with sudden thundershowers and downpours. Austin, Texas averages about four and half inches of rain during the month of May. This year, they had their four and half inches by May 12th. Maybe this is good news for the drought that’s been affecting the southwest.

Although we gave up on the idea of going downtown and seeing the sites, Donna and I took advantage of a lull in the rain and walked to HEB – a local grocery/pharmacy store – just under a mile from the RV park. We picked up a few items, including a beer resupply, and walked back before the next thundershower hit us.

The day was spent mostly indoors, reading. The rain kept falling and I could see the sites around us flooding. I snapped a picture of our neighbor’s site through the window. It doesn’t really capture how much standing water was on the ground. An Airstream trailer across from us had several inches of water in its site but I couldn’t capture a photo through the wet windshield. We ordered a pizza, watched TV in the evening and called it a night.

Under different circumstances, we probably would have stayed another day in Austin. But we had committed to being in North Houston by the 14th to see our friend Allen Hutchinson compete in the Ironman Triathlon in The Woodlands. Austin seemed like a good stopping point – the drive from Buchanan Lake to Houston would’ve been a long day on the road.

Anyway, on Thursday morning, I wanted to get going while we had a window of fairly clear weather. The forecast called for more thunderstorms in the early afternoon. We had about 170 miles ahead of us to North Houston. I wanted to get to the North Lake RV Resort and set up before the storms hit us.

While I was preparing for travel, Donna walked back to HEB for a few more groceries. I had some unexpected challenges getting us ready to roll. First up, I started to flush and drain the black water tank. I connected a hose to a faucet at our site and started the flush, then I pulled the black water drain blade valve. I saw the waste water begin to drain, then it seemed like it slowed and stopped draining. I couldn’t understand what was happening. The wastewater in the clear elbow at the drain valve wasn’t moving. I closed the valve and the water was still not draining. I quickly shut off the faucet for the flushing system – I was adding more water than was coming out. I lifted the hose in the hope that gravity was the issue – maybe the sewer hook up was higher than it seemed and was causing a loss of flow. Or maybe the black water tank had a vent problem causing a vacuum and stoppage of flow.

After a few minutes I was able to get the hose to drain. I opened the gray water valve to flush the hose and had the same issue. It started draining fine, then the flow stopped. I closed the gray water drain valve. It wasn’t an issue with the black water tank. The issue was in the park’s sewer system. Austin Lone Star Carefree RV Resort has two sewer hook ups in each site. I thought maybe there was something wrong with the sewer drain I was hooked up to. I started to open the other sewer drain at our site and water began to flow out of it. Oh no! About then a park worker rolled up in a golf cart and asked if I was having trouble with the sewer. I told him it was backed up. He said he thought our neighbor had caused a blockage – everyone upstream from his site had a problem. I left the sewer hose and began disconnecting the power and fresh water.

I hit another snag with the fresh water. I discovered our plastic dual filter canisters were trapped under the coach. When we set up, I connected the water hoses and filters and pushed the filter canisters underneath the coach. After I had everything hooked up, I ran the auto level on the HWH leveling system. This lowered the coach and unbeknownst to me, it was resting on top of the filter assemblies! I needed to raise the coach to get the filters out, and hoped they would not be damaged.

I decided to retract the slides while the coach was still level, then raise the coach on the jacks. I pulled the bedrooms slides in with no problem but the living room slide didn’t come in right. I could see the bottom of the slide was in while the top wasn’t properly seated. I immediately opened the slide about six inches. I knew what happened. There was too much water on the slide topper causing it to sag. With the topper sagging, the metal shield was caught between the slide and the side of the coach, binding the slide. I went outside to check for damage and thankfully it all looked okay. The water ran off the topper and I retracted again. It worked fine. Lesson learned – when there’s a lot of water on the slide toppers, partially retract and let the water run off before fully retracting. Then I raised the driver’s side of the coach with the hydraulic jacks and retrieved the water filters – they were undamaged.

By then, the only thing I had left to do was the stow the sewer hose. It still wasn’t completely empty. The RV park workers were at the back of our site trying to clear the sewer line. They told me to just run the gray water out of my hose on the grass and move on. With so much back up in the system running out, a couple of  gallons or so from my hose wasn’t going to make a difference.

We were on the road by 10:30am. The drive on I-35 through Austin is no fun. Traffic is terrible. Drivers don’t seem to understand how to merge. Merging traffic from on-ramps or junctions caused stoppages time and again. What I saw was people in the right lane closing up on a vehicle ahead to prevent merging traffic from coming in front of them. People coming onto the Interstate from on-ramps don’t accelerate sufficiently to merge causing drivers in the right lane to brake as the merging traffic enters at insufficient speed. It’s what I call low-performance driving.

Nally, our GPS directed us onto US290. This became confusing. There are two US 290s heading east. One is a toll road and the other is a frontage road. The frontage road had stop lights every mile or so, so I took the toll road. However, there weren’t any toll booths, just signs to pay the toll by mail or with a TxTag pass. I guess I’ll have to wait and see if I get a bill since I don’t have a TxTag pass and don’t know how to pay by mail.

We rolled all the way to Houston without stopping. The traffic on the Sam Houston Tollway (where they have a toll booth) was harrowing at times but we managed to make it to the Flying J station at Richey Road and took on 72 gallons of diesel fuel. This worked out to be 7.6 miles per gallon – not bad when you consider the amount of generator run time we had at Buchanan Dam. Our diesel generator runs off the same tank as our engine. From there, it was only a few miles to the North Lake RV Resort where we’ll stay until next Monday. This is an upscale park and we have an excellent site where we’re parked nose in, looking at the lake.

Getting into our site was a little tougher than I anticipated. We dropped the trailer and had a few false attempts before we could line up the coach properly. Once we were situated, I completed the dumping and flushing of our holding tanks while I got us set up. Meanwhile, Donna did her exercise challenges and power walked a couple of laps around the park. I’m looking forward to some catch-and-release fishing in the lake and attending the Ironman event over the weekend.

Donna pan fried cumin-cayenne crusted tilapia with sauteed peppers and onions with zucchini and cherry tomatoes for dinner. She found fresh tilapia sourced from Mexico at HEB and it was delicious.

The weather forecast calls for scattered thunderstorms this afternoon. We plan to ride the scooter to The Woodlands to meet Allen and Crystal Hutchinson for lunch.