Monthly Archives: May 2015

Those Dreaded Struvites

After I posted to the blog on Sunday morning, Donna went outside to complete her exercise challenges and walk laps of the RV park. I was still thinking about the Ironman announcer the day before saying, “Allen Hutchinson from Royal Oak, Michigan, you are an Ironman!” as he crossed the finish line. That was the sixth time Allen heard that announcement. What an amazing accomplishment.

On Saturday evening, after the Ironman event, we stopped at the HEB store (a Texas grocery/pharmacy chain) and picked up a few items. One of the things I bought was a can of white corn. The guy at RV park office told me that white corn was a very effective bait for fishing in the stocked lake. I’d never heard of using corn before. He cautioned that white corn was the choice, not yellow corn.

I broke out my fishing rod Sunday morning and tried fishing the lake right in front of our site. The white corn was extremely effective – but it was also problematic. It comes off the hook easily and smaller fish can steal the bait. I had hits as soon as my rig hit the water, but sometimes it was small fish stealing the bait. The trick was to place the bait in the right spot in the water. The pond had a lot of algae and aquatic vegetation. I found if I could place my bait near deeper water right on the edge of the vegetation, I would find the larger fish.

I caught a few fish at our site – one was a really good sized bluegill. I moved to another part of the lake and caught and released a few more. Later, I caught a couple more bluegill at our site and Donna snapped a photo of a typical bluegill – some of the fish I caught were bigger and some smaller.

Average size bluegill from the stocked pond

I rode the scooter over to the store to get eggs (something we forgot the day before), then stowed it in the trailer. I was just in time. The wind kicked up and rain drops started falling just as I locked the trailer doors.

Yep, more nasty weather

We’re not supposed to spend this much time in bad weather – we’re mobile after all. We’ve had rain 9 out of the last 10 days. This is the most rain we’ve seen since we were in Great Falls, Montana last summer.

While it was storming, I watched the Moto GP race from Le Mans, France that I recorded earlier. By the time the race was over, it had stopped raining. This was timely as it allowed me to grill boneless chicken thighs that Donna had prepared by brushing them with olive oil and fresh herbs. She served the chicken with lemon jasmine brown rice and fresh green beans topped with chopped kalamata olives.

Excellent fare on the picnic table

I felt groggy when I got out of bed Monday morning. The overnight thunderstorms with endless bolts of lightning and cracks of thunder interrupted my sleep. The storm continued through breakfast.

At 10am, I donned a hat and told Donna I needed to go outside and start prepping for travel. As I disconnected our water line, the rain stopped. I had everything put away and fired up the Cummins ISL diesel powerplant before 11am. We had a plan for getting out of our site and hooking up the trailer and it worked perfectly.

I must digress before I continue to chronicle our travels. Our full-time RV living over the last 22 months has provided many learning experiences. One of the things I’m always learning about is something most people don’t want to think about. I’m talking about our holding tanks and dealing with waste water. I’ve tried many tank treatments with mixed results. I reported about it in this post.

Although I thought Happy Camper was the best I’d tried, I always remember the old motorcycle racing mantra – the best you’ve tried is the best you know (meaning there may be something better out there you’ve yet to try). I was still somewhat disappointed in a couple of areas with Happy Camper. One – although all of the treatments claim to lubricate and enhance the seals in the system, I always found that the chemicals used tended to leave deposits on the toilet seal and it would start to leak after a few weeks. Having the water leak out of the toilet meant it was no longer sealed from the sewage system. I would mitigate this by putting a few ounces of vegetable oil in the toilet for a couple of days every two or three weeks.

The other issue was odor. All the treatments claim they eliminate odor. But the truth is, when you are in an area with high ambient temperatures, after five to seven days, the odor is present when you flush the toilet. So you’re left with the option of dumping the tank every five to seven days.

I’m going to tell you about a product that I have no affiliation with. Their success does nothing for me (other than I’d like to see their product become more easily available). When we were in Casa Grande in January, I met a guy in the RV park who had an alternative tank additive that he sold. I was skeptical (people used to call me Skeptical Mike).

This product is marketed by a company called Tank Techs. They specialize in high-pressure flushing of holding tanks. The thing that caught my eye about their approach was the mention of struvites. Their core business is the mechanical removal of struvites from holding tanks.

Then they worked with a probiotic firm to develop a new treatment. The mention of probiotics and other buzz words heightened my skepticism. It’s chemical-free and uses enzymes and bacterial action to treat the tank. This product not only controls odors and breaks down solids – including paper – it can break down struvites.

As always, I wanted proof. Our holding tank sensors have never worked right since we bought the coach. This isn’t uncommon. Conventional wisdom says paper is contaminating the sensors.

The guy who sold me the treatment called Tank Techs RX told me I could see if I had struvites and if the product was working by watching the discharge. If I saw a white or gray sandy discharge from the gray tank, struvites were breaking up. I saw this within two treatments.

Before we left the Northlake RV Resort, I checked the tank levels on our control panels. Shazzam! The gray water and black water sensors were working after four and half months of using Tank Techs RX. Those dreaded struvites had broken down and the sensors were working.

There may be other products that work as well, but I can only say this is an unsolicited testimonial and I’m totally sold on this product. I’m also glad to see our tank sensors working.

I’ll add more about our trip to Rockport, Texas in my next post. Here’s a photo from our new location with the sun setting over water to the west. Not a very dramatic photo, but it’s nice to be parked next to a body of water. The sunset here is over the Salt Lake which isn’t Utah’s Great Salt Lake but an inlet off Copano Bay in southeast Texas.

It’s not raining

Texas Ironman

Although there was a threat of thundershowers in the afternoon, I unloaded the scooter yesterday. Donna and I took our chances and rode up to The Woodlands to watch the Ironman competition. Our friend Allen Hutchinson was competing in the triathlon.

We rode west to the IH-45 service road and stayed on it all the way up to The Woodlands Parkway. In Texas cities, most interstate freeways have frontage roads that parallel the freeway. These frontage roads are generally one-way roads on each side of the interstate. On-ramps and off-ramps to and from the freeway are found at intervals along the frontage. The speed limit on IH-45 is 45mph, but Texas drivers don’t pay much attention to that. We were blasting along at 60mph+ at times to keep from being run over by speeding traffic.

As you can imagine, traffic was heavy at The Woodlands. We made our way to Lake Robbins Drive and parked the scooter near the finish line of the race. The scooter is handy for these situations – we can easily find parking where cars cannot fit.

We walked past the finish area on a bridge overlooking the canal. There were some spectators setting up along the canal. Later, this area would be crowded with spectators.

View from the bridge – only a few spectators along the canal

We walked down to the canal and followed it west past the pavilion to the transition area. We expected Allen to ride into the transition area soon and wanted to see him. On the east end of the transition area, we saw red plastic bags lined up. Each bag was identified with a racer’s number. The bag contained the items they would need to transition from a bicyclist to a runner. They had running shoes and whatnot in their bags.

Running gear in bags at the west end of the transition area

Running gear in bags at the east end of the transition area

As we walked along the transition area, we saw competitors coming in. They would hand off their bikes to a race staff member who would take their bikes to the assigned bike rack for them. Having left their cycling shoes clipped into the pedals of their bikes, the racers would jog barefoot across the muddy grass and retrieve their bag of running gear. I hope the bags contained something to clean their feet – the area was very muddy.

We found a spot to stand where the racers were required to stop and dismount from their bikes. At that point, they had to walk their bikes to the hand-off area. After 112 miles of hard riding some of the competitors struggled to get off their bikes. We saw several people suffering from leg cramps as they tried to dismount. A few riders nearly crashed.

When Allen arrived, he was so focused on stopping and getting off his bike, I don’t think he saw or heard us even though we were only a few feet away from him. He was moving so quickly, I could only snap a quick shot of the back of his head.

Allen getting off his bike

We retraced our steps past the transition area and found Allen’s wife Crystal and his sister Aleshia. We tried to figure out how long it would be before Allen would run by. We decided to cross the canal on a walking bridge and wait for him on the south side of the canal. As we crossed, a guy gave us cow bells to ring as we encouraged competitors coming by.

We found a small grassy area where we could see up the course. The runners would approach our spot where they had to round a curve past us. We learned that this was the five-mile mark of the run. The temperature was 86 degrees and the humidity was unbearable. We were soaked in perspiration just standing there. The competitors had to be suffering and probably would have welcomed rain. We had a couple of false sightings before we saw the real Allen running toward us.

Allen at the five-mile point of the 26.2 mile run

After Allen passed our position, we walked back over the bridge and started following the canal back to the east. The competitors ran east on the north side of the canal before crossing over and coming back west on the south side of the canal. By heading east, we would see Allen coming toward us again sooner than if we held our spot.

We stopped at the Marriott hotel and went inside for a restroom break and to sit for a few minutes in the air-conditioned lobby. We went back outside and found the course was quite crowded with spectators. We found a place to sit on a low block wall and cheered on the runners. Allen came past and slapped hands with us. He was looking good.

We went up the street by the finish line and had lunch at the Baker Street Pub and Grill. I forgot to mention that Allen generously bought our lunch the day before at The Olive Garden. I reciprocated by buying lunch for Crystal and Aleshia. A cold Guinness with the meal was just what I needed – Donna enjoyed one too.

After lunch, we saw Allen go by on the other side of the canal. We knew it would be a while before he came by our position, so we retreated to the Marriott again to cool off. I had another cold one at the bar. The bar area was hopping with spectators who had the same idea.

I mentioned in my last post how The Woodlands is an upscale neighborhood. We saw several interesting cars on the roads – Porsches, Ferraris and such. Outside the Marriott, I snapped a photo of an Aston Martin convertible in the valet parking area. Apparently the owner wasn’t too worried about a thundershower – he left the top down.

Aston Martin at the Marriott

This being Texas, I think more people were impressed by the big four-wheel drive pickup truck next to it. As it turned out, we only had a few stray rain drops all day, so the Aston Martin interior was safe.

We returned to the course to find the sidewalk along the canal filled with people. At times, the competitors had to thread their way through the crowd as they ran past. We saw Allen come by on his last lap of the canal. We figured it would be about 80 minutes before he would get to the finish line.

After another pit stop at the Marriott, we went to the finish line. We watched the competitors come down Waterway Avenue where they had to make a 180-degree turn and run back up Waterway Avenue to the finish line. The first stretch on Waterway was slightly downhill with a tail wind. After the turnaround, the last 200 yards was slightly uphill into the wind. It seemed like a cruel way to finish a 140.6-mile race.

Some of the competitors were clearly struggling to make the finish line. Others were smiling and jumping for joy. We saw a few make an all-out sprint to the finish. After waiting about 40 minutes, we saw Allen come by. He hit the red carpet and the finish line with a total race time of just under 12 hours.

Allen checking his watch 100 yards from the finish

He hits the red carpet and finishes under 12 hours

Allen’s first words to me when I found him after the finish was, “Man, it’s hot out there.” After congratulating Allen and saying our goodbyes, we hopped on the scooter and got out of town. It was nearly 7pm by then and had been a long day. I was feeling tired and sore from spectating – imagine how the competitors must have felt.

We stopped at HEB on the way back and picked up a few things including a pizza for dinner. Today, we have rain in the forecast again. We want to do a little fishing in the lake. Then, I plan to kick back and watch the Moto GP race from Le Mans, France. Tomorrow we’ll relocate about 200 miles away to Rockport on the gulf coast.

The Woodlands

Our plan Friday was to go to The Woodlands and meet Allen and Crystal Hutchinson for lunch at the Olive Garden. Allen is here to compete in the Ironman Texas triathlon. Ironman triathlons are grueling endurance contests. The total distance raced is 140.6 miles – 2.4 miles swimming, 112 miles bicycling and a marathon distance 26.2-mile run.

We thought about taking the scooter, but the weather forecast called for a thunderstorm. I could see severe weather to the west of us on the weather radar. It looked like it would hit the area around 2pm. We decided to take an Uber ride 12 miles up the highway to The Woodlands.

The Woodlands is an upscale master planned community 28 miles north of downtown Houston on I-45. It’s heavily forested and its subdivisions and shopping areas are mostly hidden from the main roads by trees. It has an area of about 44 square miles, most of which is land. There’s a lake (Woodlands Lake) and a canal connecting the lake with a smaller body of water called The Woodlands Waterway.

The Uber car dropped us off at the Olive Garden at 12:35pm – we were a few minutes late. I had texted Allen and thought they were in the restaurant waiting for us. Donna and I walked through the restaurant searching for them but didn’t find them. We came back to the lobby and wondered if there was more than one Olive Garden in the area. I sent another message to Allen just as he and Crystal walked in the door. Since I told him we were running late, they had decided to go fill up at a nearby gas station.

We ordered our lunch and talked for over an hour while we dined. Allen eats a very controlled diet before the race. He ordered spaghetti with tomato marinara – he avoids meat the day before a race. This will be his fifth Ironman event. We saw him compete in his first Ironman triathlon in Lake Placid, then we saw him last summer in Couer d’Alene. He also competed in Florida and Louisville.

After lunch, we all rode in Allen’s VW Tiguan as he gave us a tour of the area. There are many high-end shops in The Woodlands – it’s all very upscale. The neighborhoods are home base for many professional athletes from the NFL, MLB and the PGA.

We stopped at the Northshore Park where the Ironman event will start. They begin the 2.4-mile swim heading south along the west side of the lake for nearly a mile. Then they turn around and come back along the east side of the lake.

View of the lake from the starting area – yellow buoys mark the first leg

After they turn around and come back, they enter the canal and continue swimming to the transition area where they switch to bicycles. The canal is lined with shops and restaurants and has walking paths alongside, much like the Riverwalk in San Antonio.

Orange buoys mark the return course up the lake, the yellow boat is at the canal entrance

The bicycle course is one lap and doesn’t offer much opportunity for spectators to cheer on their favorite competitors.

The running portion goes along the canal paths and makes three loops. This will be the best place to see the competitors. The canal is lower than the surrounding terrain and is lined with buildings. There isn’t likely to be much air circulation. The humidity along the canal will be stifling. At that point of the competition, I think Allen will already have nearly seven hours of exertion behind him. The 26- mile run will be brutal.

A thunderstorm hit as Allen was giving us the driving tour. He drove Donna and me back to the Northlake RV Resort and dropped us off. By then the storm had passed, but I was glad we left the scooter in the trailer.

Allen’s wife Crystal posted a few pictures on Facebook this morning. Allen finished the swim a little after 8am after one hour and 16 minutes in the water. I took the liberty of lifting her photos from Facebook.

Allen finishing the swim

Transitioning to the bike

We’ll scooter over to The Woodlands to see Allen finish the bike and transition to run. We plan to hang out until he finishes. I expect a thundershower to pass through at some point, but we’ll manage it.

Stormin’ in Texas

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.

Sites flooding

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.

Donna’s herb garden on our picnic table

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.

Trailer on the right and tree on the left made tight quarters

Trailer on the right and tree on the left made for tricky parking

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.

Cumin- cayenne crusted tilapia dinner plate

Sunset out our windshield

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.

Rainy Day #5

Rain showers woke me up a few times and I felt tired when I woke up Monday morning. I’m not used to hearing rain after the great weather we’ve experienced over the winter. We had intermittent showers and mist in the morning with a stiff wind from the northwest. The weather radar looked like heavier rainfall would arrive in the afternoon, so Donna decided to brave the wind and go for a walk before lunch.

I thought it was a good day to lie low and read a book. I went up on the deck while Donna was out, but the wind chased me back indoors. Donna took several snapshots on her hike – here are a few of them.

More wildflowers along the lake

She spied a turtle crossing the path

The turtle takes a defensive posture

This nice home had a boat ramp to the lake – when the lake was full of water

Now the boat ramp leads to a trail down to the lake

Donna really enjoyed her hikes and loves this area. She said it reminds her of Cape Cod minus the dunes. We want to come back some time and have a longer stay – hopefully at a time when Dave can join us at his beach house. I’d like to talk to him more about his time here in Texas. He was involved in the music and club scene in the ’80s and has stories and photos of Stevie Ray and Jimmy Vaughn from back in the day hung up in his beach house.

When Donna returned, I took a container of leftovers into the house and reheated it in the microwave for lunch. Although we’re parked at Dave’s beach house, we still sleep and play on our computers in our coach – it’s our home after all. But I didn’t want to turn on the generator just to reheat leftovers in the microwave.

After lunch, I was sitting at my laptop looking for information on the turtle Donna photographed. I couldn’t come up with a positive identification. Maybe a reader can help? While I was sitting there, a house finch flew up and perched on the living room window sill. He appeared to be peeping through the window. I realized the solar coatings on our windows effectively make them mirrors from the outside and the bird was studying his own reflection.

We’ve seen a variety of birds here in Texas – from bobwhite quail to red-tailed hawks. One of the most interesting birds we’ve seen is the scissor-tailed flycatcher. We saw them at San Angelo State Park (another place we’d like to visit again) and also at Buchanan Dam. On the way to Buchanan Dam, we saw a hawk flying across the road in front of us with a live snake in its talons.

Something else I saw that don’t recall seeing before is armadillo road kill. I saw two dead armadillos on the side of the road.

On Monday evening, Donna made lemon chicken with broccoli on the side for dinner.

Lemon chicken and broccoli

After dinner, for a change of pace, we went into the Dave’s beach house and watched a classic movie, Alfred Hitchcock’s To Catch a Thief starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly on Dave’s big screen TV.

On Tuesday morning, we went about business as usual. Donna is working on two exercise challenges – a 30-day upper body challenge and a five-day squat challenge. After completing her daily challenges, she prepared omelets for breakfast and then we started preparing to relocate to Austin. We hit the road at about 11am.

The 80-mile drive to Austin was mostly on scenic two-lane highways. As we got closer to the city, traffic volumes started building. Rain and construction didn’t help matters much and the short drive took more energy than I imagined. We found our way to the Austin Lone Star Carefree RV Resort by 1pm. At the entrance, a park attendant asked our name, checked his list and said, “Follow me,” as he climbed into a golf cart. He led us to our site and went over the hook-ups and trash collection procedures. Then he told us we would have until 4:30pm to go to the office to complete our check-in. It was a very efficient way to arrive and set up at an RV park in my opinion.

Austin traffic in the rain through a construction zone

So we’re back in a full hook-up RV park. We’ve been able to average our RV park costs down over the six nights since we left San Diego by boondocking and taking advantage of courtesy parking. Our average cost per overnight site is $11 at this point. This helps to offset the fuel costs we’ve incurred while covering 1,200+ miles in a week. Here at the Austin Lone Star Carefree RV Resort, our Passport America rate gave us two nights for $45.

Our nightly site costs will go up over the next 18 days as we’ll be in RV parks, but our fuel costs will diminish. This is one of the beauties of the RV lifestyle – we can adjust our variable costs as we choose. Stay in a nice place and pay for it while not burning fuel or travel and burn fuel while keeping overnight rates low.

We like mixing it up like this – it’s what will probably keep us on the road for a long time. We know people who boondock almost exclusively and we also know people who rarely if ever boondock. There’s no right or wrong way – you just go with the flow and do what works for you.

Donna had pork tenderloin and salsa verde in the slow cooker all afternoon. She fixed a southern style dinner with pulled pork, kale sauteed with onions and dried chorizo and fried cornmeal mush. Delicious!

Southern style dinner plate

The sky is overcast this morning, but it isn’t raining at the moment. The forecast calls for rain and thunderstorms. We’ll take our chances and take a cab ride into town later. We’re here and dang it, we want to see Austin.

Beach House Boondocking

Once we made the decision to pull out of San Angelo State Park, we were packed and ready to hit the road in short order. We pulled out at 10:30am. Our destination was Buchanan Dam where my friend Dave Glynn has a vacation home and property on the lake.

Our route took us along US87 to Brady. On the way there, Donna monitored the weather with the Radar Express app on my phone. She was tracking a storm cell as it hit Brady. We stopped at a rest area west of Brady and stretched our legs for 10 minutes to give the storm time to pass northeast of our travel route. This worked perfectly as we only found wet roads and light rainfall on the route.

From Brady we hit TX71, a lightly used route that took us through the hill country. San Angelo is located in high desert terrain. The landscape changed as we traveled east. The Texas hill country is wooded with meadows full of poppies and other wildflowers, of course, it’s hilly. Donna shot a few photos through her window as we drove along the highway.

Donna’s window view of poppies

We found our way to Dave’s driveway. There was a low tree branch Dave told me about that was blocking us from pulling in past the house. I removed the branch (Dave told me I’d be doing him a favor). Getting the coach turned around and lined up next to the house was really tricky. We had obstacles such as trees, flower beds and bushes to maneuver around.

It took a full 30 minutes of jockeying the coach back and forth a few feet at a time to get it lined up right. The Allison automatic transmission didn’t like all the maneuvering at idle speed. The transmission fluid temperature rose to 220 degrees – that’s the highest I’ve ever seen it. I finally had the coach parked on the east side of the house with our door lined up with a walkway to the patio. The house should offer us some protection against the wind as severe storms are in the forecast.

Coach position next to Dave's beach house

Coach positioned next to Dave’s beach house

The house should offer protection from the storms

Donna and I sat on the deck overlooking the lake and sipped cold beer. Donna phoned her parents and wished her mom a happy Mother’s Day. While she was on the phone, I took a walk down to a pier a few hundred feet from Dave’s property.

There’s been a long period of drought in Texas (like most of the southwest). At San Angelo State Park, the lake no longer exists. Here at Buchanan Lake, the water level has dropped considerably. The pier sits high and dry a few hundred yards from the current shoreline.

Fishing pier

End of the pier well short of the shoreline

The pier is at the foot of a small community park, which I believe is common property owned by a homeowners’ association. Some of the homes here had private docks which are no longer in the lake. The receding lake has left many of the lakefront properties up to a quarter mile away from the lake. That has reset the property values to a much lower level. This coupled with the financial crisis during the last decade left many homeowners here in a bind.

Sunday was the last day of our data plan cycle. I had a few gigabytes to spare so I downloaded the European coverage of the Formula One race from Spain. While I was watching the race, Donna hiked on the trails along the lake. She snapped a few interesting photos on her walk.

Inlet off the lake west of Dave’s place

More wildflowers near the lake

Unmanned fishing poles

We watched a recorded program before we went to bed. I was tired and fell asleep quickly. I woke up around midnight as another storm came through. It wasn’t too severe – a few flashes of lightning and raindrops falling on the roof.

This morning, another storm cell is passing through as I type this – lightning struck close by on the lake. The flash of lightning was immediately followed by a loud clap of thunder. The storm is moving quickly to the northeast. It looks like a few more storm cells are lined up to head our way today.

Stormy Night

We pulled out of Fort Stockton RV Park shortly before their 11am checkout time yesterday. We drove back east on I-10 five miles to the Flying J travel center and topped up our tank with 44 gallons of diesel fuel at the truck fueling pumps. Our route for the day took us westbound on I-10 to US67 through the towns of McCamey and Big Lake. It’s about 140 miles to San Angelo from Fort Stockton.

We stopped at a roadside picnic table west of Big Lake. Donna made a salad for herself and I had a 6″ Subway sandwich that Donna had bought for me at the Flying J travel center. The weather was nice with the temperature in the morning in the lower 70s and steadily climbing as we traveled. US67 is a two-lane highway without much traffic. We had a tailwind and it was an easy drive to San Angelo State Park.

There are more than 60 RV sites in the park. We’re in a long pull-through site with great separation between us and our neighbors. The site has 50 amp service and fresh water but no sewer hook-up.

San Angelo State Park site 2

Their website advertises the site for $20/night. That seems fair enough but you have add a $4 park entrance fee. When we got here, we were informed the $4 fee is per person, so make that $8 for a total cost of $28/night.

It was getting hot out when we arrived here – over 90 degrees. I connected to the 50 amp pedestal and we had both air conditioners running in no time. The sites are fairly level, so getting set up was quick and painless. I rewarded myself with a Left Coast Brewing VooDoo American Stout.

VooDoo American stout

This is a tasty beer. Dark roasted malt gives hints of coffee and chocolate at 8% alcohol by volume.

Donna was outside and told me she saw bison northeast of our site. I walked out through a field (being mindful of the prickly pear cactus) and shot a photo. Later, Donna went for a walk and got closer – close enough to see they were fake silhouettes. How disappointing. There are supposed to be real bison and longhorn cattle in the park. Hans Kohl (Metamorphosis Road) told me there are also javelina here.

Bison silhouettes in the center

I grilled a rack of lamb for dinner. Donna spiced the lamb with fresh herbs and garlic.

Rack of lamb on the grill

Donna served it with a spinach and sweet potato hash.

Lamb with sweet potato spinach hash

It was so good!

My friend, Dave Glynn offered to have us park on his vacation property at Buchanan Dam. I looked at the property on Google Earth and was confused about how to enter the property and park. I phoned Dave while I was looking at the image. After talking with him again, I have a clear idea of what to do now. We’ll move about 160 miles southeast and stay there for a couple of nights.

We kept an eye on the weather all day yesterday. I saw a few thunderheads around us, but we seemed to be in the right spot. There were reports of severe weather to the northeast of us. All was fine when we went to bed.

I woke up at 2am as rain was pelting the roof and the coach was shaking from the wind. The topper over the living room slide was flapping violently. I got up and pulled the living room slide in. Donna and I sat in the front seats and watched the storm. I don’t remember ever seeing lightning like that. It was continuous, flickering light for half an hour. I looked at my cell phone weather radar app and saw we were in the middle of a storm cell. Twenty-five minutes later, I could see that the storm was moving to the east. Here’s a screen shot of the radar I took at 2:25 a.m.

Screenshot from my weather radar app – we’re the blue dot

The heavy rain turned to hail when we went back to bed. The hail drummed on the roof for several minutes, then it was rain again. I finally dozed off around 3am and slept fitfully.

Our original plan was to hang around, do some hiking and get a good look at the park. They have a 2pm check out time. Looking at the forecast, we’ve changed our plan. More severe weather is supposed to move into the area this afternoon. I want to be hunkered down, not out on the road if that happens. So we’re packing up and moving to Dave’s property this morning.

Rest Stop Road Runner

Our dry camping spot at the SKP park in Deming wasn’t anything to write home about. But an interesting point is it was next to a motel that I’d stayed at previously. I stayed at The Quality Inn right next door with my motorcycling buds when we traveled to New Mexico to ride at the Arroyo Seco race track.

I always love it when an interesting coach pulls into a park. The coach that parked into a site near us was definitely interesting. It was an older Foretravel – I’m guessing late ’90s, maybe 2000. Foretravel coaches are built in Texas on a proprietary monocoque chassis and are definitely in the upper class of motorhomes. This one had a cool custom paint job and matching stacker trailer.

Custom paint on a Foretravel coach and trailer

I spoke briefly to the owner. He told me it’s a 42-foot coach although it looks longer. I think the illusion of length is due to the paint scheme and tag axle. I was curious but didn’t find out what was in the stacker trailer. The satellite dish and roof AC covers painted to match the trim along the roof was a nice touch.

Donna prepared pan-seared flank steak on the induction cooktop and served it with asparagus for dinner. The park had an unusual rule restricting generators after 7:30pm, so Donna prepared dinner early, then we switched to battery/inverter power.

Flank steak and asparagus

We watched the final episode of House of Cards, season three before heading to bed.

We lost an hour coming into New Mexico, so even though we felt like we were up early, it was after 8am by the time we got up and had breakfast and coffee. Since we were dry camped, we were able to get things ready for travel quickly and left the park around 8:45am.

Our first stop was only about an hour east on I-10. There’s a rest stop west of Las Cruces that I really like. It has an incredible view of the valley and old downtown Las Cruces and a cool sculpture to boot. The greater roadrunner is the state bird of New Mexico and this rest stop has a huge, beautiful roadrunner sculpture. I really wanted Donna to see the view and sculpture. Too bad it was a little hazy, the haze is more apparent in the photos than what we saw.

View as you approach the facility

Valley view of old Las Cruces

Greater roadrunner sculpture

I used to stop here when I traveled to Las Cruces and El Paso for business. Speaking of EL Paso, what a trial to drive through on I-10. There’s a bypass route but it’s mountainous and I heard there was construction that way. We ran the gauntlet and made our way through. At times, I thought we were were in Juarez, Mexico.

Once we cleared El Paso, it was a long drone along I-10. Some of the scenery was interesting, but to be honest, it was a boring drive. I kept myself alert by monitoring engine and transmission temperatures and engine oil pressure. Yeah, exciting stuff. I also kept track of the sparse traffic around me and flashed my headlights to let passing tractor-trailer rigs know when their trailer was clear of our motorhome to move over in front of me. I think this is a courtesy that we should extend as big rig drivers. Most truckers flash their running lights back at me when they move over to acknowledge the courtesy signal. We lost another hour as we entered the Central Time Zone along the way. The road surface was good for the most part until we were about 60 miles west of Fort Stockton. Then it had washboard sections that were ridiculous considering the 80mph speed limit (we kept our speed at 62mph in the right lane).

We finally made it to Fort Stockton. There’s a GPS map glitch that affects this area. We know from online posts that it’s not just our GPS – many are affected by this. It makes sense to me since there are only a few map suppliers for the GPS units. I think Navteq supplies most GPS sellers such as Garmin, Lowrance and others, so it stands to reason that a map error affects all users. I won’t condemn my GPS unit for a map error. I just have to find a reasonable way around it.

We worked around the glitch and found the park Donna scouted online with a Passport America rate of only $11 with full hook-ups. Once we drove there, we changed our minds. We wanted to conserve cash on this run, but we have certain standards. This park was all dirt with no amenities and a thunderstorm was a distinct possibility. We didn’t want to be parked in a mud hole.

We moved on and checked in at the Fort Stockton RV Park east of town. Of the parks in this area, I think this was the best option. With a Good Sam discount we secured a paved 72-foot pull-through, full hook-up site for $31.

Once we settled, in I phoned an old buddy, Dave Glynn. He had contacted me via Facebook the day before and told me to let him know if we would be in the area of Fort Stockton. He’s currently working in an oil field near Fort Stockton. Dave and I go way back – the last time I saw him was in the early 80s. We hung out and had many misadventures together in the 70s.

Dave came out to our site at the RV park and took Donna and me out to dinner. It was fun talking about the old days, reminiscing and catching up. Dave generously picked up the tab and invited – no, insisted – we stay at his vacation place at Buchanan Dam. The house has acreage on the lake and we can park the motorhome there. Thanks, Dave!

We have thunderstorms here and are likely to encounter more as we move through south central Texas to the gulf. Hopefully we’ll avoid hail storms or tornados! Texas weather scares me. We’ll head on to San Angelo for a night then hit Dave’s place at Buchanan Dam.

Continental Divide

I’m typing this after a long day on the road. After I posted to the blog last evening, Donna and I sat up and watched two episodes of House of Cards – season three. When I went to bed, I slept like a rock. Donna was awakened by the sound of a car pulling into our spot at 2am. The car departed shortly after pulling in. She didn’t hear any doors open, just a strange muffled sound. Today we think it was probably law enforcement – a cop or border patrol car. The sound may have been a radio receiver in the vehicle. They probably just did a drive-by to see who or what was in the area.

The boondocking spot we found off AZ85 south of Gila Bend had a ramada and a sign that said “overnight parking permitted, no camping.” We took that to mean “don’t pitch a tent or get in a sleeping bag under the ramada.”

It was a fairly quiet spot and we couldn’t beat the price – free.

Sunset at our boondocking spot in the desert

We were up early this morning. We had breakfast and coffee and had the slides in and jacks up by 8:15am. We changed our plan and decided to go the extra 30 miles and maybe add 45 minutes to our drive by continuing south on AZ85. This would take us through the towns of Ajo and Why before we headed east on AZ86 to Tucson. There was very little traffic and it was more interesting than droning along on I-8 to I-10.

Our boondocking site after sunrise

We eventually hit I-10 at Tucson. We stopped at a rest stop east of Benson and ate lunch, then motored on. Donna was working at her laptop while I drove. After about 300 miles of driving in windy conditions, we crossed the border into New Mexico. I’ll need to update our states visited map. I’ve been to New Mexico many times, but we only count the states we’ve visited since we started full-time RVing.

I don’t know if the sign was messed up or the picture pixilated

After a stop at the Flying J in Lordsburg, where we topped up the tank with 55 gallons of diesel fuel, we crossed the Continental Divide at an elevation of 4,585 feet above sea level. For those of you who don’t remember what the significance of the Continental Divide is – it marks the difference of where watersheds drain. West of the Continental Divide, water flows to the Pacific Ocean. East of the Continental Divide, it flows to the Atlantic (via the Gulf of Mexico or Caribbean Sea in some cases). From there we drove on to Deming. We are currently dry camped at an SKP park here. The day’s total mileage was 377 miles. I usually like to limit my drive to 250-300 miles per day. We’ll push on again in the morning and drive about 340 miles to Fort Stockton, Texas.

Anniversary Dinner in San Diego

Tuesday morning got off to a great start when Bob and Sini Schmitt invited us to join them for breakfast in their coach. Sini had just returned from two weeks of travel, while Bob was living the bachelor life. She went to Hawaii for a wedding, then to Seattle to look after some business at their house in Edmonds. Bob cooked up excellent breakfast burritos for us and we got caught up on Sini’s trip.

After breakfast, I started breaking down our outdoor gear. I folded up the chairs, took down the front window covers, and got things organized. Bob lent me his GMC Jimmy to move everything to the trailer while he and Sini drove to LA in a rental car to attend a show. Their goal was to get tickets to The Voice, but to get that, they had to agree to be members of the audience for the filming of an episode of AD. I loaded some of the gear into the Jimmy, then took a break to go to Pacific Beach Recreation Center to play some pickleball. I cut it short and left after a few games to get back to packing up.

Back at the coach, I stowed the tire covers and checked tire pressures. I loaded the Weber Q grill and ladder into Bob’s Jimmy and took everything to the trailer. By the time I had the trailer packed, another hour and half had passed. I still needed to load the scooter and Donna’s bike after she returned from her ride. I had that all done by 5pm.

This worked out perfectly since we planned to head out to our anniversary dinner at Island Prime at 5:45pm. I had time to shower and have a cocktail before our ride picked us up. Donna used one of the free Lyft coupons she had. Lyft is a taxi service that operates much like Uber. Our friend Mona is an Uber and Lyft driver. We planned it so Mona could be our driver. She came to the RV park at 5:45, we jumped in her car and then Donna requested a pick-up. Since Mona was the closest driver, she got the fare.

Island Prime is on the eastern point of Harbor Island, which like most of the “islands” in San Diego, is a peninsula. We made a quick stop for a couple of photo opportunities on the way.

Coronado Bridge from Harbor Island

Do you think they dropped off pineapples

Do you think this freighter dropped off pineapples?

The Island Prime restaurant features great views of both Coronado Island and the San Diego downtown skyline. We didn’t have a window seat, but our booth was only one table away from the glass. We watched boats sailing by as we had a drink and shared an appetizer.

I know this isn’t a sloop – maybe a ketch?

Ahi stack appetizer

We had the Ahi stack for an appetizer. The stack includes guacamole, sushi grade ahi tuna and creamy crab on top served with taro chips and a pineapple salsa and caviar.

Donna ordered the macadamia crusted sea bass. She hadn’t tried sea bass before and wanted to try something new. It was flaky and cooked perfectly. I had the filet trio – a trio of three, three-ounce medallions of filet mignon with three different toppings – bleu cheese, crab, and wild mushrooms – served over mashed potatoes.

Macadamia sea bass

Filet trio

It was an excellent meal coupled with outstanding service and unbelievable views. I can’t entertain like this every night, but it’s the right thing to do with my wife on our anniversary.

Sunset on my shoulder and a smiling face on my anniversary

We pulled the same gambit to have Mona be our Lyft driver on the way home. While we waited outside, I shot a couple of photos. I think a pair of Maseratis (one a spyder, the other coupe) and a Tesla valet-parked in front speak to the upscale clientele of this restaurant. Not that I’m all that impressed with material possessions. Just saying.

Maserati duo

The ubiquitous SoCal $100k Tesla electric car

Mona gifted us with a bottle of wine when she picked us up. Now, how many of you had your driver gift you with a bottle of wine?

I had hoped to be on the road by 9:30am on Wednesday morning, but we were a bit behind schedule. We plodded along methodically and had everything in order by a little after 10am. Then we needed to drive the coach to the overflow lot and hook up the trailer. We managed to get everything done without any undue stress and hit the road at 10:30am. The 9:30am departure was only a wish, not a drop-everything-and-let’s-get-rolling deal, so all was well.

We rolled easily along I-8 eastbound and made our usual stop at the Buckman Springs rest area. From there we crossed the three 4000+ foot summits and descended to the desert. It was an easy drive. I followed a tractor-trailer rig through the steep, twisty downgrade and held my speed in check with the Jake brake.

Our original plan was to stop for the night near Wellton, Arizona and dry camp. We were there before 3pm so we decided to move on. That’s how it goes sometimes – you make decisions on the fly. Donna was looking at the Escapee’s Day’s End directory on her laptop as we drove. We finally decided to press on to Gila Bend. Once there, we went south on AZ85 and found a legal boondocking spot to spend the night.

It’s quiet and the view is nice, but it’s windy and we’ve stayed indoors. After consulting the map, I think we’ll backtrack 10 miles in the morning back to I-8 and take that to I-10 and try to make it to Deming, New Mexico. We’d like to bank some miles before we take a two-night stop in order to be sure we can make it to Houston by the 14th.

Flying The Koop

…from real estate to wheel estate and back again

Monthly Archives: May 2015

Those Dreaded Struvites

Texas Ironman

The Woodlands

Stormin’ in Texas

Rainy Day #5

Beach House Boondocking

Stormy Night

Rest Stop Road Runner

Continental Divide

Anniversary Dinner in San Diego

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