Nearly 500 Miles

 

Today we covered nearly 500 miles, clearing both Houston and San Antonio and many miles of construction and CRAZY Texas Drivers.  Just before Texas we also had some construction near the boarder of Texas and Louisiana in the latter state.  Needing to have a quick stop, I pulled off of an exit, parked in the parking lot and used the Camper Van's facilities, and upon trying to get back onto the freeway I found that the westward entrance was blocked by construction.  Only option was to go east and make a U-Turn...which was 20, YES 20 miles away.  So add those 40 miles extra and we definitely drove over 500 miles today.

Other than that construction, the rest of the construction today (at least 100 miles of it) was not that hard to face.  While Marcia was taking a nap, there was one stretch where they worked on the Interstate and on the Frontage Road along side the Interstate.  This one older lady kept going over to the far right, nearly hitting the concrete wall once, and finally sees an area where she can go over to the frontage road on a dirt patch that connected the two (probably meant for construction use.)  Obviously she was a local and needed to get to her house.  Told Marcia about it later and added, "Where was she when we needed help getting through construction to get onto the freeway!"

I am convinced that Texas Drivers are the most impatient drivers in America.  Enough said about Texas Drivers...

Wednesday we plan to drive to the outskirts of Las Cruces, just over 500 miles...but no large cities to go through, even El Paso is by-passed now days.

 

 

Vado to Baytown

When we left Vado's RV Park we quickly came to the Texas boarder.  Our original intentions was to take the 375 highway to bypass going through El Paso...but they had highway construction going on and the exit to Highway 375 was blocked off.  Oh CRAP, we have to drive through El Paso after all.  Fortunately there were no problems, and a little bit of a slow down, going this route.

Here we are a good half hour past El Paso and we have open road, all is well.  We also filled up with gas at a Flying J, $2.79 a gallon, if I remember right, east of El Paso.   The lower the price the better in my opinion.  

From El Paso through to Sonora was very uneventful...just a lot of miles.

Going through the boarder check was interesting.  At first I did not think he was going to wave me through...then at the last second he said, "Go on through 'Dave' "  Now how in the world did he know my name?????????

Near the boarder check, stands this mountain monument.  It is called, in non academic worlds, Squawteat Peak, it is a breast-shaped hill in Pecos County, Texas.  In "common name" Squawteat Peak is a reference to the ethnic and sexual slur squaw, and is now generally avoided in academic circles.  Ok to have a CHILD (under 18) not be associated to this mountain, BUT it is OK to associate a child with sex change, with gender dysphoria, but HELL, we can't call a mountain Squawteat Peak because it looks like woman's breast!   What type of world has this become?????  That was the end of Wednesday pictures.  We got to Sonora and got our spot at the RV Park there, Elite RV Park.  Saw a BBQ establishment nearby and readily got BBQ for dinner.  Oh, it was good...nice to see young people in there working and running the place!

All day Thursday we had a light mist or slight rain through San Antonio headed to Houston.  Driving through San Antonio at 10 am was just right...now for Houston.

When we got free of San Antonio, I looked to see how the traffic was doing in Houston, and it was great.  30 minutes later the same search did not look so great.  And 30 minutes later as we were getting closer, it looked like we would have issues.  The light misty rain turned into down pours.  The traffic came to a crawl as we came upon wreck after wreck.  

Due to heavier rains, we slowed way down, and crawled along the highway for over an hour. 

We had gotten through the worse of it, just to have these guys slow everyone up again.  The cars in the far left of the picture are having issues...and giving everyone else issues. 

We get passed that point and again we are laden down with slow traffic.  Because of the rain, which was coming down around 2-3 hours before we arrived,  it made for wet setup at the RV Park in Baytown, Texas.  

With steady rain when we got to the RV Park, I got a bit soaked getting set up, but the rain did finally subsided.  The timing of going through Houston was just perfect...predicting rain was not.  It took an extra 90 minutes getting through town to our destination, but we made it...can't complain about that.

We chose to stay at this park for two nights.  We both had a good nights sleep last night, and I did not get up until after 10 am!  Not much rain today until the evening hour, so Indy and I sat outside for a good 90 minutes.  She was keeping an eye on anything that moved...growling and barking as she seemed to feel necessary.

What better place to keep an eye on things but on top of the table!

She was such a good little girl!!!!

I did not unhook the car so I did not go around getting pictures of the park.  It is an older KOA park which is been well kept up.  The monthly rate is somewhere around $650 plus electricity, and the weather in Baytown is very nice as far as winter is concern.  Not a bad place to stay at for a few months during winter, that is for sure.  

Tomorrow we are off again headed for home.  Hope to pull in on  Monday, no later than Tuesday.  It will be nice to be home again, but we have sure enjoyed our trip this year, just wish mom was in better health to enjoy it with us.

The LONGEST 300 miles

 

YES, unleaded gas at under $3!  In fact, the lowest price I saw along our route was at a Valaro for $2.49, but missed the picture!

But as the title of this post says, it was a long day.  We got up and going at 7:30 after a fairly quiet night at Cracker Barrel.  By 10 am we were past San Antonio and stopped at the first rest area between San Antonio and Houston.  By 11 we were pumping gas at the above price at a Love's Gas Station.  Looked in my records and I pumped the exact amount of $105 at Eloy Arizona on our way to Tucson...but I pumped nearly 10 more gallons today at this price!  Indy enjoyed the grass along the front Love's...she even did some running...but she kept stopping to look at the people out in the parking lot.

Another stop before tackling Houston and Indy had grass again...BUT, this grass was totally infected with Fire Ants, so I would not let her out.  Fire Ants are very prevalent in this part of Texas, and I am very familiar with them from my 20+ years living in Southern Arkansas where they also are prevalent.

Houston is a LONG drive, starting with Katy and continuing 45 miles of just pure traffic.  Just for fun, they tossed in about 15 miles of construction just before Katy...oh how fun!  As we neared downtown Houston with five lanes going east, a car just a little in front and to the left of us lost its retread tire...not the hub, just the retread part.  It rolled and bounced all the way to the right wall where it stopped, and the four or five cars and trucks all missed it.  The car pulled all the way to the left where it stopped.  HOW this did not cause a wreck is anyone's guess.  My first impression seeing this tire rolling along/across the Interstate was that someone lost a complete tire, and expected to see a car sparking along the Interstate headed toward someone's car...but it was not the case, just the tread.  Never heard anything like this happening before!  About 2 miles later we come across a car which is parked perpendicular to the left wall, front and rear dented (especially the front since it hit the wall), and no other cars stopped.  OUCH!  By the way it looked, it all happened just a minute or two before we arrived.  I hope no one came along in that left lane and hit them...

Finally we make it to the Bayou Bend RV Resort around 2 pm, in Baytown, Texas.  It is a Passport America park, $25 a night.  It is only 7 years old, and in real great condition.  Nice individual bathrooms, each with private showers.  A large laundry room, nice pool, all concrete pads with room for the car to be parked next to the motorhome.  Grass separates each site.  We are staying two nights to try and rest and recoup for the long haul into Florida.  I will post pictures tomorrow of today's trip and of the park.

Is Everything Big in Texas?

As we were driving to Houston last Sunday, we stopped at the Welcome Center on I-10 just over the boarder from Louisiana.  I decided I needed a bit of a walk and decided to use the Welcome Center’s facilities….well, that was one, long walk.  Never had to walk so far to use facilities at a rest area.  On my way back to the motorhome I came upon an older couple and I said, “When they say everything is big in Texas, they are including the walks to the bathroom facilities too.”  They chuckled, as did I as I headed back to the parking area.

Now you can included the dog park in this list too.  Bubba is way off in the distance left, and Skruffy is in the not so distant right.

Here Skruffy is near me…Bubba is way the heck out there.

  

But you have not seen “big” until you see the big dog area!  It is at least four times bigger than the small dog park.

And yes, it includes this big pond for the dogs to swim in!  There is even a dog cleaning station, where you can wash your dog down before you take them home.  WOW!  It is called Pawm Springs Dog Park, and it is located in Sugar Land, Texas, just southwest of Houston. 

And you just got to love this sign!

We are at a rest area along Highway 59 about 100 miles north of Houston.  On the other side of the highway about four trucks have pulled in carrying these huge windmill blades.  I have seen these things passing through Arkansas, Texas, Kansas, and Oklahoma before.  They are huge.

Yep, we found us another nice rest area to stay at.  The “RV’s” get to park along side the building, while the trucks are out further in the parking lot.

It is a nice little building, very clean, and about seven years old according to the Texas Highway website.

What do you mean you want to go back to the dog park?

Speaking of big, let me tell you a bit about the huge heart that Joy Wiese, service manager of PPL has.  Yesterday around 4 pm, just as we were returning to PPL from a shopping trip to Wally World I get a call letting us know that our motorhome is back on the pad at camp PPL, and oh, by the way, the awning did not come in as expected…..  Well, that is all I remember as I kind of blow my temper over the phone and let them know we are less than ten minutes away and I will be talking to Joy personally about this.  Well, Joy just looks me in the eye and tells me the honest story about how the supplier had not told her that it was going to be 3-4 weeks, instead of the standard 1 week, for this awning due to the special order.  I immediately see that she is telling me the truth, and now it is just “what can we do about it?”  We can come back in 2-3 weeks, or cancel it, or have it shipped to California…which is what we are doing, at their shipping expense.  We then go over what needs to be done still, and she hopes to have it ready by noon, no later than 2 pm on Tuesday.  Well, it was ready at 1 pm, they also fixed a slight leak in the toilet, have ordered a part which will be sent along with the awning, and the price was $300 less than her quote twelve days ago.  She said they were charging $150 labor to put the awning on, and that was deducted, and there were a few things she did not even charge us for.  What a nice lady, with a nice, good, big heart.

Houston–Camp PPL

Wow, what a ride this has been!  We bought our little Isata 10 days ago, drove it to Florida, got it registered, tried to get it looked at by a Ford dealership, which went array, packed it up Thursday and Friday and headed back to Houston, arriving here Sunday afternoon.

We essentially reversed our travel from Houston to Florida….staying at Flying J near Tallahassee (until at 2 a.m. the motorhome next to us still had not turned off its generator so I got up and drove another 30+ miles to a rest area, which worked out great), then to Louisiana where we stayed at the same rest area we stayed at when we left Houston nine days earlier.  Now we sit in the PPL parking lot in one of the four over-night parking places with 30 amp service. 

As we neared Houston we decided to go to a “Blue Beacon” truck wash.  We had cleaned the inside of the motorhome pretty good at one of the rest areas, and I wanted to get the outside washed down.  So here we were behind this US Army Recruiting Truck.  We had a long wait, and I sat there and admired the art work…that is when I saw it.

Do you see it?  Here, let me reverse it so you can read it better….

Why they have the word “Champagne” written on the vehicle this soldier is in is beyond me….tried doing a bit of research while we awaited our turn, but did not turn anything up on that.  Then I go in and pay, and guess what….the poor “real” soldiers are trying to pay for their wash with a US Army credit card, and it is refused.  They tried three different cards, no go….all refused.  The manager looked at them and said, “Give them a complimentary wash…”   Nice going Blue Beacon….you now you have my patronage for a long time now.

As for the bad weather….we did not have anything buy high winds on Sunday in Texas…not the first time, not the last I am sure.  We hope that we don’t hit any bad weather while we are in Arkansas, and as we travel through Oklahoma and Kansas later next week.  I do hope that my friends and family in Arkansas are safe tonight, because is does not look like it is going to be a fun night.

Got IT! Headed back to Florida

Just a very quick note....we drove away from PPL Motor Homes at 5 pm, just the time one wants to drive through the heart of Houston.  We made it to the outskirts of Houston to a Flying J around 6:30, had dinner at a Cracker Barrel a few mile further, and made it to a rest area 100 miles into Louisiana by 2 am.  After a few hours of sleep we are going to head further to Florida.  Following a good size storm, don't think we will catch it though.  Pictures later, we promise.

950 Miles, Tomorrow Will Tell If It’s Been Worth IT!

We left Holiday/Tarpon Springs area about 1 pm Sunday, arrived in Houston at 5:30 Monday evening.  The HHR drove great, getting nearly 30 mpg for the trip.  We stopped in Daphne Alabama at a La Quinta, where we will be staying here in Houston too for a few nights.  We appreciate La Quinta because they are dog friendly…even though Skruffy is now a Service Dog, we want to support those places that appreciate dogs and dog owners.  Bubba stayed back in Florida mainly because of room…we had the HHR packed with enough stuff to “Camp” in a motorhome for a couple of days if we indeed go back home with another home on wheels.

 

  

We think it will be worth it….will let you know tomorrow.