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.

Near San Antonio, Shredded Tire Follow-up

After I-12 re-joins I-10 in Baton Rouge, we quickly find ourselves on the Atchafalaya Basin Bridge.  I look at this long stretch of road and wonder, “What if the tire had blown here?”

At Lake Charles we cross over the Calcasieu River Bridge.  Again, I wonder, “What if the tire had blown here?”

For many months I have been contemplating the purchase of a Tire Pressure Monitoring System like the one above from Amazon.  I have had this in my cart as a “might buy later” item…the price has held firm for months.  But this system looks like it would work well with us…the motorhome has six tires, the HHR has four.   Looks like it might be a purchase once we get to Sacramento.
Forgot to mention yesterday that when I pulled off the shredded tire, I see this metal wire hanging down from the wheel well…..it was a part of a standard clothes hanger!  Guy at Walmart felt that it was picked up by the tire on the road, worked into the tire and BAM!  The “bam” probably blew it right into the wheel well.

We are at a rest area just shy of San Antonio, where we are meeting Jim and Carol at a Cracker Barrel in the morning.  Our only difficulties today were the hard roads in a portion of Louisiana and a small part of Texas, and the Houston Traffic at 3 pm…..which was better than a few rush hour trips we have made in the past.  After breakfast, we hope to get to the west side of Texas, and into a RV park hopefully on Sunday, no later than Monday.  With all the bending and kneeling I did yesterday, I woke up to a stiff left knee again much like I had last year after planting my mom’s garden….but not as bad.  Hoping the knee will be better in a few days.