Nov 21 Saturday Windshield Screen

One of the big attractions of this area are flea markets. The DonWes Flea market has several vendors with RV parts. We arranged with the Shade Shack to have windshield screens installed. These screens block 90 % of the light coming into the RV, reducing the heat absorbed into the interior. This is a big deal on a sunny day, and a good investment.

In the morning a fellow showed up to measure the windows and returns to the shop. Late in the afternoon, he shows up with his daughter to finish the installation.

Positioning the windshield screen.

 

Installing the snap fasteners.

Not shown  here are window covers for the driver and passenger side front windows.

As part of the package deal of $275, they included wiper covers, mirror covers, and a bag for everything to fit into when not in use. Cash deal tax, included.

Passing Time on a Rainy Day

It isn't a perfect day, but it is warm. The high was 27 C and muggy.

When we gassed up in Natchez, I left the gas cap behind. So we dropped by an auto parts store (Reilly's) to pick up a new one. At the same time, I borrowed a steering wheel puller tool kit.

Back at the motorhome, the gas cap replacement was easy. Then came the steering wheel pull. Ya gotta have the right tools and this made the job go so much better. After getting the steering wheel off, I got at the culprit of my problem...the hazard lights switch which is part of the turn signal switch assembly. I was able to dismantle the switch and re-tension the switch contacts. Now we have our hazards lights working again. That little job probably saved us a few hundred dollars that a dealer/mechanic would have charged for the labor and parts.

While I was in the area, I also added a turn signal chime that dings whenever the turn signals are on. Very helpful when you are in a noisy driver's area with AC fans blowing to keep cool and the tunes are playing.

We returned the loaner tool set today and we are sitting outside the DQ checking for mail and updating the blog. Sorry...no pic of the DQ.

We signed onto a site that joins people wanting to travel into Mexico together. This is the same place run by the couple who wrote the book on camping in Mexico, that is considered the bible for RVers in Mexico.
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Rolling Homes Press publishes Traveler's Guide to Mexican Camping 

Nov 17 Tuesday

It was colder last night and the temp reads 12C at 7 AM. We use the furnace to warm up. It is now raining as I type away on the blog…off-line of course. We plan to go food shopping and look for wireless Internet this morning.

I am sitting in the parking lot of a La Quinta Inn in Alamo using their wireless service for free. Wish I could get good service in the RV park.

Nov 16 Monday Settling to Home for 2 Weeks

Our spot is next to another couple from North Bay, who have taken up the RV life full time. We learn there are others from Ottawa and Peterborough.
Since the day starts of cloud and rainy, Bev goes off to do the laundry and Vic stays to replace the sink and light fixture in the bathroom…remember the bargains we got in Elkhart Indiana? Bev’s time is quite productive as she gets to speak with the people from Peterborough and picks up some useful camping info. She also learns they have Starchoice (Shaw Direct) and they offer to help get our dish working. Later in the afternoon, we go for a walk to their campsite, only to find they are not home. The dish is visible so Vic checks the settings and quickly realizes his error. We return to our site and align the dish and voila…HDTV. It really pays to be accurate with the elevation setting. I thought I had set the dish to 59 degrees elevation, not knowing I had mistakenly set the dish to 49 degrees. The satellite I found wasn’t the right one. That also explains why we couldn’t get it set up right in Lake Corpus Christi.
The day stays mostly cloudy and tops out at about 22C.

Nov 15 Sunday Onward to the “Valley”

We get up and have pancakes for breakfast…a leisurely start, since we don’t have a long trip today.
Heading south on 281, the terrain is again pretty flat and we go through areas of heavy farming. You can see for miles. Then the farming disappears and is replaced by scrub land and mesquite trees. Then grazing cattle…but still flat. We see some “nodding horse” oil well pumps working away, and also some that are not working. We call them “napping horses”.
It is a partly cloudy day and by 11 AM the temp is up to 28.5C.
At this point on 281, the road is four lane divided highway, with a very wide grass median. They have planted palm trees along the median, so it looks quite inviting. I haven’t mentioned anything about the highways in Texas. In Ontario, a two lane highway will have a max speed of 80K or 50 MPH. In Texas, the same road will be 70 miles and hour, with paved shoulders, so traffic moves quickly. Doesn’t help me much as we only travel 60-63 mph.
We arrive in the Mission Texas about noon and start our search for a spot for two weeks. Leaving the RV in a Walmart, we will work our way east in the car looking for campgrounds. The first spot looks very nice, and has Internet service, and the rate is $300 for two weeks. There didn’t seem to be many transient sites. We move on to the next, expecting it to be noisy, as it looks by the map to be too close to the highway. It seems fine and the sites look good. The rate here is $200 for the two weeks. We move northward to a place called Casa Del Valle, in Alamo. Since it is Sunday, there is nobody in the office so we look around. We stop to chat with some people from Ontario and they spoke of the great rate they got. We go back to the office and make a call to the number posted on the door. They answered and said they will be there in 10 minutes. When they arrive, we discuss the rate. They have special pricing on for November and December and the rate is $89 per week or $200 for a month. Electricity is extra at 13 cents per kilowatt, but that shouldn’t add up to much. Since there is little difference, we opt for the month. When Bev paid the bill the next morning, the actual rate charged was only $189. Wow!
Internet service is provided by a separate provider but we get a 4 hour trial coupon. It sucks big time. The service is so slow, it is nearly unusable. If I had signed up to the two week rate of $23, I would have been really PO’d. We will look for free service outside a hotel in the area. Since leaving home, with great and reliable Internet access, I am really hurting without it. Maybe next year, we will get satellite Internet service and be more independent.
As this is Sunday, Battle of the Blades will be on at 8:00 PM Eastern so I attempt to get the satellite dish set up. Using the satellite finder, I can lock onto a good signal but the receiver won’t pick up the satellite. We miss the Battle.

Nov 14 Saturday Heading South

We really liked the Sandy Creek Park (Corp of Engineers) as it had a great setting, and good sites. Not to mention that the price was reasonable at $16. Facilities are minimal though.

Since we have a long drive for the day, we get away by 8:30 AM. We don’t see Helmut and Marg to say good-bye. The day starts out at 11C, which is promising. The first leg of the trip takes us through Livingston, then it is a southerly shot down past Houston to get to Lake Corpus Christi State Park. At Livingston, the temp rises to 22C. Nice!
We gas up in south Houston at $2.49 per gallon. Since starting on the Trace, we’ve been getting about 7 ¾ miles per gallon. At least it is better than a boat.
Since there is a Harbor Freight store not far out of our way, we take a detour, only, to find that we can’t get our rig into, and exit, the parking lot, and cannot park on the street. We will leave Harbor Freight for another day. Not that I need anything…just want to look around. Yeah right.
The terrain is mostly flat, making easy going for the RV, but there is a stiff wind jostling us.
We pull into the State Park late in the afternoon. The temp is now 28C and we are not used to it.
The Texas state parks charge per person ($4) and per campsite ($16) and that was for water and electrical hookup. Facilities are a little lacking but we are only staying for the one night. We are close enough to the Donna Texas area that we can be there within 2 ½ hours drive. That will allow us to look around for a campground and get settled before dusk.

Nov 13 Tooting into Texas

Brrr. We wake up to greet a day at 4.2C / 40F. Where did all the heat go?


When I try to hookup the break-away device for the towed car braking system, I discover that the little pull out thingy is missing. I suspect it got lost while in Natchez when the front of the car scraped the road when exiting a parking lot...funny deep curb ate it, I guess.

We stop just outside the park to fill up at $2.59…more expensive than north of us, around Nashville.

We cross the bridge on Hwy 84 over the Mississippi River and get a good view. As I said before, there is a good current flowing and you see several tree parts floating down stream.

We get a awful surprise going into Vidalia Louisiana, just across the bridge. Gas is selling for $2.39. Since we filled up with over 58 gallons, we could have saved $11.60, enough for two DQ Blizzard, and change in return!

A field of cotton

The roads are quite flat and there are lots of cotton fields. We see huge bales of cotton the size of shipping a container. Instead of dead deer on the side of the road, as in Indiana, Tennessee, etc., we now see dead possums.

We decided to cut the trip short and stopped at a Corp of Engineers campground, west of Jasper TX. Very nice place and the fee is reasonable @ $16 for hydro & water hookups, right on the lakefront. Now we need to go to a National Park somewhere and get our Golden Age Pass. That would have dropped the price to $8 per night. Bargoon!

We are right this moment sitting in the car in the Jasper Ramada Inn, mooching on their Wi-Fi. The problems we had yesterday are gone.

We haven't finalized our next leg, but it should be somewhere southwest of Houston.