Back to the Future

Here in Boerne we feel like we belong to the world again. We have over-the-air, cable and satellite television as well as Internet. That's one of the things we missed while at Hondo. Now we can keep up to date with all the craziness in the world.

Another gorgeous,sunny day with temperatures again in the 70s and overnight lows in the 50s. This weekend saw temperatures above 80. However, even in Texas, all good things come to pass. Reality will set in this week with highs on Wednesday and Thursday only in the low 30s.

Donna found some palms here in the RV park:

Boerne, Texas

We've moved to the Alamo Fiesta RV Resort (www.alamofiestarv.com)  in Boerne, Texas.  Boerne (pronounced "Bernie"), is about 20 miles north west of San Antonio on Interstate 10.  By moving here from Hondo, we cut our travel time to San Antonio by more than half.  The sites aren't as spacious as in Hondo, but the rates are about the same.  Here we get full hookups (water, sewer, electric) and cable TV also.  We also are billed for electric separately ($0.13 per kwh).  We anticipated staying here only 2 weeks, but the monthly rate was about the same price as the rate for two weeks ($198 per week or 405 per month) plus electricity.  So it was either $396 for 2 weeks or $405 for an entire month.  The decision to stay a month was easy. 

We spent Sunday at John and Judy's watching the NFC championship game.  The game in the last five minutes was a little too close for comfort.  But the better team won.   Onto Dallas for the Super Bowl.  Anyone have tickets they want to GIVE us?

The weather here has been great.  Most days are sunny with highs at or above 60.  Temperatures fall off quickly at sunset to the mid 20s to the mid 30s.  Reminds us of mid-spring in Wisconsin.  But freezing temperatures at night create issue for our water supply.  So, after a little research on the web, we went to Lowes and bought some heat tape and pipe insulation.  We taped the heat wrap to our water hose and encased it in the pipe insulation (like swimming noodles).  The heat tape has a thermostat which turns on when the temperature becomes cold.  So far it has worked like a charm.  No more turning the water off and disconnecting the hose.  One drawback, however, is that there is a fire hazard to the hose if the hose does not have water in it.  But, we do not intend to use it if the camp ground turns the water off. 

Texas Maier Reunion

It seems wherever we go in Texas we find rain and cool temperatures.  We had heavy rain over the weekend, fog and wind.  Temperatures reached into the forties.  Yesterday was beautiful, however.   We had full sun and reached the upper sixties. Yippee!

We have had a mini-Maier reunion lately.  On Friday, we had lunch with Donna's brother, Roman, and his wife, Linda, from Lodi.  They have been in Texas for about 3 weeks with their Airstream.  They will be heading back north this week depending on the weather.  On Sunday we had dinner with Donna's sister, Judy, her husband, John, and their family, at their house in San Antonio.  They had a houseful of grand kids which provided the entertainment.  Five year old Mary made put us on notice that she had eyes in the back of her head and that we had better watch ourselves. 

Only in Texas:  in downtown Hondo there is large red barn that functions as a drive through beverage mart (alcoholic).  You drive through the middle of the barn and your selections fill up your trunk (or truck).  Milk is not evident.

Though Texas is a large and vast state, this is still a small world.  When we were in Hollister, MO, we became friendly with a couple camping near us.  They took off to southern California.  However, they did not make it that far.  They are camped right next to us in Hondo.  We did not recognize them until the woman, Jeannie, knocked on our door.  She recognized our rig.  The reason we did not recognize them is that  they have a new truck, a new trailer and no longer are interested in southern California.   Texas must have been a new awakening for them!

Hondo, Texas

Wednesday was a travel day.  Cloudy skies and cool temps (low 40s)  made for a good driving day.  We drove 325 miles  from Livingston to Hondo, Texas.  Hondo is a farming community about 45 minutes west of San Antonio. 
We are staying at another Escapee park, Lone Star Corral.  But this is a co-op park of 130 sites.  Individuals own the rite to their sites for a minimum of 5 years.  They pay up front for the site and pay annual maintenance fees.  After 5 years they can get their money back or renew their lease for one dollar a year.  The park in effect gets to collect interest on the money paid up front.  The leasees in turn are able to rent out their sites when not here to other Escapee Club members like us.  The site fee is a standard $15.50 per day plus electricity. 
Many of the sites here have small out buildings for storage but the sites are fairly uniform.  All sites have pea gravel parking, some have plantings but no grass to mow.  Maintenance on most sites is kept to a minimum.  The site that we are on has no buildings on it. 
A downside to this park is that we are on the fringe of Verizon's 3G service and I can't connect to the internet for more than a minute or two.  The park does have WiFi, but it's signal is very weak from our site.  We are experiencing the "dark ages." 

Rainbow's End, Livingston

Here in Texas the weather has changed and it feels much like early winter up north.  We had heavy rains and wind Saturday night into Sunday with temps barely reaching 40.  Today was drier, but cloudy with the high temp at 40.  Temperatures below 30 are expected tonight. 

We are at Rainbows End which is the headquarters for the Escapee RV Club. 

The park has three distinct campgrounds with full hook ups and three small areas for dry camping (no hook ups).  There are 130 full hook up sites.  There are also several long term sites as well as deeded lots.  There is everything from year round houses to normal camp sites within the park boundary.  Many of the residents have sold their RVs and live in houses within the property.

Some deeded sites are like this one with a drive in enclosure for their rig.  The owners live in the RV while getting protection and storage under the roof.

Long term sites (rentals) are similar to this with each site having a storage shed:

The park includes two shower/bathroom/laundry facilities, 2 club houses with book and video libraries, game rooms and TV lounge.  We are paying $15.50 plus electric per night with full hook ups in one of their newer campgrounds.   Weekly rates and long term rates are available. 

As the headquarters for the Escapee club,  sited here is their mail forwarding service which we use.  They handle thousands of pieces of mail and packages from UPS, FedEx and the USPS per week for members and offer to forward mail any where.   The club also offers training programs for new and experienced RVers.  

The park also has a CARE Center which is an adult day care facility providing meals, recreation and medical care for members who have medical issues which require their assistance.  Clients are able to live in their own RVs and are provided assistance as needed. 

We expect to be here only a couple days total before heading to San Antonio. 

Livingston

We made it to Livingston, Texas, this morning. The road from Marshall was much better than yesterday's trip. Much of it was at 65 mph so we made good time. 71 degrees here and brats on the grill made it feel like summer. Yes, Marn, we are on the lookout for a good spot to watch the Packers.

Traveling South

We left Hollister MO at about 9:30 this morning and headed to Texas.  The route through Arkansas (primarily highway 65) was quite a challenge with steep grades and sharp turns at the bottom of the hills requiring heavy braking.  There was not a flat straight stretch of highway anywhere--just up and down, left and right.  We also ran into heavy winds which pushed us around a bit.  After that, we managed to travel on interstates for only about an hour.  The highway took us through Hope, Arkansas (birthplace of Bill Clinton) and an oddly named town "Arkadelphia."  I assume someone from Philadelphia named it.  We took highway 59 south out of Texarkana into Texas.  This is an odd 4 lane highway with speed limits usually between 65 and 70 but which has driveways entering the highway and many stop lights.  The road travels through several small Texas towns which doesn't allow a high mileage day.  All in all, we travelled only 380 miles today but drove from 9:30 until 6:30.  We landed in Marshall, Texas, which is only 150 miles from our destination:  Livingston, Texas.  We are joining several other RVers for the night in a parking lot of a 24 hour Walmart Super Center.  Early day tomorrow.

On the Road Again

After spending a little more than 3 weeks in Wisconsin, we are back.  We experienced a blizzard and the flu (both of us) back in Wisconsin and are now in the balmy south.  Yesterday we had a rather late start from  De Forest (17 degrees)  and landed in Cuba, Missouri for the night.  We stayed at a Super 8 (not too bad) and were both dead tired.  We left Cuba this morning and stopped in Lebanon (also in Missouri) for breakfast and then on to to Hollister, Missouri (about 3 hours from Cuba).  We are back in the Turkey Creek RV park where we had been before. 

Bad news here, however.  Upon arriving here, we found our trailer batteries dead.  We needed to move the trailer from storage to a camp site.  But with dead batteries, the power tongue jack wouldn't work.  Had to back the truck close enough to the tongue to be able to plug the trailer into the truck to provide power.  No problem.  Hitched up the trailer but couldn't move it.  The truck acted as though we had the parking brake on.  It wasn't.  Checked the trailer, wheels were fine with no reason for them to be locked.  For some unknown reason, I checked out the trailer safety brake.  The safety brake is on a pull cord.  If the trailer becomes unhitched from the truck while towing, the cord (tethered to the truck and trailer) will pull a pin setting the trailer brakes so it stops on the highway.  The pin was pulled and the safety brakes were in place.  Apparently, someone had found it funny to pull the pin on us while the trailer was in storage.  This probably caused our battery failure as the brakes rely on the trailer batteries to set.  I was able to reinsert the pin and moved the trailer without a problem. 

However, the batteries were stone cold and did not take a charge.  Another trip to WalMart cured that.