Tuesday, January 31st - Nasty Weather...for down here

 I know a lot of you would be glad to trade the weather you are experiencing with outs, but this is nasty for here. It was a damp 41 when I got up this morning. It was cloudy and misted rain all day. The high was 44. At 8PM is it 41. Tomorrows forecast is drizzle and a high in the mid 40's.

This morning Kathy went to a women's Bible study being held in the Craft Center, less than a block from us. I got some exercise with a 2.1 mile walk around the campground.

We went to a nearby restaurant, the Lighthouse Seafood Market, for lunch. I had fish (tilapia) and Kathy had their shrimp soup. 

My 2 big pieces of fish were good. Kathy really liked her soup.

After lunch we went to the Costco in Pharr, TX. It is only 15 miles from us but because we chose to drive business 83, rather than the Interstate, it was an interesting 40 minute drive. 

Kathy had read about the Texas Citrus Fiesta in Mission, TX. We knew the festival was over but we thought they might have something similar to a museum to look at. It is in Mission, TX, another 10 miles and 15 minutes. All we found was an office. After that it was back home in the drizzle.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

Monday, January 30th - Cooler, PTL

 The overnight low was a humid 70. PTL for AC. Todays high was 84. At 9PM it is down to 50.

I walked to the fitness center around 8AM, a half mile from us, and back around 9AM. The temperature and humidity (dew point) was above the comfort level, but it wasn't bad. Mid afternoon both the temperature and humidity started dropping. By 4PM all the folks walking by were still wearing shorts but they were also wearing coats.

Kathy walked around a little but other than my trip to the Fitness Center we stayed home. I washed the car soon after I got back and both of us took naps (siestas😀) after lunch. The AC stayed on, running occasionally, until around 4PM. 

Below is a photo of the street I walk up and down to get to the Activity Center. 

There are single wide and double wide units, most with additions and carports. I picked up a For Sale circular, just curious, I'm way to cheap for a place this expensive. The mobile homes that have sold in the last year range in size from  size 400 sq ft park models to 16x72 mobile homes. Prices ranged from $20k for a 400 sq ft park model to $65k for a 15x67 unit built in 2018. The kicker is the lot rent. It starts at $800/mon, on a yearly basis, for a smaller lot. The rent includes water and sewer but electricity is not included. Taxes on one of the smaller units is around $400/yr.

A guy who was walking by saw our MT plates and asked where we were from. We explained that our home base was central MO. He was born and spent his teen years in Canada before moving to MT. He spent 40 years living in MT, and has dual citizenship. Because of his post retirement Canadian health benefits (similar to our Medicare) he has around 6 months a year in Canada. He spends 6 months in Ontario and 6 months down here. He said he leaves is AC on during the summer because of the high heat and humidity. He sets the thermostat at 85. He said his monthly summertime electricity bills run close to $150.

God is good. I  pray that He blesses you and yours.

Sunday, January 29th - HOT!!!!

 It was very warm yesterday, and more humid than what we were used to at Cathedral City, but it was windy enough that it wasn't to bad. The overnight low was a relatively humid 69. 

We had planned on attending the 8:30 Cowboy Church service at the Activity Center and then checking out the 10:00 non-denominational service that was supposed to be held at the Craft Center. Kathy was feeling a little poorly and didn't feel like going to the Cowboy  Church service. I went and was a little surprised at the attendance, there were well over 100 people. I sat next to a couple who are here from Ontario. There appear to be quite a few Canadians who spend the winter at the campground. 

It was an all around good service. I enjoyed the country flavored old hymns. The Pastor started preaching through James last week. His son, a pre-teen, ran the projector(?) putting the words to the songs and the scripture on the screen. After the service here the Pastor leaves for an 11:00 service at his home church in Santa Rosa, maybe 20 minutes from here.

I bought a couple of tickets, from his son, for a chili and corn bread lunch after the Santa Rosa service next Sunday. Its a fund raiser for the youth. I don't know if we will go but no offering was taken and I thought it was the least I could do. There was a line of people buying tickets. The two I bought were 55 & 56 on the sign up sheet.

I picked up Kathy and we went looking for the other service, we didn't find it. We will have to get some better information during the week. No matter whether we attend it or not next week I will attend the Cowboy service.

The temperature just kept going up, and it was humid. It was very windy again today but with a high of 87 degrees and lots of humidity no amount of wind could make it comfortable. Mid afternoon when we turned on the AC the temp in the coach we well into the 80's. Both of the AC units ran for hours before getting the temperature and humidity back down to a reasonably comfortable level. 

The amenities at this campground are much nicer than at the campground in Cathedral City, but the the temperatures and the scenery (snow capped mountains) there were much nicer. It is still 75 degrees here at 8:15. Tonights low is supposed to be 69. Tomorrows high is forecast to be 80, but then the highs are only supposed to be low 70's and high 60's the rest of the week.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

Friday & Saturday, January 27th & 28th - Rain & Wind

Friday - It misted rain the entire day. We went to the grocery store in the morning but got back in time to go to the Farmers Market. I mentioned that this was a big place. Below is a photo of the "Resort" map.

Below is a blow up of the right center section of the plan above. Don't know if you can make out  the numbers but we are in site 2166.

I took the photo below standing at the end of our "driveway". The Friday morning Farmers Market is in the background, just above Kathy's head. The building on the right is the 2 story craft center. They have a great woodworking shop. Lots of tools. $10/wk or $30/mon to use all the tools. 

The first time over we only bought 3 grapefruits. Back at the coach I ate one of them, it was excellent. I went back over and bought 3 more grapefruits, a bundle of onions and 2 red peppers. The grapefruit were 3 for $2.

The pool room.

Sidewalk between the in and out lanes of Victoria Palms Blvd.

Saturday - It was warmer, 79, and WINDY.  We considered turning on the AC. On Saturday afternoons the different Activity Clubs set up tables in the Ballroom so that you can get an idea of all that is available.

My  Old Testament reading for today included Isaiah 43:22-24. God is speaking to the Israelites, thru Isaiah. He says that they have wearied of Him. I wonder if I have "wearied" of Him when I'm in my "got to" mode. I to often need to pray Psalms 51:12.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

 

Thursday, January 26th - A Slow Day

 We didn't do much today. The sun was out for a little while early this morning and then the clouds rolled in. The low temp last night was 40 and today's high was a cloudy, breezy 61.

I walked around part of the campground, a little over 2 miles just walking to the front gate and back. It is a BIG place, over a thousand sites. The main activity center has a good sized library, a large heated pool, a large hot tub, a fitness center with numerous bikes, steppers, resistance weight machines, etc. Not nearly as much as the YMCA in Jeff, but plenty of equipment for a good workout. The three card rooms with multiple tables were interesting. Some of the tables in each room had recesses to hold chips. The pool room has nine nice tables. The second activity center has an area for wood carvers and wood workers. There are lots of tools available for a $10/wk or $30/mon fee. I didn't go upstairs but was told that there is a sewing center up there.

We are diagonally across the street from the maintenance building. Kathy said that if the people put on helmets it would look like Fraggle Rock. There is a steady stream of golf carts pulling trailers running up and down the street.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

Tuesday & Wednesday, January 24th & 25th - San Antonio and Donna

 Tuesday - We didn't do much all day. We did go out for hamburgers at Tom's. It was close enough to the campground that we could have walked, although we would have had to wade through a lot of puddles from the overnight rains.

The burgers were big, and good, but not great. I liked the onion rings but Kathy didn't care for them (more for me to eat 😀).

During the late fall of 2012 I spent around 6 weeks volunteering at Messiah's Ranch, about 15 miles from Bryan, TX. It got below freezing several nights while I was there. The guy who ran the campground hung plastic grocery bags full of leaves on the hose bibs. I guess plastic bags stuffed with plastic bags also works. It must be a Texas thing. This hydrant was at the restaurant.

Wednesday - Last night the wind BLEW. We pulled in our biggest slide because we were concerned that the slide topper might be damaged. I don't think either of us slept all that well. By 9:45 we were packed up and headed south. It was 250 miles from Braunig Lake RV Resort, just south of San Antonio, to Victoria Palms RV Resort in Donna, TX. We are about 7 miles from the border. Traffic was light. We stopped at a rest area south of Falfurrias for lunch. According to our Garmin GPS it was 1,508 miles from Cathedral City to Donna. Google maps says we are 1,063 miles from Centertown, if we drove straight home at the end of our month here, which we won't.

 Below is a photo of us parked at Victoria Palms. After getting set up Kathy did some reading and I took a nap. Tomorrow we will check the place out. it is big. Lots of permanent housing, on very small lots. 

We got a deal, less than $400 for a month, hoping to entice us into coming back next season. 

They have 4 levels of sites, based on size and pull thru or back in; Value, Standard, Pull Thru & Premium. Ours is a Standard site. It normally rents for $66/night, $406/week & $874/982/1,090/1,031 per month for Dec/Jan/Feb/Mar. Seasonal rates are $2,877 for 3 months, $3,408 for 4 months, $3,925 for 5 months & $4,362 for 6 months. It looks nice, but not that nice.

I got us mostly hooked up before putting the awnings out. The sun was warm. As I was finishing hooking up the utilities Kathy said, "The refrigerator isn't working." My first thoughts were, "That will be a pain.", followed by the thought, "This may work out OK, especially if we get a new refrigerator paid for by the Service Contract.". I checked the circuit breaker for the fridge and it was fine. Neither the LED's on the door nor the light inside the refrigerator worked. I took the access cover off that allows you to get at the back of the unit. I wiggled some connections but it didn't help. I was about ready to call a local RV repair place but felt the pressure to relieve myself of some of the coffee I drank on the way here. The toilet has an electronic flush, it didn't work, neither did the lights nor the exhaust fan in the toilet room. Back to the fuse block to learn that the fuses looked good. Now I'm really puzzled. Kathy then saved the day. She was just coming in the door and said, "Maybe we bumped the 12 volt switch by the door." She flipped it and all was well. Below is a photo of the panel of switches by the door. When I put out the door awning and the main awning I hit the "12 V DISC" switch. The switch cuts off ALL 12 volt current in the coach. The switch makes sure that nothing is drawing power from the coach batteries when you store the coach. 

I still have a lot to learn about RV'ing😀.

Tonights low is forecast to be 46. Tomorrows high is forecast to be a sunny 65. By afternoon it will definitely be shorts and tee shirt weather. Donna's latitude is almost the same as Naples, FL, so we are definitely down south.

A couple of days ago part of my old Testament reading was Isaiah 29:13-14. The New Living Translation reads, [13] And so the Lord says, “These people say they are mine. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far away. And their worship of me amounts to nothing more than human laws learned by rote. [14] Because of this, I will do wonders among these hypocrites. I will show that human wisdom is foolish and even the most brilliant people lack understanding.” The Message paraphrase reads, [13] The Master said: “These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their hearts aren't in it. Because they act like they're worshiping me but don't mean it, [14] I'm going to step in and shock them awake, astonish them, stand them on their ears. The wise ones who had it all figured out will be exposed as fools. The smart people who thought they knew everything will turn out to know nothing.”

The verses spoke to me when I read them but I often have to let things roll around in my head before they start to gel. I wonder how much I'm like the the people in these verses. All to often I consider my prayer time and Scripture reading a "got to", not a "get to" time. Thinking about this brought to mind Psalm 42:1 & 2, [1] As the deer pants for streams of water, so I long for you, O God. [2] I thirst for God, the living God. When can I come and stand before him? (Don't be thinking, that Bert sure knows a lot of Scripture. While I remember the words to Psalm 42:1, because of the hymn, I had to Google them to find the actual Scripture reference.)

I woke up from my nap thinking that my level of worship is so incredibly pitiful compared to what God truly desires of me. At the same time I was thinking, and yet He loves me anyway. I do long to know Him better, but my flesh is so weak. Thankfully He loves me as I am. I can't earn more love from Him.

God is good. I  pray that He blesses you and yours.

Monday, January 23 - Riverwalk & Alamo

It was cool, low 50's, cloudy and windy this morning. We drove into San Antonio, about a 20 minute drive, to see the Riverwalk and the Alamo. There was a little sun, but glimpses of it were brief. 

The start of our walk along the river.

Lots of interesting water features.

I'll forgo comments on these ducks. It was cute watching them eat.

Not many  people there when we first arrived. 

An old bridge, I can't help myself, it was great.

The old style truss with rivets, rods and big pins was awesome.

An interesting column supporting a stairway.

The Alamo. We didn't go inside the church. We went through it when we were here in the 70's. We did stroll around the grounds. Note the 2 Rangers near the center of the photo. They were in that same spot when we entered and when we left. They  must provide security.

This oak tree below has an interesting story. In the early 1900's a San Antonio resident named Walter Whall, a retired English seaman, started a business moving mature trees. With just simple tools he would dig them up and use a block and tackle setup to load them on a wagon. Mules pulled the wagon to the where the tree was to be replanted. In 1913 this oak tree was estimated to be 40 years old when he dug it up. Mr. Whall moved it to this location on the Alamo grounds. The circumference of the base is now over 12' and its branches sprawl over 50'.

On our way back to the car, along the Riverwalk, we stopped for a very chilly lunch at a restaurant with outside seating. The food was good but it got cold before we could finish eating it. I had to go back up on the street to "feed the parking meter". so that we had time to have lunch.

We parked on the street when we arrived downtown. You had to walk to a kiosk to pay. You got a "ticket" that showed the expiration time. You put it on your dash. There was a guy feeding lots of coins into the machine when I walked up (it wouldn't take his credit care, it cost $3.60 for 2 hours, the maximum time.) He and his wife were parked close to us and on the way back I commented on his Oklahoma license plate. Each year on their way south they stop and spend a little time in San Antonio. They are headed to a campground about 20 miles from where we are going. He told us they always walk into Mexico, at Progresso, when they are down here. He said he would not cross at Brownsville/Matamoros or McAllen/Reynosa. 

When we were down here in the 70's we walked across the bridge at both Brownsville and McAllen. Even then we didn't feel comfortable at either place. We turned around and walked back across the bridge. We did cross at Laredo/Nuevo Laredo and felt very comfortable. We spent several hours walking around the markets. I have read that Nuevo Laredo is now a very dangerous place.

Then it was back to the coach for the rest of the afternoon.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

Sunday, January 22nd - Fort Stockton to San Antonio

It got down to 22 degrees last night. Glad I unhooked our hose.

Part of the morning ritual on a travel day is to start the Flex and let it run for awhile to pump oil through the transmission. The battery was so dead that I had to dig the key out and use it to manually unlock the door. This the 2nd morning that this has happened during this trip. Both  times after 2 days of travel without unhooking it. I always start it and let it run for 4-5 minutes when we stop for lunch. The first time it happened I though maybe it was because I didn't unplug the brake unit overnight. This time I had unplugged everything the both nights. It isn't a huge problem, just an inconvenience. The coach chassis batteries are in the engine compartment so it is easy to hook up jumper cables. In the future I will make it a point to not store them where I have to unload a bunch of tools to get back to them. Also, the coach alternator is supposed to charge the Flex battery while they are connected. I need to do some diagnostic work. All went well after that.

It was 324 miles from the campground in Fort Stockton to Braunig Lake RV Park on the south side of San Antonio. We are 1,274 miles from the campground in Cathedral City, 233 miles to go to get to Victoria Palms in Donna, TX. I didn't drive any yesterday but today I drove the "middle stretch", about 140 miles. We arrived around 5:30.

We drove through an area with dozens of windmills on the hilltops. Only around half of them were turning. We did see oil wells pumping away during today's drive.

Parked at Braunig Lake. The folks in the Class C next to us pulled in just as we were setting up. Their home base is Kansas City, KS. They are here for a week before heading south to an area close to the border.

This appears to be a nice campground. There isn't much room between campers, especially if both have slides out. The staggered parking does allow each unit to enjoy the grass and open space in front of the adjacent unit.

Looks like one of the previous tenants forgot to take their tow car  out of park when they started to drive away.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

Saturday, January 21st - Anthony, TX to Fort Stockton, TX - 280 miles

 The overnight low in Anthony was 24 degrees last night. I'm glad I unhooked our water. Today's high, as we travelled, was in the mid 50's. It was windy all day.

Some of the interchanges in El Paso look like they should be in LA.

Taken while on I10 in El Paso. All the buildings you see are in Mexico.

I wonder if the fence in the photo below is the "border wall"?

As you are driving along you begin to wonder how you are going to get over the mountains.

Then you see the road curve toward an area where they aren't as high. Soon thereafter see a sign for a "slow lane" ahead. Then you climb from 4,100' to 4,600' in 4 miles. Most of todays miles were at elevations over 4,000', a fair amount was on mesas over 4,500'.

An "inspection station". All commercial traffic was  routed down the lane on the far right. All other traffic was routed down this lane. Under the roof  there were several Border Patrol agents in kiosks. You had to stop and talk to one. A sign said everyone was to have their ID papers available. Our agent just asked if everyone in the RV was a US citizen, Kathy said yes and he waved us through.

A utility company was adding large concrete poles, in a very rural area. I'm not sure why it took all these bucket trucks to work on one pole.

We stopped for lunch at a rest area. I had not run our generator for well over a month. Onan recommends running their generators for an hour a month, under 50% load. We didn't really need any heat but it was cool in the coach. I figured this would be a good time to run ours. I fired it up and started turning on things to load it. I turned on the water heater and both heat pumps. The Kathy started turning things on. She plugged in the Bunn coffee maker, her teapot and started the microwave. I bet that the refrigerator was also running. All of a sudden we lost the AC, even though the generator was still running. We learned that we can overload our 8 KW generator and trip the breaker on the generator. I shut the generator off. After we got to the campground I  pulled it out, reset the breaker and started it up. Everything worked fine.

Parked at Fort Stockton Resort & RV Park. This place is perfect for what we want for an overnight stay. $35/night, all taxes included, for a level site with good access in and out. The WiFi is decent and DirecTV is included. It is NOT a resort. We had about a foot to spare before one end would have hung out in the road.

 

There appear to be quite a few long term residents. All around the perimeter of the park are roofed areas for parking RV's, 94 of them. I assume the main purpose is to provide shade during the hot summer months. There are also 105 "open" sites.

The window AC unit in this trailer is an alternative to the mini split I mentioned yesterday. I've never seen a travel trailer with so few windows.

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

Friday, January 20th - Day 50 - Tucson to Anthony, TX

 It did get below freezing in Tucson last night but we did not get a hard freeze. I knew I would worry about it during the night so I disconnected our water line and we used onboard water during the night.

We left the Pima County Fairgrounds a little after 10, 300 miles later we pulled into the Road Host RV Park in Anthony, TX a little before 5. No problems with traffic eastbound. I actually did half the driving today, a first. 

We were getting a little concerned. I had not made reservations at a campground. I didn't think there would be a lot of camping going on with overnight lows in the high 20's & low 30's. We started calling when we were about 40 miles from Anthony. The first 3 places were full up. It turned out OK, I probably would not have found Road Host otherwise. It isn't fancy but they have large pull thru full hookup spaces for $36/night, incl taxes. One of the places that was full charges $48/night. It has a heated pool and hot tub but I bet not many are using them at these temperatures. 

We were at elevation 3,000 when we left the fairgrounds. We climbed to 4,200 in the first 30 miles. During the next 6 miles we dropped down to 3500 then climbed to 5,000 during the next 16 miles. The huge flat plains (mesas?) at elevations around 4,000 are quiet interesting. The scenery was beautiful, again. 

We say many acres of pecan and pistachio trees along I10. There are over 4,000 acres of pistachios trees in the area. There are 26,000 acres of pecan trees in AZ with 14,000 acres of them in bearing production. We also saw a vineyard and winery along side some of these trees, at elevation 4,350'.

We stopped for lunch and topped off our fuel. Fuel was $4.09/gal. Yesterday I paid $3.02/gal to fill up the Flex. Note the trailer in front of the white semi trailer.

It was quite colorful. I didn't notice the overloaded truck until I looked at the photo.

We had filled up before heading into CA, on Dec 19th. Today we filled up in San Simon, AZ, about 380 miles from the CA/AZ line. We had driven 635 miles in hilly, windy conditions, and got 7.8 mpg. Even topping off the tank costs a lot but it is nice to have this kind of range. It took 81.8 gallons to fill up our 150 gallon tank.

We stopped at a rest area about 30 miles from the Texas line. Note the roadrunner sculpture. It was WINDY, all day.

Parked at Road Host.

I took a walk around the campground to get a little exercise. Below is the view from the back of the campground.
 

It is obvious that a fair amount of the people here are long term residents (monthly?). This is the first time I've seen a mini split unit hooked up for an RV.

I wonder what this hauls. It is a flat bed.

I wasn't watching the scenery as I was walking and I just missed the sunset. The sky was still pretty.

I took this photo of one of the coach front tires when I was working on the steps. I've never seen this on a tire before. I think the angled slots may be tread wear indicators.

We have decided that there is nothing here than we want to see bad enough to fight all the people in El Paso. There are nearly 900,000 people in the El Paso metro area, on this side of the border. When you add in the Ciudad Juarez metro area on the other side of the Rio Grande the population is well over 2 million, probably a little larger than the St. Louis metro area. The current plan is that we will stay overnight somewhere between here and San Antonio tomorrow night and then spend the next 2-3 nights in San Antonio before heading south to Donna. San Antonio is 575 miles from here. 

God is good. I pray that He blesses you and yours.

PS. January 17th was our 8th month anniversary of living in the coach.