Winter 2024-25 Trip Wrap Up

We were gone 127 days. Last years winter trip  lasted 123 days.

We put 2,655 miles on the coach. Fuels costs ranged from $2.98-3.19/gallon.

We put 2,820 miles on the car. Gas costs ranged from $2.98-3.19/gallon.

After leaving Missouri we were in Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Alabama, Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma and back to Missouri.

Neither of of went into Mexico, even though we were only around 10 miles from the border. Lots of folks from the campground regularly crossed the border at Progresso. 

Thoughts about next winter. We reserved our Site for 5 months, Nov 15 - Apr 15, for next winter. The cost to go from 4 months to 5 months was only around $80. Lord willing I would like to head south around November 1, almost a full month earlier than we did last fall, and then take a couple of weeks to get to Harlingen. Leaving the campground and heading north at the end of the 1st week of April sounds about right.

It was an enjoyable trip.

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

Day 127 - Friday, April 4 - Nasty Travel Day

I wanted to leave early, in an attempt to get on the road during one of the brief intervals between showers. When I tried to start the car to warm up the transmission fluid the battery was dead, same as it was yesterday morning. (I have no idea why.) I jumped it to get it started. A good thing is that the chassis batteries are just inside the back of the coach, convenient for jumper cables when the car is hooked to the back of the coach. We got out around 7:30.

It rained almost the entire way home. In addition it was misty. In general just a NASTY travel day. We arrived home around 1:00. We got set up, in the rain and then I had to fix a water faucet that had froze and broke during the winter. Fortunately Kelsey had a cap so I cut the PEX and put a cap on it. 

When I was getting the car started this morning I noticed that the check engine light stayed on after I got it running. I was thinking about that, and the dead battery, when I noticed that the heater fan was blowing hot air out of the vents even though it looked like it was shut off. The heater controls were totally inoperative. One of the ways to reset the check engine light is to remove the negative battery cable. I took it off and left it off while I dumped our tanks, I had not hooked the sewer at the campground last night. I put the cable back on, started the car and everything seems to be working the way it should. It will be interesting to see if it starts okay in the morning.

By the time I got back into the coach I was soaked to the skin. I don't think the high was above 50 today. Tonight's low is supposed to be 44. Then a low of 40 on Saturday night, 36 on Sunday night & 32 on Monday night. Some year I'm going to get smart enough to stay south until the lows here are above 40. Its interesting that last year we also arrived back home on April 4th. This year we had to get back for a routine Doctor's appointment Kathy has on the 8th. I'm not returning to Missouri until mid April next year, no Doctor's appointment scheduled before April 20th..

Kelsey invited us over for supper so we got to tour their completed new home, Andy was out mushroom hunting in the rain. It was good to visit with her, Lydia and Nolan. Their new home is very nice.

The trip home from Lakewood in Harlingen was 1,076 miles. I will check the odometers on the car and coach and note how fare we drove when I do an end of trip report.

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

Days 125 & 126 - Wednesday & Thursday, April 2 & 3 - Travelling North

We left Victoria at 8:30 Wednesday. Kathy drove us 400 miles north during the day. We wanted to get as far north as we could before we had to drive in blowing rain. There were a few time when we needed the wipers but we were never in heavy rain. We were set up at the Choctaw Casino RV Park, in Durant, OK (population 21,000, the population of the entire county is only 49,000), by 5:30. The RV sites are #$62/night which we thought was pretty steep for a casino but we were tired and it had good reviews.

During the drive we stopped at a roadside turnout and had lunch. The other coach was there when we arrived and still there when we left. It had its leveling jacks down and a slide out. I wonder if they maybe spent the night there.

There was a lot of traffic going through Dallas in the midafternoon. PTL that I never had a daily commute in traffic like this. When I took the photo we were moving but there was also a fair amount of stop and go.

The casino facility is huge. 1,700 rooms, 77 RV sites, 7,400 slot machines, a 20 lane bowling facility, a 6 screen movie theater, 16 restaurants, 18 bars, etc. A shuttle runs between the RV Park and the casino. We took it over to the casino to get supper. We were shocked at the restaurant prices. We walked around and looked at the menus posted at the entry of each restaurant. To eat at the buffet place was $30/person. An 8 oz filet mignon at the steakhouse was $67, it was the cheapest steak. At the other end of the steak menu was a 22 oz cowboy ribeye, at $122. At the Salt & Stone the All American Cheeseburger was $20, the pan fried catfish was $22 & the 14 oz ribeye was $60. There were several other restaurants and several "fast food" places in a food court. We ended up eating Smashburgers.

Driving by the main casino building.

Set up at the campground.

A nice place to keep the kids entertained for awhile. The pool is off to the left. I didn't go over to check it out. I did check out the restroom & shower facility. It was quite upscale.

I talked Kathy into getting a macaroon from the casinos sweet shop.

During the night it rained and the wind BLEW. We pulled in 3 of our 4 slides. We heard some decent size hail hit the coach roof but thankfully there was only a little of it.

The rain let up around 8 AM and I went out and unhooked everything except the electrical. I also went to start the car to circulate the transmission fluid and the battery was totally dead. I have no idea why. I dug out my jumper cables, which are "buried" in the back of one of the basement areas, and got the car started. Kathy had been up a lot during the night and she slept in until after 10 AM. The weather forecast looked grim. We consider staying there another night and not fighting the wind and rain. We finally decided to head north and left the campground at noon. I drove the first 200 miles and Kathy took over and drove the last 70 miles. Driving in the wind was a chore but thankfully we didn't have to contend with any significant rain.

Because we got such a late start we only stopped twice, once for fuel and a second time when we changed drivers. Kathy ate a sandwich before she started driving and I had one after I stopped driving. We arrived at Coachlight RV Park in Carthage, MO (just east of Joplin) at 5 PM. It appears to be a pretty nice place for $40/night. We will keep it in mind for future travels.

Parked at Coachlight.

More of the campground.

We are 210 miles from home. Lord willing we should get home mid afternoon tomorrow, Day 127.

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

Day 124 - Tuesday, April 1 - Cuero Museum Visits

We went to Mumford's BBQ for an early lunch. The ribs and brisket were good, but a little disappointing, they weren't as good as they were either of the other times we were there.

After lunch I dropped Kathy off at the coach and headed up to Cuero, about 30 miles north of Victoria. The last time we were in Victoria I drove up to the Chisholm Trail Heritage Museum and went through it. The lady there told me that there were several other museums in the town that I should check out but I didn't have the time to do it that day.

The first place I went was the Cuero Heritage Museum, there were several different exhibits in what had once been the Post Office. The first exhibit I looked at was about the Cuero Turkey Trot. In the early 1900’s some local small farmers raised turkey’s. Since there were only a few vehicles at the time farmers would “drive” herds of their turkeys to the local processing plant in Cuero. Someone got the idea to turn the Turkey Trot into an event. The first Turkey Trot was held November 25-27, 1912. 30,000 people flocked into Cuero to watch 18,000 turkeys herded down Main Street. There was a carnival, big band dances, a football game (the local team is the Gobblers), a parade, etc. The Governor crowned the first Turkey Queen. The last actual Turkey Trot was in 1972 but I think the festival, now called the Cuero Turkeyfest, still occurs. The festival took on a Turkish theme.

Another couple of rooms were dedicated to Coca Cola memorabilia. Several old Coke machines, lots of old style Coke bottles and this outfit that a local wore, CoCo the Clown, in local parades. When I was driving around town I noted a building was once a Coke building but is now the City Hall.

Upstairs there were several rooms full of juice squeezers. There was a 206 page catalog with photos of all 1,643 squeezers. Each photo had the price the collector had paid for the squeezer. The total cost was $134,983.

Another room was dedicated to the port town of Indianola which had been wiped out by hurricanes many years ago. Reading about the military activities during the Civil War's, and the North's disregard for private property rights, when they took over the town, was interesting. Thankfully it didn't seem to be one of the typical historical revisionist museums that frequent the nation, by claiming getting rid of slavery was the primary reason the righteous northern states refused to let the seceding states for their own nation. (Delaware, a Yankee slave state voted against the 13th Amendment, the abolition of slavery; the 14th Amendment, citizenship rights; & the 15th Amendment, giving blacks the right to vote. In 1901 it finally ratified the 13th Amendment. Slavery was a horrendous, but it wasn't the primary reason for the Civil War.)

Next was the Pharmacy & Medical Museum of Texas.

They have an actual iron lung machine.

Interesting ad.

The old courthouse.

A street in Cuero.

That was enough sightseeing for me for the day. 

God is good. I pray that He bless you and yours. He has blessed me.

Day 123 - Monday, March 31 - Harlingen to Victoria

 Today we drove from Encore Lakewood in Harlingen, TX to Victoria RV Park in Victoria, TX, a little over 200 miles. We have stayed here in Victoria at least 3 previous times. They recently raised the price from $12/night to $15/night but it is still an awesome deal for a full hook up site.

Leaving Lakewood I took this photo of one of the units at the back. Note the dark line alone the skirting that shows the water level during the high water.

The following photos were taken during the first 15 miles north of Harlingen.

Below is a corn field that is partially underwater. I asked one of the guys at the campground why we have seen so much corn this year. He told me that in addition to the drought in the Rio Grande Valley Mexico is shorting the amount of water they are supposed to let enter the Rio Grande River. The amount of water available for irrigation has been reduced. Normally a lot of these fields would contain sugar cane, but it requires more water than corn.

We stopped at a rest area to eat lunch. It is TIGHT when trucks or campers are on both  sides of the road through the rest area.

The view out our window as we ate lunch. Note the sign in the middle of the photo.

Parked at Victoria RV Park, the 2nd time. We were supposed to be in Site 2. We were almost completely set up when Kathy told me that she the electricity in part of the coach was not working properly. There is no attendant at the campground so I called the office. The lady apologized and told me to move to 

Site 3. No problems with Site 3.

The view through our windshield.

Every one of the 7 or 8 nights we have stayed here we have watched the deer come out of the woods and graze in the evening. Usually we have only seen 4-8 but there was a whole herd tonight.

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

Day 122 - Sunday, March 30 - No Church Today

 Kathy went to the campground church service this morning. When she got home we headed out to go to the Cowboy Church. When we got to the exit we normally use it was barricaded because of flood waters still on the roads. We thought we would just get off at the next exit and go "cross country" to get to the church. The next exit was also barricaded. We were finally able to exit at the next exit and decided that if there was still so many roads flooded in the area we should just go back home, which we did.

Actually we did make a stop at Walmart and picked up a few groceries and then over to the Golden Corral for lunch before getting home.

It was hot and humid here today. The high temperature was a mostly sunny 91, with lots of humidity. Kathy walked over to the puzzle room, took apart the last two puzzles she had put together and put them away. I sat inside in the AC and read.

In the late afternoon I went out, dumped our waste tanks, added some more water to our fresh water tank and put away our outside furniture. Dennis & Geri, neighbors behind us, were out and I went over to tell them we were leaving tomorrow. They, mostly Dennis, sit outside a lot. Lots of people stop and visit with them as they go by, walking, biking or in golf carts. They spend 6-7 months in their small manufactured home here, the only one in the campground. During the summer months they live in their cottage on a lake in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. If we are able to go back to the UP this summer we will give them a call to and go out to eat some night.

A little later Jim & Deb (Jim is the campground Pastor while down here) stopped by to say goodbye. They spend about 7 months here. They bought a park model unit last fall. They live in their 5th wheel when they aren't down here. Their "home base" is in Kansas but they also do some travelling during the summer months.

Lord willing the plan is to head north tomorrow.

God is good. I pray that He bless you and yours. He has blessed me.

PS. Before we headed off to church I was reviewing the notes I took last Sunday. Romans 8:27-31 was some of the Scripture.  Chris asked us to remember the story most of us are familiar with, two boys arguing and one says, "I'm telling my Dad and he can whip your Dad." The point he was making was why don't I/we spend more time sharing our joys and problems with our heavenly Father? Is it because I/we don't truly believe He is capably of "whipping" that which is plaguing me/us? 

Days 120 & 121 - Friday & Saturday, March 28 & 29 - Lots of Flooding

 From 10PM Thursday night to 4 PM Friday 21" of rain fell on the Harlingen area. Below are some photos of the campground. The water level had dropped by about 3" when I took these photos.

All the flooding was on the north side of the clubhouse. I don't think anyone actually had water inside their units, but it was close. We are on the south side of the clubhouse. There was minor ponded water in low spots, but no flooding.

While it was raining we had a 20 mph wind, with 30 mph gusts. We had a few drips inside where water blew under one of our slide roof seals, but nothing significant. Our biggest problem was our refrigerator quit working. A hard driving rain can trip a sensor on the back of the refrigerator. It happened to us once before. The relay that trips is totally enclosed in plastic. You can reset it with a strong magnet. The magnets we had were not strong enough to reset it so I thought I would go to the hardware store and buy a stronger one. Before I got to the first significant intersection the street was covered with water. I cut through a church parking lot to get over to the frontage road that runs along the interstate. It is one way going west. The photo is looking east. Fortunately I wanted to go west (turn left) on it. It looked like 5 of the cars in this photo had stalled out. I got back to the campground without have to drive through any significant water. I asked several of the guys at the campground and one of them had a magnet that was strong enough to reset the relay.

We had planned on heading north Thursday or Friday but when we saw the weather reports we decided to wait until Saturday. Because of all the flooding we postponed our leaving until Monday.

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

Day 119 - Thursday, March 27 - Who Has the Plans for the Ark?

Rain has been coming down almost nonstop since 10PM last night. Mid morning a person from the campground said we had received 4.9". I just looked at my Weatherbug app and it says we have received 15.45" of rain. I don't know if that is for the entire storm or for the today. Another app says 11.62" so far today and projects another 3.25" before the rain stops around 4AM. We have had a lot of 15-20 mph steady winds with some 35 mph gusts.

I don't think we will go look, but it would be interesting to see what the Rio Grande river looks like tomorrow morning.

We went to Cheddar's for supper with the campground Pastor and his wife. He drove. He drove up close to our steps to pick us up and dropped us off at the door at Cheddar's. We had jackets so we didn't get to wet. On the way back to the campground you drive through a nice residential neighborhood. For most of the way only the center 8' of the street was not covered with water. From maybe 300' the street was completely under water and the water was over the curb on both sides.

Kathy has gotten a couple of texts from campground residents. One lady noted that two sites at the far end of the campground are now under water. Another, who lives in a park model trailer, said the the water was up to the top of the first step to get into her unit. She said it was touching the bottom of her car.

Our refrigerator quit working a couple of hours ago. The error message is one that indicates a safety relay has tripped. The issue can be caused by driving rain. It happened to us once before and I reset the relay using a magnet (found the trick on the Internet). During a short break in the rain I went out and tried it but the relay would not reset. In the morning I will try drying the back of the refrigerator with a hair dryer and try resetting it again. I had to wade through 1-1.5" water to get from our door around to the refrigerator access panel. Most of our site is several inches above the roadway and the road seems to be draining well in front of our site.

We are under the red dot. This was a display of lightning strikes at 5:23AM. If I had done another screenshot at 5:30PM there were even more strikes in or area. 

Rainfall intensity display from this morning.The most intense rainfall is centered over south Padre Island. The blue icon points at us.

Rainfall intensity at 6:45PM.

I get an Emergency Flood Warning notification on my phone, from the National Weather Service, about every 90 minutes. People are warned to stay off the roads unless they are fleeing flood waters or in and evacuation area.

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

Days 117 & 118 - Tuesday & Wednesday, March 25 & 26

 Tuesday morning I went back up to the Cowboy Church and helped with the announcers stand.

This will get sided, for storage, and this level will get a plywood floor. A roof will be added above this level. The high for the day  was 88 degrees. It was hot and humid. The guy on the left is Manuel, he works at the Ranch. The guy on the right is Marty. He is another Winter Texan who attends the Cowboy Church. He and his wife are at a different campground down here. Up north they live in Michigan's "thumb".

This is looking the other way at the arena.

These are the sorting pens on the other side of the announcers stand.

Neither Kathy nor I remember seeing corn down here when we have been here before. Maybe we have left before it came up. This is a field next to the Cowboy Church. On our way back from the flea market on Wednesday we saw a field with knee high corn.

Today we went over to the DonWes flea market and bought a couple of bags of grapefruit and a bag of onions to take back with us. The "Veggieman" was almost sold out of grapefruit. Probably a lot of us Winter Texans stocking up before heading north. It rained big time, for down here, while we were at the flea market and when we got out of the car for lunch. We got soaked. The flea market is in Donna, TX about 20 miles west of us. When we got back to the campground it had not rained at all. We did get a very brief light shower in the afternoon.

Tonight was our last potluck dinner down here for the season. There were probably only about 35 people. Again, lots of folks have already headed north. All the food was not on the tables at this time, there are always leftovers for folks to take home.

We had planned to leave tomorrow or Friday but with rain and winds in the forecast for both days we decided we will wait and leave on Saturday.

God is good. I pray that He bless you and yours. He has blessed me.

Days 115 & 116 - Sunday & Monday, March 23 &24 - Cowboy Church

 Sunday Kathy went to church at the campground and then we both drove up to the Cowboy Church for the service. There were actually some empty seats, winter Texans are heading home. Kathy went over and worked on a puzzle in the afternoon. I spent some time on the treadmill, and doing a little bike riding.

Monday - Kathy led here 8 AM Women's Bible Study and came home. I went up to the Cowboy Church and helped work on the new announcer's stand for the arena. We started at 9:30. I wore out by 12:30 when we stopped for lunch. Manny & Marty were going to work more in the afternoon. I plan on going back up tomorrow morning.

Kathy & I went to a late lunch at Cracker Barrel. We had not been to one for a LONG time. I ordered a breakfast and it was fine. Kathy was disappointed in her meal. After that we stopped at Walgreen's to pick up a prescription for her and to order one for me. We stopped at Walmart on the way hope, to do some grocery shopping.

After all the recent wind, causing dust to blow around, our car was filthy. I washed it in the afternoon.

Today's high was a partly cloudy 86 degrees. 

PS. Please pray for my 70 year old cousin Jeff. His parole request was turned down again, I think for the 4th time since December 2019. Jeff is serving a 20 year sentence for shooting and killing the married man he found in bed with his estranged wife on Christmas day 2009. He also wounded his wife. He went out and sat on his front porch and called 911. He has been incarcerated since that day.

God is good. I pray that He bless you and yours. He has blessed me.

Days 112, 113 & 114 - Thursday, Friday & Saturday, March 20, 21 & 22 - Not Much Happening

Thursday we didn't do anything memorable. Friday we went to CiCi's Pizza for lunch. Kathy really liked their BBQ chicken pizza. The pepperoni was the only pizza that I tried. It was okay, but nothing special. They did have a nice salad bar.

One of our undercounter fluorescent lights quit working. I checked the bulbs and they were okay so I'm assuming the ballast is bad. We had a ballast go bad in our other coach and I bought an LED bulb that replaced the 12" fluorescent tubes, but I had to bypass the bad ballast that made the florescent tubes work with 12v DC. The LED's used 12v. After I installed the LED tubes I bought some LED strips that I was going to use if another fixture went bad, none did. I think I still have the LED strips back in Centertown. 

To get at the wiring on this fixture I had to drill out some pop rivets to get it apart. After lunch we went over to Johnny's Hardware and I bought some small bolts to use to reassemble the fixture. I was disappointed, Johnny's didn't have the LED tubes nor LED strips. I think I will just wait until we get back home to see if I still have, and can find, the LED strips that I bought 10 years ago.

I love going to Johnny's. They didn't have the LED lights but they do have interesting stuff.

Some of their ammo and reloading items.

And some of their guns.

They also have a fair amount of fishing equipment. Awesome for a hardware store.

I think we have set March 28th as the date we are going to start making our way north. The plan is to arrive back in Centertown somewhere between April 3rd & 6th.

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

Day 111 - Wednesday, March 19 - Hidalgo, TX

 Today we drove over to Hidalgo, TX so that I could go through the Hidalgo Pumphouse Museum. The trip is faster if you take I2 over to Pharr, TX and then drop down to to Hidalgo but we chose to take US281 which runs closer to the  border. It was a 41 mile trip, driving time close to one hour. 

Reminiscing - In the 70's, when we lived in Park Forest, a suburb on the south side of Chicago, I used to come to a couple of cities on the east side of Texas to do structural inspection work, for a couple of weeks. One year, after I was done with the inspection work, I took some vacation time and Kathy and our boys flew down down to Houston. We drove along the coast and then along the border. We walked across the bridge from Brownsville, TX into Matamoras, Mexico and said, "This does not look like any place we want to be." We turned around and walked back across. We did the same think at Hidalgo/Reynosa. We tried a 3rd time about 150 miles further along the border, in Laredo/Nuevo Laredo. At that time Nuevo Laredo was a nice town. We spent most of the day walking around on the Mexican side of the border. All three of those crossings are now listed as some of the most dangerous places for US tourists to cross into Mexico.

The Hidalgo Pumphouse was built in 1909 to provide commercial scale irrigation water to the area. The pumps were run by steam engines that were initially fired with mesquite. Additional pumps were added on a regular basis until eventually the Pumphouse had a peak capacity of  350,000 gallons/minute. One "factoid" posted on the wall said that it takes one million gallons of water to produce one bale of cotton. In 1983 the Pumphouse was finally shutdown when it was replaced by a new facility with electric pumps.

You could do a self-guided walking tour of the facility.

The grounds around the Pumphouse were quite pleasant. Kathy wasn't interested in going through the Pumphouse so she walked around the grounds a little.

By the time I finished exploring it was time for lunch. We headed over to the Black Diamond BBQ, a few blocks away.

We both ordered brisket sandwiches with green beans and mac and cheese for sides. The food was excellent.

Across the street and down the block a little was the old courthouse. We didn't go down to see if it was open.

Below are some photos I took as we traveled back and forth. The wind was blowing and there was a lot of dust in the air.

The border wall and onions. We saw thousands of acres of onions, and a lot of cabbages.

Border crossing at Pharr, TX.

More border wall and onions. 

Harvesting onions.

Entrance for the Rio Gun Club south of La Feria, TX.

When we got back home we went grocery shopping. It was a full day.

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