Crochet Me Crazy

Note: I wrote this post in my word processing at an ealier time because I didn’t have an internet connection but I had some free time

We took off to McKinney Falls State Park on Friday for our first trip in our brand new RV. This trip was going to to be short and more of a learning experience. We ended up bringing our two neighbors kids, Hannah and Christopher, with us even though we really wanted this to be a family only trip. They needed a baby sitter for an important meeting they needed to go to on Friday night. We had promised the kids we would bring them with us so we decided we’d go ahead and bring them since our summer schedule is looking really busy and we didn’t know if there would be another opportunity for them to come with us before they start back to school.

We had a few kinks to work out over the weekend…..Backing up the RV into the site wasn’t bad at all. It was such an incredible breeze setting up compared to the pop-up! We weren’t leveled right the first night and Jeff bought a few more blocks the next day to get us a little more level. Our first irritation was that the breakers on the RV kept blowing. Every time the kids would turn on the living room TV, it would shut off. The breaker on the air conditioner kept blowing….a huge concern. Jeff was really starting to get in a bad mood. Keep in mind, Jeff doesn’t handle the stress of children near as well as I do. Then, the next surprise came when Hannah & Christopher & Alison all decided they wanted to take a shower the first night. No problem, except I didn’t realize our tanks would fill up that quick so the next morning when Jeff and I needed to take our showers, we couldn’t be the tanks were full. Our grey AND black tanks were full. So the choices were for Jeff to either hook the RV back up and haul it back down to the dump station or go buy one of those little tanks you drag behind your truck. I ended up forgetting about my shower and Jeff dropped the kids and I down at the swimming hole while he went into town to buy the tank and them make the trips to the dump station to empty the tanks. We told the kids, no more showers in the RV and boys need to pee in the woods. We were not going to empty those tanks until we left on Sunday. It took forever it seemed like for Jeff to finish and we were well ready for him to pick us up when he got done. When he came back to get us, we went back and let the kids roast hot dogs because we needed a quick meal since everyone was complaining of being hungry. Then, we set off to find the place to repel…it wasn’t long before we realized that this wasn’t the park that had the cliffs to repel off of. We racked our brained and remembere that it was Mineral Wells State Park that had the cliffs that people were repelling off of when we camped there last. We sat around another little swimming hole for a while. The water was pretty low and yucky this trip…they really need a good rain there in the Hill Country. Then, we decided to go to find this huge hollow tree that the kids had played in and we had used rocks and stuff to pile up around it to make a little fort on a past trip to McKinney Falls. When we got to it, we found that it had since fallen over but you could still see the remnants of our little fort we had made last year. Michael busied himself with climing every tree he could climb and amazed us all. We went back to the campsite and it was just about getting dark. The kids made a fire in the fire pit and played around with cooking cactus. We spent the rest of the night in the RV screaming at kids to calm down. Sunday, when it was time to pack up it was going to be interesting to see how much easier this would all be compared to the pop-up. It was wonderful! It’ll get better the more we get everything set up the way we want it. I need to get my cabinets set up so I don’t have to unpack them for travel. We emptied our tanks, and headed down the road. We made it as far as Brenham, Texas before something went wrong with the truck. All of a sudden Jeff wasn’t getting any power even though he was flooring it….the truck wouldn’t go faster than 35-40 mph. We pulled over….no warning lights were on and the engine seemed to be running fine. We drove the rest of the way into Brenham very slowly. We pulled into a Wal-Mart and unhooked the 5th wheel and went searching for an auto parts store. Jeff was going to try changing the oil filter, pump, or sensors to see if that fixed the problem. Since it was Sunday evening, nothing was open so we decided we were going to have to find a place to spend the night and get it fixed the next day. Jeff decided to call Hannah & Christopher’s parents to get them to come and get them. We didn’t have enough meals, nor did we need the added stress under the circumstances. Jeff was already maxed out at this point. We piddled around Wal-Mart waiting for their parents to get there. After they left, we up the road to Artesian RV Park on 290. They had sewer hook ups there so we wouldn’t have to worry about our tanks getting full here. Well, here it is Tuesday that I am writing this and we are still here at Artesian RV park. Yesterday, Jeff drove the truck to a mechanic and they hooked it up to the computer and finally came up with a diagnosis that it was the blower to the tune of $1100! Jeff called our mechanic we normally used in Houston and they told Jeff that was a good price…it would cost a little more through them. They advised Jeff to get it fixed here and not try to drive back. Anyway, we met a nice older gentlemen the first night we pulled in to this park. He drove Jeff down this morning to drop off the truck and they are working on fixing it now. We’ll head home this evening after they get finished with the truck.

By the way, after the first night that we kept blowing breakers in the RV….it stopped doing it. We haven’t had a breaker blow since and we are running everything. Nothing different…Jeff thought maybe it was just because it was brand new and the breakers were “breaking in” We thought we were going to have to add a 2nd air conditioner because our room was hot. I think they try to make it so you end up having to buy a 2nd air conditioner. The kids room in the back is smaller but it has 2 vents. The fantastic fan (sucks hot air out of the RV) is in the living room. Our room is bigger than the kids and has 1 vent…and it conveniently already prepped to add a 2nd air conditioner. Well, Jeff and his smart self has figured out a way around that. He cut Styrofoam plates, to cut off or restrict the flow of air enough to force the air where we need it.

We’ve enjoyed our unexpected last two nights here at this park. We met the man across the pavement from us. He and his wife full time RV. We’ve gotten some ideas and pointers from him and of course, traded tours of our “rigs”. He and his wife have been full timing for 2 years and LOVE it. There is a small playground, a pavillion with a pool table, a vollyball net, and a they have one duck here that swims in a kids baby pool…lol! Micheal likes the pool table. They have a lot of really old, beautiful trees here. The only bad thing is there is no place to swim and its hot. There used to be a swimming pool years ago that was spring fed….don’t know what happened to that. You can see where the pool used to be but has been filled with dirt and it now where the vollyball net is. Jeff is over at the pavillion on some business calls right now and I am about to go hop in the shower. I wanted to use this free time to document this trip. My neice and nephew from Arkansas are coming to our house tomorrow to stay with us for the rest of the week.