Estero Llano Grande State Park and Exit Plan Update…

There are several state parks down in the southern tip of Texas and we like to visit these as much as possible. We always purchase the annual Texas State Parks Pass because it allows us to in free and also has some free camping perks. All of the State Parks in Texas are unique in that they are home to species of flora and fauna found nowhere else in the entire USA.

One park with nice trails is the Estero Llano Grande State Park which is part of the World Birding Center. We like this park because we  can enjoy a hike while also birding.

Upon arriving at the park visitors walk right up to the visitor center adjacent to a small wetland pond. Every time we have ever visited this park this pond is covered in ducks, mostly Black-bellied Whistling Ducks and this visit was no exception.

We stopped to check out all the waterfowl even spying a couple of Shoveler ducks, one of Sharon’s favorites. Also, while watching the ducks we noticed that they were becoming a bit nervous so I scoured the sky and discovered the reason why… A Peregrine Falcon was soaring high above which alarmed the waterfowl below.

We spent the afternoon hiking and birding at the park and reflected on how we have always enjoyed exploring different parts of our beautiful country. It is opportunities such as this that we know we will greatly miss once we are no longer on the road. Hopefully we will find a place conducive to our love of the outdoors which will fend off the boredom we fear in our next non mobile lifestyle.

And to provide an update on our progress of figuring out what the next chapter of our lives holds for us… alas, not much new has happened on that front. We still don’t know what we will do or where we will end up but we have eliminated a few more states and now only have 17 on our list. We are now focusing on towns in each of the seventeen states so I would assume things will not happen much faster.

We do our research independent of one another so it will be interesting to see what each of us found once we compare notes. Thankfully we have plenty of time for this decision as there is nothing “forcing” us to decide immediately such as health or finances. As long as that remains the case we will simply plug along and continue researching then perhaps begin visiting towns on our lists to see if any place feels like home. For now home is still wherever we are parked which currently is in South Texas….

NOTE: We are currently in South Padre Island TX until March 1st…

Everything is finally all fixed!!! Halleluiah!!!

As mentioned in our previous blog, we had no choice but to take our RV over to the Doggett Freightliner shop in Harlingen. Prior to that appointment I spent some time trying to solve our slide out issues. As I previously described, while trying to leave South Padre Island where we discovered the slides would not come in, I learned from a RV tech how to jump the slide relay to get the slides to work. After settling in at a park in Harlingen, I began troubleshooting our slide out wiring.

I discovered two wires not connected to anything in the compartment where a lot of our electronics are stored. One was a red wire that I was using to jump the relay with and I knew it belonged somewhere. It had a tab on the end designed to to attach to something. I was pretty sure it needed to go to the Slideout Inhibitor. However, the green wire I found had a label that said it was the Parking Brake Ground and I had no idea where it went.

The green wire had no end on it but it appeared as if it had broken off/pulled out of somewhere.  I spoke with Don Boyd at Tiffin (a fellow who has helped me out numerous times). He was able to send me an image of what the wiring for the Slideout Inhibitor was for our rig. Upon inspection it was certain where the red wire went but the green wire was still elusive. Also the picture showed a white wire attached to the Slideout Inhibitor that I couldn’t find anywhere.

Speaking with Don Boyd again we finally determined that my green wire and the white wire in the picture were the same. Therefore I attached a female spade terminal to the end of the green wire and put it where the white wire in the photo went. I also attached the red wire to where the photo showed it should be. WOW!!! The slides now all work as they are supposed to. Thanks Don at Tiffin for your invaluable assistance! I assumed that these wires were accidentally knocked out of place during our inverter installation.

The next day was our appointed time to address our other tribulations so we stowed away all of our stuff and prepped the RV for its move over to Pharr, Texas. Wonderfully all the slides came in as designed and the jacks were brought up smoothly. We began to prepare ourselves mentally for a long day awaiting diagnosis and repair at Doggett Freightliner. We started up the engine,hooked up the car and hit the road for the short 40 mile drive to Pharr, Texas.

As we merged onto the highway I became aware that the transmission was shifting incorrectly and the engine would hang at 2700 RPMs before finally shifting to the next gear. Sigh…

We managed to make it to Doggett and we checked in promptly at 8:00 am hoping to allow plenty of time to fix our woes. While there we decided to have them perform our annual preventative maintenance as well if time permitted. To take our minds off the RV problems I told Sharon we should plan a half day trip over to Benson Palm State Park about 30 minutes away and spend the morning hiking/birding.

We had a great hike where we saw lots of birds and were happy to have the distraction from the stress. On our way back to the RV to check on its progress, we made a stop at Delia's Tamales for some lunch and really enjoyed the best spicy pork tamales we have ever had in our lives. After lunch we drove back to Doggett.

After an hour I called to ask about progress and the service manager told me she had just received our paperwork from the technician and everything was now working properly. Wow, were we ever excited to hear that news. Rightfully they explained there was no charge for anything other than the preventative maintenance. It turned out our whole problem was the ECM settings were never correct, just as I thought!

Once the technician found the correct program settings for our ECM everything wrong was resolved. Halleluiah!  After paying the bill we took her for a test drive to ensure everything worked as advertised and were very pleased to report to them that all was now as it should be.

Thinking the repair would take hours (or days) to fix we had planned a stay right around the corner from Doggett Freightliner at Tip O' Texas RV Resort. We had planned only a one night stay so we could move on to our next location in Rockport Texas but after our ordeal we added another day to simply relax!. Finally our trials and tribulations are over…

NOTE:  We are currently at Angler’s Retreat in Rockport Texas… 

Finale? NOT! The Saga Continues…

Our day of departure from South Padre Island arrived with much trepidation. After all our issues after the winter storm, would everything work? What if it didn’t? Checkout was at 11 am so I got up early to prepare to go.

I packed the outdoor rugs and chairs, stowed all the power, water and sewer stuff. Sharon did her usual routine to ready the car for towing. I checked everything outside and then after going inside to pull the slides in … nothing. Slides won’t move… sigh.

Hurriedly I checked  fuses, breakers etc. and assume I have a relay problem. With no time to spare I called a mobile tech who came out to at least jump the relays to make them all come in. I fired up the engine and then the jacks won’t come up.  Really!!! Then I noticed the low power light and see the batteries weren’t ready. When the light went out the jacks came up so at least we could leave and I would figure out the slides later… oh, well.

As we start driving the RV out of the park, the first thing I notice is that the speedometer isn’t working. WTF!!! Really? Well at least I notice the engine is running fine other than it had a rough idle before we left. We continued on. Just outside of of Port Isabel we came upon a stretch of road where I was able to pick up speed.

Watching my RPM’s I knew we were going about 60 mph. I switched on the cruise control and guess what? Yep, you guessed it… it didn’t work! At least we only had 50 miles to go to our next park since I wanted to stay in the valley to be close to the Freightliner shop who worked on our rig. Now I was sure glad we chose to do that.

Before we finally got to the next park we also discovered the exhaust brake wasn’t working either. As we made our way to our assigned site at the RV park, we discover the site was nearly impossible to get into, but, we did. I jumped the slide relays to pull the slides out and had the jacks go down smoothly, so now it was time to call Freightliner back.

I called service who informed me that it would cost more to send the tech back out until I sternly reminded them their last job wasn’t done yet and simply needed to be finished. They agreed to send out a tech the next day.

Tuesday morning we saw our friendly tech, who we now are on first name basis with, especially after Sharon gave him some of her homemade apple crumble last time he worked on our RV. Anyhow he spent about three hours checking each and every ECM setting that I had Freightliner send them to doublecheck each setting in my newly installed ECM to ensure they were correct.

After uploading the new program settings to our ECM we were pleased to hear the idle was perfect with the new settings. Now we were hopeful that upon taking it out for a spin all the other issues would be resolved as well.  Unfortunately it did not happen. After several hours of more troubleshooting the recommendation was to bring it to the shop in the morning…

So here we are…

NOTE:  We are currently in Pharr, Texas at the Tip O Texas RV Park, next up Rockport Texas…  

Surviving the Big Freeze in Texas (The Finale)

With our new batteries and a new inverter/charger installed we finally had a some successful moments. Now all we needed was to receive and have the ECM installed. Freightliner found a new ECM in Arlington Texas and it was to arrive by Friday. Well Friday passed and later that day we were told if it arrived Saturday they would still come out to replace it for us even though they would be normally closed.

When I saw I had a call from Freightliner Saturday I was happy to answer it only to discover the part didn’t come in on Saturday but they were hopeful it would on Monday. We were again assured they could replace it early and we could still leave on time.

Saturday afternoon Sharon and I decided to take a break from all the stress by driving over to the Laguna Boardwalk for a little stroll to do some birding and take a few photos. That was a great idea until our 2011 Honda CRV decided not to start. Crap, what else can go wrong??? Thinking the battery might be bad I looked at it and everything looked great but I knew the battery was only fourteen months old.  Luckily we found a fellow in the park who offered to check the fuel pump out and to determine if we had spark to eliminate some things.

Everything seemed to check out but he suggested that before we dig in any further he was going to throw 50 amps at the battery and have me try again. After sputtering a bit it indeed started. We were so relieved… I drove it over to Walmart to have them check the Everstart battery. They said it was good, but I was not convinced. I told them I had problems with their batteries before and that they should consider renaming them Never-starts. After the initial failure to start we have thankfully had no further problems with the CRV

Of course the call from Freightliner on Monday was that the part still hadn’t come in. On Tuesday they called to say the tracking on the ECM was wrong and they had no idea where it was but to not worry as it should arrive soon. Again Sharon and I thought it would be wise to book yet another week if it was available just in case it was going to be a while before the new ECM found its way down to south Texas.

Late Tuesday afternoon we got a call to say the part had been found and they would came out in the evening to replace it. Finally the part was here… Our mechanic came out and installed the new ECM only to find out our engine displayed the same No Eng code and wouldn’t start. Sigh…Well he checked  several other things and discovered that the ignition relay had apparently failed as well and once it was replaced we were able to start the engine. It was joyous to see all was back to normal…. Finally!

Our trials and tribulations are finally behind us (we hope). We cancelled the extended week despite the fifty dollar penalty as we really need to get back on the road and closer to the airport to send Sharon to NC for the birth of our new granddaughter…

NOTE:  Today’s photos are from some salt flats on South Padre Island’s bayside. We are currently in South Padre Island in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas until March 8th…

Surviving the Big Freeze in Texas (Part 3)…

We were scheduled for the Freightliner Mechanic to come to our dead RV on Tuesday morning , Feb 23rd. When he called to say he could come over Monday night we were thrilled. After spending about an hour diagnosing our issues he determined our ECM was probably fried. He told us they would test it and if needed, order the part. He said they’d call to let us know what it would cost along with an estimated time the part would come in. He assured us they’d have it all done well before our departure on March 1st.

As mentioned in the previous blog I also had to order a new Magnum 2012 inverter to replace our old Xantrex Freedom 458 unit. On Sunday when I ordered it I paid the steep price for overnight shipping thinking it would arrive no later than Tuesday night so we could get it in plenty of time to install it before March first.

It seemed things were looking up, right? Well, as they say – Not so fast! Tuesday I received a tracking number for the Inverter which said I would get it Wednesday before 9 pm. Sigh… Next, when we called to check on the ECM we found out that freightliner hadn’t fully tested the ECM because they were waiting for wiring diagrams.

Wednesday came and went without any progress on either the inverter or the ECM for our RV. We now would have two more working days left before we’d be screwed since there would be no way for us to leave on March 1st without the ECM.

Thursday I am told by Freightliner that my ECM was indeed bad and a new one had been located in Arlington Texas. It would arrive on Friday. They knew we were slated to leave on Monday so they assured us they’d send the techs out Friday or Saturday to install it. Also our inverter finally arrived on Thursday as well.

When I open the inverter I see I got the wrong one. I should have gotten the Magnum 2012-20B. By getting the wrong one I would now be unable to install it myself and would need someone else to do it. We called all the mobile techs and no one could do it before we needed to leave. Finally I found an electrician (a friend of a RV mobile tech} who agreed to take on the job and had it installed Friday morning. Yes!!!

The good feelings were short lived as Freightliner called Friday evening to inform me the part did not arrive as planned and they would now come out Monday to install it. Well crap, we were supposed to leave Monday. We decided we needed to talk to the park office and beg to stay another week knowing someone else had reserved our site.

Sharon got it done for us but not before having to shed a few tears while trying to communicate our impossible situation. . I mean  without the ECM we can’t move our RV not to mention it would be nearly impossible to tow since our site is a nose-in site with trees in front and beside us. 

At least we now have another week to solve this mess.  

NOTE:  We are currently in South Padre Island in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas until March 8th…   

Surviving the Big Freeze in Texas (Part 2)…

The epic 2021 Texas cold front swept down to us in South Padre Island. With the power suddenly going out we thought, no problem, we will fire up the generator to keep warm. Well the generator wouldn’t start because the cold temperature had apparently killed our batteries. The realization came we were going to have to endure a cold night since it didn’t look like the power would be turned back on anytime soon.

The next morning we woke up to a VERY cold interior so we hopped in the car to get warm and to make a mad dash over to Harlingen Texas to purchase the last two Duracell 12 volt batteries for our coach’s chassis along with 2 Duracell 6 volt golf cart batteries to replace our house batteries.

With temperatures now in the upper 20’s outside and the winds blowing around 30 miles per hour South Texas no longer resembled the warm and cozy winter retreat we had envisioned. We hurried back to the RV park and I went outside to install the new batteries. I could only attempt a little work before my hands and face got numb so I would have to jump back into the car with Sharon to warm up by getting out of the wind.

While installing the batteries I did get a hefty spark when a negative cable inadvertently touched a positive terminal. Startling to say the least. After about thirty minutes the batteries were installed and I came back inside to see if we were had power now. As I checked out our inverter I noticed  we were unable to invert DC power into AC, Crap…

It appeared the inverter was not charging or inverting. We now had batteries but no inverter to assist our power needs. At least the house batteries were new so we would be able to turn on a little propane heat before they discharged. Finding some good winter clothes and all the blankets we own, we managed to live through another night with no power.

We were getting a little trickle of solar power on the following cloudy days to provide us a little heat before the batteries would get so low I would turn it off. With not enough power to start the generator we had yet ANOTHER cold night. The next morning the inside of the RV was 41 degrees. We had now been without power for 48 hours.

Things couldn’t be worse… Could they? Well, you might be wondering why we simply didn’t start the RV motor and use it to charge the batteries. Well, guess what? Even with the new batteries the RV wouldn’t start. I would turn the key and got nothing… not a click, not a grunt…. not anything. It simply would not start.

As I said in our part one blog about this bitter cold event, it would be many days before the power would be restored. On a freezing cold day after 72 hours with no power I called Xantrex and troubleshot our inverter only to discover that the inverter was toast. We obviously would need a replacement. No problem as I assumed I would be able to overnight one and install it the next day.

In the meantime I found a Freightliner Mechanic who would come to our dead RV and try to figure out what was wrong with it. So here we are with no power, no water, a dead inverter and an RV that won’t start. Are we having fun yet?

NOTE:  We are currently in South Padre Island in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas until March 8th…   

Surviving the Big Freeze in Texas (Part 1)…

We knew that south Texas would occasionally get a cold front that would dip way down to the southern tip and into Mexico so we were expecting a few cold days during our stay here. We got way more than we bargained for…

We have been on the road nearly 10 years and have only experienced one day with a temperature below 32 degrees when it hit 31 one morning while we were leaving the Florida panhandle in March. We hoped to never see another day below freezing. Well that worked out pretty well until this winter.

A polar vortex from the north pole broke off and headed south bringing with it sub-freezing temperatures to many folks including everyone in Texas. It was reported this was the only time in history that all the counties in Texas were under a winter storm advisory at the same time.

I’m sure many of you who reside in northern regions of the USA would scoff at the Texans and what they call cold, Well, we too, have lived in colder states in our lives and I will tell you this was a real winter storm. Wind chills well below zero reached deep into southern Texas and our son in San Antonio got about 6 inches of snow and lows in the teens.

What about us here in South Padre Island? Our low dipped down to 25 degree F. Maybe not cold to Wisconsinites or North Dakotans but with added winds blowing steady at 30 to 35 mph it made for a frosty week. As Texans endured this frigid weather they overloaded the electrical grid and our power went out at 2:00 am one night for about an hour and a half.

I got up and tried to fire up the generator only to discover my batteries were low (they were due for replacement).. As a result I had to fire up the diesel engine to charge the batteries enough to fire up the generator! Once the genny was going the gas heater came back on and started to warm us up.

I waited until the power came back on about 3:30 and went back to bed only to be awakened once again hearing beeps telling me the power was out again. A  few minutes before five with the inside temperature in the RV hovering in the 50’s I fired up the genny again. Little did we know then it would be many days before the power would be restored.

I the meantime we bundled up and let the heater do what it could to add incremental warmth to the inside of the RV. I also proactively turned on the faucets inside allowing water to drip once I realized the forecast low of 32 was going to be exceeded. We awoke to no water so I assumed they froze up anyhow…  It turned out water was out on South Padre Island as well. Sigh.

We found ourselves trying to stay warm, with no water in our RV waiting for the big thaw and praying for no damage left behind, It could be way worse as the sea turtles and brown pelicans were being rescued after suffering from temperature shock. Sadly I am sure many of the cacti and palm trees will be lost here in the park as well. To keep things as cheery as I could I posted pictures of birds from another of our excursions to the Laguna Madre Trail before the big freeze… 

NOTE:  We are currently in South Padre Island in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas until March 1st…   

2020, Recapping a crazy Covid year and the vaccine!

A year ago we were sitting in Mesa Arizona happy as clams. In less than a month the news broke that China was experiencing what could become a pandemic. By late January Covid 19 found its way to America (and likely had made it here sooner). By the end of February concern crept into our minds as to how this would affect our travel plan for the summer.

Our Arizona stay would end March 1st so we decided instead of making a trip up to Washington, Oregon and Montana for the summer it would be best we just head to Texas and “hide out” until things cleared up.  We made a mad dash to the Hill Country where I had a two week reservation on Canyon Lake at a Corps of Engineers Park.

We planned to use those two weeks to figure out where we would shelter in place. Alas, a few days into our stay all COE parks closed including the one we were staying in but a Ranger visited us to let us know those of us who had reservations could stay so as to allow us time to find alternative stays.

A few days later we had another visit where we were told that since the park was closed the management decided after realizing many of us were full-timers with nowhere else to go that we could stay in the park until it reopened. Relief!!! We had a safe refuge!

How lucky were we to be able to stay at Canyon Lake in the beautiful Hill Country of Texas while the world around us tried to figure out how to live with Covid! We fell into a routine quickly and let the days pass hoping for an end to the pandemic. As the weeks passed the management became itchy to reopen and we were told that the park would reopen in May.

We now had to make new plans. We decided that we would just move around in the more rural areas as Covid seemed to be more rampant in the cities. We worked our way through east Texas and into Oklahoma. We planned to just slowly make our way  to North Carolina. Along the way we had a surprise invitation to stay at a friend’s farm in Virginia. Again, how lucky we were to have another beautiful place to hide out.

A few months later as time rolled into September we moved on down to North Carolina to socially distance visit our daughter. While in NC we made a reservation for Key Largo hoping that by the time we arrived there things would start to ease up and we could winter in southern Florida.

As we ambled our way through South Carolina, Georgia and into Florida it became apparent that we would likely not be wintering in Florida. The Florida Governor wasn’t the least bit concerned about Covid and it seemed as most of the Florida residents weren’t too concerned either. So after our stay in Key Largo we ambled our way out of Florida and beat feet to where we decided to winter.

That brings us to where we are now in South Texas on South Padre Island! We have been here a month and feel as if we are very lucky to have chosen this destination. It is really easy to social distance here as our site is spacious with lots of vegetation, birds to watch and we can visit the beach everyday with a short walk,  We will be here until the end of February. As we approach the year’s end we had one more lucky thing happen to us.

A friend of ours who lives in Brownsville Texas told us that if wanted to get the Covid vaccine early we should go the the University of Texas -  Rio Grand Valley and park our butts in line to maybe receive the vaccine. I read online how to register for the vaccine and off we went to stand in line for 6 hours, (yes 6 hours}. It took that long because those with appointments would jump to the front of the line while every now and then a trickle of those of us without appointments would be called in.

Yep, 6 hours later we were happy to have had the first shot of a two shot series of the Moderna vaccine. Four weeks from now we have our appointment for the second shot and two weeks later we should be fully vaccinated. Sharon had a headache with a low grade fever that night and both of us have a little arm soreness at the vaccination site, but otherwise all is good. Even during a pandemic we feel like we have been very fortunate this year…

Happy New year!

NOTE:  We are currently in Port Isabel in the Rio Grande Valley of Texas for the winter… 

Migrating South–A New Philosophy…

As the leaves have begun to show signs that fall and cooler weather have arrived, it is time for us to start our migration south. During normal years I would be excited about the trip planning to our winter destination but this year, with Covid-19 so prevalent, I am not so excited to plan this journey.

Why is that? Well for starters we are on the east coast and when we are on the east coast we like to explore the small towns and larger cities to enjoy what they have to offer. Out west we focus on hiking due to the abundance of  public lands available to discover nature’s beauty and solitude. We also like to visit local breweries everywhere we go to taste different craft beers and support local businesses while visiting.

With Covid-19 still holding the USA in its clutches these type of visits simply won’t happen for us. With me having a science background and education we take Covid-19 very seriously and do our best to avoid any situation in which we don’t feel as though we can be safe in. While we will still visit an occasional brewery they must have ample outdoor seating as we will not visit one with only indoor seating. Yes, we are very cautious.

With that in mind as we plan our travels south we will drive slightly longer distances and stay at places for shorter periods. Where we normally like to travel 100 to 150 miles we will stretch that to a couple hundred miles at a time between stops. Likewise we normally like to spend no less than 3 nights at any given location but now will often only spend 2 nights.We will stay longer at places which offer what we feel are safe activities during this pandemic. Oh, how glad we will be when this is all behind us.

Our first stop was one we have been to many times before as it is a nice distance away from Raleigh NC and easy to get into and out of. Bass Lake RV, a Passport America park, is under new ownership and now only takes Passport America for one night but we were able to use our Good Sam’s discount for the second night.

All we did while during our stay was to walk around the nearby lake, catch up on our laundry and watch some college football. Yes our team the Texas A&M Aggies took one on the chin from Alabama but it was to be expected. We are still avoiding laundromats by using our portable ZENY Portable Mini Twin Tub Washing Machine. We bought this back in March when the pandemic chased us out of laundromats and it has not only kept us safer but has pretty much paid for itself by now.

NOTE:  Our next stop for us will be Colleton State Park in South Carolina for three nights.