Not a picture perfect day, but any landing you walk away from......

OK, some days are better than others. This was not one of the better days. Not a horrible day, but a couple of challenges and a little letdown.

First the letdown, the park we left, Traveler’s World was a first class park. Our new park is not bad, but it is not a first class park. One thing we have learned after doing this for the past four years is that all the parks look pretty much the same once you are inside your trailer.

Park office

We have free WiFi, which is a bonus, but we don’t have cable television which means we are struggling to find the limited offerings that are available over the air. If we spoke Spanish, we’d have no problem as there are at least two dozen Spanish speaking over-the-air stations and a couple Chinese ones, but so far we have found only three English speaking stations, one is NBC, on our trailer antenna.

So I guess we’ll be roughing it for the next few weeks without cable television. That’s OK, we have books to read and we can always rent a movie or two if we get tired of looking at each other.

OK, so the trip started out good enough as the hook up went smoothly this morning (we found out we only used $33 worth of electricity in the month we were in San Antonio so we got a nice refund on our deposit.

There was little or no wind for the first half of the trip, but by noon the winds had picked up considerably which always makes pulling the trailer just that much more difficult. Then when it came time to get gas we had two false stops before I found a gas station I felt was large enough to accommodate our trailer.

A strap from the extended rear view mirror that I clamp onto the Tahoe’s outside mirrors let go (one still held) but I had to make an emergency stop to fix that as well.

Then we headed onto the Sam Houston Tollway, which ended up costing us $13.50 due to the extra axles we were pulling. One of the three $4.50 tolls came within two miles of each other, which seemed a little steep to me. Without the trailer it would have been only $1.50 for each of the three toll plazas, which still seems steep for a 20-mile stretch of road.

Houston, we have a problem....

The worst was yet to come. As we headed down FM (Farm to Market Road, remember?) 517 our GPS told us to “stay straight on 517". The road curved the right, but as it turned out staying straight on 517 would have meant taking the right hand turn.

So now we were on a residential back road and the GPS guided us to another street to turn right to return to FM 517. As soon as I turned right Joan tried to warn me that the road was blocked ahead by a large utility truck. I drove on about ¼-mile and realized that the shoulder was simply too soft and unstable to attempt with the truck and trailer.

We waited to see if the crew would be done soon, but It appeared that it was going to take them awhile to accomplish what they were trying to do. So, I backed up the 33-foot trailer back to where we made the turn and retraced our steps to FM 517.

Next time I’ll listen to Joan.

It was a good thing I didn’t delay any longer because we pulled into the park, as it turned out, a day earlier than my reservation and there was only one space left for me to park the trailer tonight. Within five minutes of our arrival another big unit pulled in and had to squeeze into a very small space (which we would have had to do if we arrived after him). So I was thankful for not waiting any longer for the utility truck.

Our campsite

With a little help from a park resident, I quickly backed the trailer into our spot, which was very level and paved so that was good. We actually have a little more space at this park than the previous one, but clearly we will not have the same activities here that we had at Traveler’s World.

On the other hand, this place is relatively cheap (less than $20 a night and they cover all the electricity, water and WiFi). But clearly what I have learned not to trust the photos I see on the park’s webpage was born out again today.

Set up was easy, although I had to use my back up sewer line as the length from our dump valve to the park fitting was longer than my usual sewer line. That’s why I keep spare parts aboard.

Once we were hooked up and set up we headed to a nearby Kroger store to put in supplies for the week. It was a very nice Kroger store too. Joan needed a prescription filled, since the post office balked at mailing her prescription drugs a couple weeks ago, and they promised to have the scripts filled by tomorrow.

Once back home I found the NBC channel and we watched the news and settled in for whatever is on NBC tonight and probably every night to come. Joan was hoping for a shopping channel or two, I would have settled for one good sports station.

Odds and ends from today: While driving along I-10 we crossed over a creek with an interesting name: “Woman Hollering Creek,” just let your imagination run as to how that got its name.

The spare-no-expense sign

Then we passed the turnoff for Igloo Road, which seemed an appropriate name for a street in Alaska, but not so much Texas.

And one more follow-up to our free Chick-Fil-A sandwich story. As readers of this blog know we got two free Chicken Sandwiches because the San Antonio Rampage scored four goals at one of the games we attended. When we collected our free sandwiches Saturday night I was given an online survey request, which I did. For doing the survey I was given a coupon for yet another free chicken sandwich. If I keep this going we may never have to buy a Chick-Fil-A sandwich, we’ll just keep getting free ones.

Time out: 9:22 a.m.

Mileage out: 6372

Time in: 2:05 p.m.

Mileage in: 6615