Month: January 2018

 

Today we decided to go back to McKinney Falls. We decided to go back mainly so we could use their showers. In our current Fleet Maintenance location we aren’t hooked up to sewer so managing our gray and black tank levels is important. We discovered there is a dump station in the Fleet lot, however, maneuvering the coach to the dump station and back is non-trivial in this crowed lot. Instead of hassling that we decided the showers at the park were a better deal. The park is only about 10 minutes away and Maverick loves the trails.
First thing, we repeated the falls hike we enjoyed before. This time however we took the “Shelter Rock” loop which is pretty cool and also hiked further to the lower falls. We discovered that on our last visit we came close but not quite to the actual lower falls. I’m glad we revisited that area and got to enjoy the lower falls.

 

After the Hike we used the campground showers. They were really nice with a heater in the shower area. Good hot water and dressing bench.
Once we were all cleaned up we departed the park and headed to lunch at Javi’s Tex Mex.  Javi’s was a very good meal and quite affordable.
After lunch we made a Wal-Mart run and brought refrigerated goods back to the Coach.  Then on to Lady Bird lake. At the lake we setup our chairs and read books, walked Mav and just enjoyed a beautiful day.

Today we went to Metro Park on the Colorado river across from downtown. It was really nice and had an off-leash park for Maverick.  Later we went to Lockhart Texas, famous for BBQ. We decided to check out the Lockhart Texas State Park, we now have our Texas State Park year long pass after all. At the state park we hiked the Commanche loop. Its a small park and the trail area was deserted.  Maverick had an amazing good time (off leash) and Donna and I really enjoyed the hike. Afterward we ate at Blacks BBQ. It was very good. The meat was delicious, but I didn’t care for the preparation of the beans.  Donna really enjoyed the Pecan Pie Cobbler.  We then walked the very picturesque Lockhart square. We noted that this weekend there is a car show planned so we will likely be back. On a side note: we took Texas State Highway 130 to Lockhart. We discovered it has the US highest speed limit at 85 MPH. Wow! No idea why here.

I am currently working to source a new steering gear box for the coach. Yes, this would normally be the responsibility of the repair shop. After reviewing the iRV2 internet forums the overwhelming recommendation is not to replace my steering box with an identical part but rather to “upgrade” to a better TRW unit. In order to get this shop to do this correctly I need to help get the correct parts and procedures. Ugh.  A major truck supplier (Welller) the forums work with has confirmed the parts I need and hopefully tomorrow I can get them on their way.  The way a “big truck” facility works is you get on the lot and wait your turn.  In this case 4-5 days.  Then they confirm what I already know, the steering box is bad. THEN they order parts and repair the coach when the parts arrive. I hope to acquire the retrofit parts in advance so when we get pulled in I already have the parts. Yes this is all a little dicey.

Day two of our big adventure and it sounds awesome, right?
Well………

Last night I noticed quite a bit of power steering fluid under the front of the coach as we pulled in.  This morning I verified the fluid is coming from the Steering Box around the PITMAN arm shaft.  I checked the power steering fluid level and there was nothing on the dip stick, even though I checked it was full before we left (never a drip before).  Uh Oh..    We took the Jeep to Autozone and got more Dexron III to top off the fluid and planned a 8 mile trip to Fleet Maintenance in Austin.   When I pulled into Fleet I had a hefty puddle and a trail you could follow, presumably all of the way back to the falls.   We are definitely losing too much to attempt any highway trip.
So…….
Here we are “camping” in the industrial Fleet Maintenance lot waiting to be looked at in 4-5 days.  Yes, this is typical of “big-rig” repair shops.   They do supply electric and water RV hook-ups here for no additional cost.  I have spent over 8 hours on the internet today investigating power steering on my rig.  The overwhelming recommendation in forums is to dump my existing Sheppard steering box in favor for a much better TRW box.    I’m guessing about $2000 for that privilege.   It could take a week to get parts and who knows how long for this shop to get to this 6 hour job.
We have temporarily canceled Corpus and Big Bend until we know we are travel ready.    If only it had failed at home I might actually have completed the repair myself.   On the road we don’t really have a choice.  Of course if this happened on the road to Alaska it could have been way worse.   Just so you know I do have an emergency towing service I pay for.
While I probably paint a pretty sad picture we remain pretty happy and optimistic.     Issues like this can happen at any time and we anticipated a long trip like this would have bumps along the way.  Now we’ve got a week or so to explore all around Austin. Today we ate at the Trip Advisor #1 Pizza place, Home Slice. It was good but not exceptional. Feels very much like a college place.  I think BBQ in Lockhart TX is on the agenda for tomorrow.

The Fleet Maintenance camping experience isn’t great.   While we do have 30amp electric and water hook-up, we need to conserve water because we don’t have sewer and moving the rig around to use a dump station is not easy.   Unfortunately a large air compressor runs about every hour near us and we are in the Austin airport flight path.  The noise alone makes this less than ideal. Also walking Maverick after dark is a little scary in this setting.  On a side note, it is REALLY nice to have mobile internet and Satellite TV no matter where you are 🙂

As some of you may know a year ago we had planned a June trip to St Thomas and we planned to end our RV trip to coincide with that.  The resort called and said they had to cancel because they still couldn’t open in June due to damage from the 2017 Hurricane. We realized this opened the opportunity for us to continue on to Alaska “IF” we weren’t too tired of RV’ing and everything remained good on the home front. So you may hear me refer to a pending Alaska trip this summer.  More to come….

 

I finally did it. I retired after 35 1/2 years from Raytheon (legacy Texas Instruments). Scary and exciting all at once. Donna and I have been planning extended RV travel for over two years. In January 2016 I posted a write-up of our Galveston RV dry run where we rented a Class A and tried it out for a week. Skip forward to today. We have spent the last year upgrading/renovating a 2002 Holiday Rambler Endeavor 40 ft diesel Class A. We are very proud and I plan on writing up a description shortly. I am planning on emailing monthly updates about where we have been, where we are going, and our experiences. The goal is to have a short write-up to keep friends and family up to date. So many have expressed interest in keeping in touch and seeing how its going. I officially retired January 2, 2018. Unfortunately I spent from Thanksgiving until I retire dealing with family issues. My dad fell ill over Thanksgiving and eventually passed away on 12 December 2017. I miss him terribly. Over Christmas my brother was seriously ill and spent days in ICU before recovering. As a result January 2 was really the very beginning of our new retired life.

January has been a busy month saying goodbye, taking care of deferred projects, and getting the RV ready for the long adventure. Donna and I departed McKinney on Sunday 28 January for our “great adventure”.  Our plan…. stop at McKinney Falls Tx State Park on our way to Corpus Christi and Big Bend.  Reservations at Corpus and Big Bend parks are made.  We are SOOO excited that over 2 years of preparation and planning is finally in motion.  Yesterday and last night in McKinney Falls was super nice.  Weather is PERFECT.  The park is really nice and very busy.  The falls weren’t flowing a lot but the hike and terrain was really beautiful.
Here are a few pics of Red Dog and I enjoying the park.  Donna is the one taking the pics.  The park isn’t really large but has a very nice 3 mile trail around the park and 3 or 4 other trails leading from campgrounds to upper and lower falls.  There are a lot of really cool stone features created by flowing water and the falls are pretty neat.  If there was more water flowing it could be spectacular.  The campground was great with lots of room between sites, heavily wooded, and very clean.   The campground was full and there were many day visitors.  The trails were mostly paved or groomed, wide, and flat making it very popular with all ages.  It’s a super nice location only 5 miles east of downtown Austin.
By the way, we went ahead and purchased a year pass to Texas State Parks for $70. It covers entrance fees for Donna and I for a year. That way we can sample all of the parks without even thinking about entrance fees.