Moving North and Truck trouble, again!

April 30 – May 3, 2015   

It got a little hectic the last 2 days before we left the resort.  On Thursday the last day of April I started the job of getting ready to leave after 5.5 months of sitting in one place.  It usually takes a while after sitting that long .

I washed the outside of the rig the day before so now I washed the windows outside and inside.  I checked the water in the house battery which needed some water but we were out of distilled water, darn it! Then I started to clean the grille.  While doing that, Patty took clothes over to wash at the clubhouse.  She was going to hang out at the pool a little too.  She came back while I was cleaning the windows and said that she thought she had low blood pressure.  We went inside and checked it and it was low, 77/45.   She then laid down on the floor with her legs up on the wall and waited for it to pass. 

A long story short here, Patty ended up seeing her doctor and was sent by ambulance from there to the ER again this evening due to low blood sugars while in his office. She was annoyed that they weren't treating her blood pressure issue. The whole exercise with the Dr. and the hospital was for nothing!  She is diabetic and no one is going to “figure out” anything more!  My feeling is that we should have just treated this at home and avoided the whole exercise all together. Live and learn I guess. By the way, this seems to be our normal now!

The day before we are leaving, Friday, we had many errands to run. We needed an MRI CD copy for the  Dr. in NJ, needed to get a few gifts in Mexico, go to a Dr. visit in the afternoon, and then have dinner out.  We started the day at 9 am and didn’t get back until after 9 at night.  It was a long day!  

We had lunch in Mexico while picking up some stuff to take back up north.  This is the view out of the restaurant window.

Our dinner out was at a Red Lobster.  We really like seafood and have not had any that was good ever in the RGV.  Even the stuff we buy fresh has not been good.  Probably the best seafood has been on the island (South Padre) at a restaurant.  We bought seafood at a fish market near the island in Port Isabel that wasn’t very good either.  The best seafood we have had has so far always been on the east and west coasts.  

Anyway, we have not been to a Red Lobster here and we have always had good seafood at this chain restaurant.  Well, not this time!  I ordered a combo dinner with salmon, lobster, and skewered shrimp.  None of it was very good.  My stomach was making funny noises after I ate the food.  Patty ordered the stuffed tilapia which also sucked!  The only good thing were the biscuits.  This was our first bad meal at a Red Lobster ever.  So now we believe that you just can’t get good seafood in the RGV.

Leaving day, May 2, Saturday.  It is a very nice day for traveling, 80s, calm winds, and sunny!  What more can you ask for?  We start the process of packing up at around 8 am and we are on the road by 11:30 am.  Three and a half hours to pack up is a very long time for us.  Usually it takes us from 30 minutes to an hour at the longest.  But, again, when you sit for a long time there are other things to do.  Also, we forget how everything gets packed or at least I do anyway.  So I take my time and try not to do things too many times over again.

On our first day we are only going 207 miles north on highway 77 to Victoria TX.  It really was a great trip for our first day.  The truck and the RV were rolling along just like we were on rails, no issues at all with the ride.  The only issue we had was that the truck gave me the green wrench light (Engine warning idiot light) about 50 miles out.  The truck was running fine so I just kept going and had no issues all the way to our site in Victoria.  I figured that if I had a problem along the way then I would just need to find a campsite then.  I wanted to get to a fairly large city and I wanted to be in a fairly nice site if we needed to stay awhile.

Love bugs are very thick right now.  We went through many waves of them on our way.  It was almost too many on the windshield to see out.

These are the love bugs on the RV when we arrived in Victoria TX.

This green light coming on while pulling is not new to us.  In previous blog posts I have covered those other times.  To recap though, this is the 3rd time we have had the light come on while pulling.  First was in Mississippi in October.  We had the oil cooler changed out then.  The next time was about 400 miles later near San Antonio TX.  We again had the oil cooler replaced.  This time Ford paid for it.  From San Antonio we basically went another 250 miles to our winter site in Elsa TX and didn’t pull again until today. So I am thinking it’s the oil cooler again!

We arrived at our site in Victoria around 3 pm on Saturday.  We will need to wait until Monday to get the truck looked at.  So, we set up and checked in for 3 nights thinking that will be the minimum time we will be here.  We were only going to stay 2 nights until the truck issue.  

We are staying at the Lazy Longhorn RV Park for only $15 a night with our Passport America membership.  At $15 a night this park is a good deal.  This park is actually a good deal even at the regular rate of $30 a night.  All concrete pads and drives, level, and with a clean heated pool and hot tub.  Also, the park has good cable TV but just so-so WIFI.  The WIFI has been down for a few hours every day.  The sites are closer than we like but are not terrible for just a few days.   The park is narrow, maybe 300 feet wide, and is long at about ¼ mile.  It is laid out in 3 rows, back-in rows on the sides and pull-throughs in the middle. 

Our campground for a few days.

Our site at Lazy Longhorn.

This park layout makes for a ½ mile concrete road for me to do my walk runs on.  Every 2 laps is a mile.  I have been doing my walk runs partially on the outside of the park as there is a sidewalk I can use.  The sidewalk is not maintained very well so I have to be careful but it is workable.  I like going out of the park so I can see the area the park is located in.  This area is not so nice but it is not as bad that I wouldn’t walk in it in the day time; not so sure about the night though!

Out run/walking I came upon this weed eater.

We basically just chilled out at the pool waiting for Monday to see what Ford service will come up with.

Patty always cleans the campground pools.

Stay Tuned!