Mark and Patty RV Adventures: Packing up and starting our 2017 Travel Season

March 15 – April 20, 2017:

I always believe that packing up after 5 months of sitting in one place will be easy. Well it’s not! One main reason is that I put off doing all of the things I wanted to do while sitting until the last couple of weeks! This year it wasn’t any different.

Patty repainting and sealing our name sign.

One more trip to Mexico. We stopped to watch these 2
getting married at the border on the bridge.

Mexican kids hanging on the outside of the border bridge begging.

Our gang out for lunch in Mexico.

Patty and friends, Don and Nan in Mexico

Patty and I went out to one of the top restaurants in the valley for dinner (Santa Fe Steakhouse)

Food was good but not worthy of the price! Nice atmosphere, but the service was slow. We wanted to know how dry the wine we had selected was and the waiter didn't know so off he went to ask his manager. Ten minutes later he came back and said that the manager didn't know so he Googled it and didn't find out that way either. We were not impressed. We sort of wanted to know why the place was so expensive.

Getting the truck washed before we left to head north. Hand wash and dry was $12 which included dressing on the tires and the bed cover!

In the past couple of weeks we have pretty much done all of the RV routine maintenance that we can think of that needed to be done. We washed the RV from roof to wheels, resealed the roof seams, replaced all of the bulb slide seals, flushed the hot water tank, changed the oil and filter in the generator, removed all of the stuff from the RV basement and swept it out, and repaired the awning. On top of that we installed a water softener! The truck also needed a new passenger front tire that we got replaced the day before we left.

Then there was also site maintenance and clean up. We washed the concrete slab and the shed, cleaned the inside of the shed, and re-water sealed our wooden porch. As part of getting ready to leave we had to organize our stuff as to what goes with us and what stays.

New project completed! I added LED lights to our pantry.

On the right side is where I added a relay and magnetic switch so the lights turn on and off with the pantry door.

We got these ceramic butterflies at a street fair and fastened them to the shed door. We think they look real nice.

Up on the roof to clean it. The birds like to hang out on the satellite antenna.

Pictures before cleaning

After cleaning pictures.

The finished porch after cleaning and sealing.

We did this last year and after being in the sun all summer it looked like we never sealed it when we got back. I took these pictures to compare when we return in 7 months.

Changing out the bulb seals on the slides

The vertical bulb seal has deteriorated.

Just take out 2 screws and peel the old one off.

After all of that, we were ready to leave.

Ah, but not so fast there Kemosabe! We had everything set to go by 10am on the 20th of April and the electric plug would not come out of the RV receptacle. At first I thought that I just needed to pull really, really hard. And then, after pulling real hard, I tried mechanical force with a screw driver. Nothing worked!

It’s great to have great neighbors! As I was struggling with the power cord, my backyard neighbor Tony walked up to see what I was up to. After some more really hard tugging and pulling by the both of us we decided that the plug and receptacle needed to be cut off the RV. Yikes!

If you can believe this, Tony had a spare receptacle and power cord!!! After an hour he had the receptacle replaced and tested and were ready to roll on out! If it had not been for Tony we would probably not have left until the next day. I would have had to go get the replacement parts at the closest (15 miles) RV parts store and then do the repair.

As for the reason for the power cord getting stuck, I believe it had been coming on for a while. I had noticed that one of the connections in the plug were getting hot last summer. It was probably getting hot due to dirt and/or corrosion. I put some silicone connection jell in the plug last year and the issue seemed to be okay. Well it probably only prolonged the issue. I should have dealt with it sooner and at least replaced the plug and maybe the receptacle too. I was just being lazy and ignored the issue.

The next thing to do was to get the RV inspected. Texas now has a safety inspection program for both the truck and the trailer. Both of our units expired in March. I got the truck inspected on time last month in March but decided to wait until we leave to get the RV inspected. We got the inspection done just up the road about 3 miles in Elsa TX. Nothing to it, about 15 minutes and $11 dollars later we were on our way north.

We always stop in Victoria TX, about 200 miles when we are heading north after the season. Before we have stayed at a commercial campground called the Lazy Longhorn. However, on our way down last fall when we had the axle problem we found out about the city park with full hook ups at only $12 a night. So that is where we ended our first day of travel north. We were going to be here for our usual 2 nights but we found out that a couple of internet friends (Steve and Debbie McCormack) are close and headed the same way as us so we have decided to meet them tomorrow, Friday in Beaumont TX. So we will do our one night bump and run stay and head up there next.