We spent a long, hot day in Texas. Our motorhome needed a few extra adjustments after staying the night in the dealership campground. The onsite technicians were really great, really responsive. They came quickly when we asked them for assistance and never made us feel like our questions were dumb. Eventually, we unplugged, pulled the slides back in, and took a test drive around the compound.
Dan was wary of driving such a big rig, but his fears were unfounded. I knew the hours he would spend behind the wheel would provide the confidence he didn’t have yet. As we prepared to exit the compound, our generator shut itself off.
Without being plugged in, the generator is the sole source of power, which is necessary for the air conditioning to run in the house part of the RV. The cab area, where we sit when driving, has its own AC, but it was 108 degrees in the shade and we were hoping to keep the house area cool.
The technicians checked it out and added gas to the fuel tank and changed the generator oil. The generator happily ran again, but only for 5 minutes, then shut itself off. We collectively determined it was just too damn hot in Texas and the generator was not going to run at that heat.
The good news was we had planned a night at a campground in the TX panhandle which came with a 50 amp hookup so we wouldn’t rely on the generator to cool down the house. So, we decided to roll toward that campground. That’s when I realized I didn’t have a buckle for my passenger side seat belt. ::sigh::
Again, the techs came to the rescue and had a replacement on site that they were able to install. It led Dan and I to the conversation about how quickly these motorhome companies were throwing these machines together and how easy it is to overlook an item that’s on the checklist.
Finally, hot but safe, we were on the road. The drive out of the Fort Worth area was as easy as we could ask for - even with the 911 alert about portions of the interstate being closed in all directions. That didn’t affect our route, but it did make me question what the universe was orchestrating.
There are so many windmills in Texas! It was really cool seeing all the blinking red lights at night, all synchronized. The entire horizon was blinking red in unison. We followed a lightning storm for at least 90 minutes. I’ve never seen so many lightning strikes. The lightning lit up the skies and sometimes provided a backlight for the windmill - so surreal. As we drove, I spotted three different fires burning way out in the Texas prairie - surely ignited from that lightning.
We pulled in to the campsite at Caprock Canyons State Park at midnight. Dan and I had our first back-in parking experience. I hopped out and he called me on the phone and in 2 minutes, we were parked. In another 2 minutes we were hooked up to electricity and water and our house cabin was on the way to cool.
I took a walk in the morning on the Canyon Rim trail and was rewarded with beautiful red rock canyons that challenged my assumptions about Texas! There are free range bison 🦬 in the area and I saw lots of evidence of their presence even though we didn’t see any animals.
We are calling our first day/night on the road a success!
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