What a couple of days, driving in the wind. It gusts from all sides, no way to prepare for it. I am afraid to even take one hand off the wheel to hold it in front of the air conditioner vent to dry the sweat off my palms. At least I am out of Texas tonight and have WIFI here at this campground.
Texas driving is interesting. Most of their roads have a wide apron, almost another lane. If you are slower than traffic (and I always am, even at 65 & 70 MPH) they expect you to pull over on the apron and let them go by. I have done this several times when I could see far enough ahead that there was no one stopped in that lane. They also have a system set up for evacuations. There are movable barriers in the middle of the thruway so you can move over to the oncoming lanes when that kind of emergency is declared. There are signs telling you when and how to do it. But the apron is to be left open for emergency vehicles.
Let me explain the picture at the top. Today I stopped at a Kroger to pick up some of my imitation cheese. As I passed the back of my RV I noticed that the spare tire was hanging way back from the bumper. The welded connections to the bumper had torn loose. It wasn't that way this morning when I started out. A wonderful Kroger worker came over and helped me take the spare tire and bracket off the bumper and put it into the RV on the floor. That was a new bumper last summer so it will go right back to Adventure RV and they will fix it.
Then the nice Kroger worker pointed out that one of my tires looked low. So I stopped at a tire store and had them check the air pressure and add air to all my tires. I run them 10 lbs. lighter than it says on them. Someone told me that was a good thing to do. Hope they were right.
Then there is my rattle. It started a couple of weeks ago on a short trip. When I stopped I noticed that somehow the vent fan over the stove was on. The last day I was with Linda & Bob, Linda took a short ride with me to try to find the rattle. I had stopped several times on my own but when you are stopped it doesn't rattle, when you are driving you can't find it. She determined that the rattle was inside the housing around the microwave and vent fan. So now that I know where it is and know I can't fix it I can ignore it - almost.
I got my fake soy cheese and had a sandwich for lunch. About an hour later I started feeling sick, very sick. I had just bought the cold cuts but they are going out tonight. I was in the middle of I-20 in Shreveport when it became intolerable and took a random exit and pulled into a liquor store parking lot and ran for the bathroom with a bucket in front of me and the back of me on the toilet. I was just in time. I'm feeling a lot better but will see how I do tomorrow. It was also very warm in the RV so I turned on the generator and the RV air conditioner the rest of the trip to this campground. A friend of mine named Jon suggested that with this size RV the engine AC might not be enough to keep it comfortable (it was 80 degrees inside). Thanks Jon.
I had planned to be home by the week-end but things can happen so I'm making no firm plans. Luckily I have my 2nd home right here with me - with a spare tire in the middle of the floor. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow and laugh about it.
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