Leaving New Mexico we entered Texas on I 10 passing through El Paso without pausing. We continued across as far as Fort Stockton, again, where we pulled into the Wal-Mart to spend the night. We hoped that our departure in the morning would be less eventful than our previous stop here when the bedroom slide out would not retract.. It was, and West Texas slipped under our wheels at a steady 64 mph, the speed limit in those parts is 80, but very few seem to be going that fast. It is indeed an empty stretch of the country. The road is not crowded and there is little in the way of civilization so see. The scenery is mostly desert brown with plenty of growth and vistas with mountains in the distance. Eventually this is enlivened with pumpjacks pulling oil out of the ground to feed the nation’s thirst for liquid energy.
We entered Fredericksburg to stop long enough to buy some salsa at Russlin’ Robs on Main St. We parked a block over, where, by some miracle, we have generally been able to find curb parking for the rig when we have come into town. Our route from Fredericksburg took us to TX 46 to New Braunfels and yet another overnight in Wal-Mart to go shopping at Camping World and PPL Motorhomes for a new to us motorhome.
Two stops in the New Braunfels area to shop for a motorhome. We looked at a new Tiffin and a used Winnebago Journey. Not ready for prime time. At Camping world we ran into a sales lady who on seeing we were from Rochester asked if we knew any salesmen at Meyers Campers/Camping World and we acknowledged that we had bought two coaches from Gary Metz there. Turns out they knew each other well from working the same RV shows and she had just learned that Gary was in hospice. This was a bit shocking as I had been thinking of calling him to start working on a deal. Roz had nothing wonderful to show us so we bought a part for the TowGuard and moved on up to Buda (pronouonce that “Byuda”) just outside of Austin to look at Winnebagoes. They had one Journey on the lot. What is it with these dealers, four televisions and a residential refrigerator. When do you go camping? What do you do if you want to spend two week in the desert where there is nothing but solar and burning fuel for the generator to run those appliances? Oh yes they all having dining tables with loose chairs, and what happens to those chairs when you hit the brakes HARD? There are no floor locks for the chairs in most of the coaches we look at. It turns out dinettes are a problem for some of our friends. Not our problem.
We stayed in McKinney Falls State Park outside Austin for two nights, couldn’t get any more and were lucky to get that, it was Spring Break Week. We put up the TV antenna and found PBS available. They were in begging mode and thus the show we caught was really good. We got to watch 90 minutes of “The Best of Rowen and Martin’s Laugh-in” The show from the late ’60’s was so good that we were in hysterics even though the humor and the politics were 40m years out of date. For those too young to remember, Monday nights were sacrosanct, with no DVR or VCR we had to be there in front of the set when the show was on and we were!
Sunday morning we met Leigh and Pat and and had lunch and then on to the Blamton Gallery and the Ransome Gallery, both on the UT Austin Campus. The former had a wonderful show of Hudson Valley School paiintings and then a display of western art starting with more Hudson Valley School. Not totally exhausted we walked to the Ransom which had a show based on the King James Bible. The first piece in the show was a first printing of that bible. Their collection is impressive and much of the work shown was from their collection. Both shows are worth some time if you are going to be near Austin. We know some of my readers are not fond of Texas and there is much in its politics to be fearful of, but there is much to enjoy in the state.
The next day found us returning to New Braunfels to return the part we had bought, It did not work as hoped. This forced us to route through north west Houston on our way to Livingston to get our mail. Bad mistake, we would have been better off spending the gas to go back around Austin nd cross counry through Bryan TX. Nonetheless we got to Livingston, got our mail and after two nights drove to Nacogdoches to look at a couple of used Foretravel coaches. Oh well, they may be superbly engineered and built, but the interiors make no sense to us and would require major changes to be acceptable. Who needs mirrored ceilings and accent lights, among other useless amenities? We left Texas .with more ideas of what we don’t want, after only five days. We landed at Paragon Casino in Marksville LA. And here we sit.
The trials of keeping Gee 2 together have not lessened. The gasket around the driver window has loosened, this is the window we had replaced last August. We are in touch with the installer about keeping up their guarantee. This morning, when Carol lifted the bed to store the pillows, there was a breaking sound and the bed canted to the side. After breakfast we pulled the mattress and I repaired the hinge mechanism. Another case of a mechanism designed for limited use, not for long term living. My repair was also in the realm of “good enough.”
We continue to head towards Virginia, slowly. We are not sure where we will go when we move on tomorrow. Probably toward Natchez MS to pick up the Natchez trace Parkway. We will let you know when we know.