R-V There Yet?

 Well, once again, it’s time to head to Galveston and spend a week with our oldest two granddaughters Ayden and Gracie.

We left Rockport on July 31st and headed to the Galveston Beach State Park.  Our route took us up Hwy 35 from Rockport and along some coastal roads toward Freeport and crossing to Galveston Island at Surfside.  Farm to Market RD 512 was the road that we took for a good portion of the trip.  The road was great and didn’t go through any major towns.    The road also made a wide swing around the South Texas Nuclear Power Plant giving us a good view of the facility.

One of the few towns that we went through was Wadsworth.  A couple of miles east of Wadsworth the road crosses Peyton Creek and there is an “S” curve.  When we slowed for the curve we were surprised by a 4-foot alligator  crossing the road.  Thank goodness we were at reduced speed or we would have had some new boots and perhaps a purse.  The trip was only about 200 miles.

When we arrived at the park, we would found that they were burning brush across the street from the RV locations.

Our reservations excluded Saturday night, so we decided not to pick up the kids until Sunday.  As it turned out, there was a cancellation and we were allowed to stay Saturday.

So, on Friday, we decided to look around at the communities where we may wish to live when we grow up and stop travelling.   We headed up Hwy 6 from Galveston to Sugarland and Richmond where a new Sun City is being developed.  There was just grading going on there.  Hwy 6 is really grown up, 6-lanes nearly all the way with new residential developments and strip malls along the way.

When we crossed the I-45 bridge over the inter-coastal waterway we could see a row of barges being directed through the small opening under the railroad bridge.

Our return took us south along some back roads through Needville to Surfside and through Jamaica Beach back to the park.  Along the way we looked at various properties, particularly in the areas where the homes are on canals.  Tinka made a practice of jumping out to grab real estate flyers.

On Saturday we headed to the ferry that would take us to the Bolivar Peninsula where we went swimming.  Here is the lighthouse on the shore as we approached Bolivar.

The horizon was dotted with pleasure boats and ships waiting to enter the Houston Ship Channel.

After a day at the beach we concluded the evening with dinner at De Coix’s, our favorite restaurants in Crystal Beach on the Bolivar Pinensula.  They have the best crab nachos.  It’s a good thing that they don’t enforce the no shoe rule.  Rick left his crocs on the beach.

Sunday we headed to Madisonville to meet Justin, Rick’s youngest son, who was bringing the girls half way.  We made it back to the beach by about 3:30 and had the girls on the beach by 4:00.  Shortly after we hit the beach, a ranger showed up and informed us that, due to the impending arrival of Tropical Storm Edouard, we had to leave the park by 2:00 PM on Monday.  This news greeted the bunch like a lump of lead.

On Monday morning, we let the kids go to the beach again for a short period.  In the sand……..

And in the surf.

It appears that everyone was on the move and leaving the area.  These two shots look at the beach in each direction.

Well, two huricanes in three weeks is more than we bargained for.  Watching the trajectory of the storm, we packed up our group and headed about 140 miles in a northeasterly direction to the Escapees Rainbow Park in Livingston, TX. (Our real home.)

To preserve our sanity, we’re anxious to head back to the beach as soon as possible.

Well, we made it through the storm.  Hurricane Dolly landed about 70 miles north of the original plan which would have taken the route into northern Mexico.  As everyone knows, the category II storm made a direct hit on South Padre Island, our location less than two weeks ago.  Not only did the storm land north of expected location, it also continued northwest much farther into Texas than expected.

The wet and windy side of the hurricane is the northern side of the storm.  Guess where we were?  We saw quite a bit of rain and 20-30 MPH winds with gusted to about 45 MPH Wednesday night.  Corpus Christi didn’t fare as well.  They ended up with some 65 MPH gusts and quite a bit more rain.

We went to the Rockport shore this afternoon and noticed that the waves were pretty choppy and 3-4 feet high.  These waves are “bay” waves since the area is protected by San Jose Island, one of the barrier islands along the Texas coast.

Anyway, our decision to stay put was a good one.  We watched the storm closely and if it had come ashore another 40 miles farther north, we’d have been out of here.

On another subject.  We are now better prepared to tackle the beach with the addition of our new 6000 lb winch.  (The jeep weighs 3400 lb.)  We picked up this winch on Ebay for $189.00, and the mounting bracket was purchased from JC Whitney for $79.00.  The mounting bracket was equipped with mounting locations for the front roller.   Since we wanted to keep the large bumper guard, we had a body shop install the winch,  cut, modify and weld the guard to accept the mounting bracket.  Assembly cost was $225.00.  The total cost was $493.00 for an addition we hope never to use, except to extricate others from the sand.

It’s kind of cool.  We have a wired remote and a wireless remote/key-chain that will operate the winch.

Now the bad news.  We had noticed that our fuel mileage on the truck was getting worse when towing.  We had lost about 30 percent of our efficiency.  While we were at South Padre Island we noticed that the transmission was slipping when it wasn’t under a load.  We dragged our 5th wheel back to Rockport and got recommendations as to transmission specialists that we should visit.

We settled on Cottman’s Transmission in Corpus Christi.  After describing our problem and their diagnosis, we determined that our Banks Power torque converter had bitten the dust.  It was failing to “lock-up” when necessary.  A quick call to Banks determined that the warranty on our torque converter had expired a couple of months ago.  They wanted $1960.00 for a replacement.  If you add the $400.00 installation, we were over $2300.

Cottman’s offered to replace the unit for $800.00 including installation for a standard torque converter.  Considering our typical use, we elected to replace the Banks unit with a heavy duty torque converter for $1650.00 including installation.  The function of the torque converter is critical because our use of an exhaust brake and the TC must positively lock for proper function of the exhaust brake.

Well, with one eye on the sky and the other on the television, we’re waiting to greet Hurricane Dolly tomorrow.

According to all reports, the storm will be coming ashore about 200 mile south near Brownsville and South Padre Island.  (We were just there a week ago.)

We went to the beach at Corpus Christi today only to find that they had closed the National Seashore.  Probably a wise decision.  We were able to get on the beach closer to Corpus at the Nueces County Beach.  The waves have turned a little choppy and the wind is picking up around here.  Looking south toward the storm it is possible to see the monster moving in.

The wind rotates counterclockwise around the storm and the winds here have changed from northeast to east during the day today.  Looking east it is still possible to see the rain bands forming.

According to the reports, our location in Rockport should not experience winds gusting to greater than 55 MPH.  With that in mind, we’ve decided to stay put.  If Murphy’s Law comes into play and conditions change for the worse we’re prepared to hop in the truck and get out of here.

Thursday we will report the wisdom of our decision.