July 14, 2009 by Rick and Tinka.

 Not all states are created equally.

TEXAS

Several months ago we wrote about the new Texas rest areas in “Out of the Dark Ages“.    The specific rest area was southbound in Bell County, Texas.  On the Northbound Bell County rest area we noticed even more.

The landscaping is nicely done.

There was even an workout area for drivers to enjoy.

A little closer view.

In Walker County the rest area is in the East Texas forest.

This one has its own lake out back.

With walking trail and pavilion.

We’ve found these rest stops to be quite interesting.  So far, it looks like Texas is doing a good job revitalizing their “Safety Rest Areas”.

MISSOURI

Now, Missouri is a different story.  We stopped at a rest area on Interstate 44, eastbound, about 80 miles west of St. Louis.  They had your standard restroom near the top of a hill.  Apparently when the laws changed requiring easier access to facilities for handicapped people, they came up with a novel solution. Near the parking lot we found a uni-sex “outhouse”.  Here we had two locking stalls with toilets over a pit in the ground.  I will say that they were extremely clean and were pleasantly deodorized.

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June 29, 2009 by Rick and Tinka.

One day in Austin, we decided to run a few errands.  We went to Pep Boys to try to get our power steering fluid changed and take a look at battery connections.  Failed on both counts.  Their machine for the fluid change was not working and their lift wasn’t strong enough to lift our truck.

I decided to try out Sears.  Sears, like Penny’s, is building new “stand-alone” stores.  I really like this trend.  I think it was back in the 60’s and 70’s when they started moving to the malls, but, with this “new” design,  you don’t have to fight the mall traffic.

The folks at the Sears Grand took care of our issues and had us back on the road in about 30 minutes.

Luckily, it was now time for lunch.  We headed down to the river for a nice lunch at Landry’s.  Once again, things change.  It is now a Joe’s  Crab Shack.  We grabbed a table near the window overlooking the river.  In downtown Austin, the river has been dammed up to form a lake once known as Town Lake.  More changes, it is now Lady Bird Johnson Lake.

From our table, the view of downtown was beautiful with your typical Texas blue sky. The building slump has not hit the Texas Capital as badly as some portions of the nation as indicated by the one building crane that you can see in this picture.

A few ducks –

and several turtles –

The crawfish combo was fantastic. We would certainly recommend this Joe’s anytime.

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June 26, 2009 by Rick and Tinka.

Holy Smoke, It’s HOT!!!!

We’re hanging out in the Austin area with a bunch of our RV friends,  The local temperature is hitting about 108 degrees and 114 heat index.

Unfortunately, we are plugged in to 30 AMP electrical, which means that we can only use one air conditioner at a time.  To make things worse, our central air unit quit blowing cold air.

We got lucky and found an RV company, Pennies, RV in Bastrop, TX,, that would come out to see us and arrived for a service call within 2-hours of our call for help. It turns out that the coils needed cleaning and the return air tube wiped down. So, one hour and $190.00 later, we had cool air.

With all the time that we had spent along the coast, the report was that there wasn’t too much corrosion.

On a side note, when we were in the Dallas area  last week, we had a storm with 60 mile per hour winds and horizontal rain.  Rain came in our front air conditioner and dripped on the bed.  It had never done that before.  Well, it happened again when the guy was servicing the front unit.  It turns out that the square gasket was in place, but there were three additional holes that led to the inside unit allowing water to pass.  He caulked the holes and that problem went away.

It may be too late, but if you have a chance to check your AC coils, be sure to do it.

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June 23, 2009 by Rick and Tinka.

About 50 miles to the northeast of the Dallas/Fort Worth area, is the town of Decatur, TX. We were visiting our friends, Roland and Karen, who have a summer place in the area.  Unfortunately, we were parked under some trees and couldn’t receive a satellite signal from our dome on top of the 5th wheel.  Since we were only going to be there a couple of days, we didn’t set up the tripod.

When driving in the area, we came across a sign for the Caddo-LBJ National Grasslands. The four of us decided that it was time to explore the site.  There are two nearby parks, the Caddo (18,000 acres) and the LBJ Grasslands (20,000 acres).  We took a look at the LBJ section.  It is fairly undeveloped and scattered around. (Note the blue areas on the map below.) There are a few picnic areas, lakes, along with numerous walking and horseback riding trails.

We stopped for a while at a recreational area consisting of some primitive campgrounds, picnic areas and a small lake.

It appears that this girl figured out how to escape the heat.

A ranger wandered along and provided us with good information about the park and walked with us for a while. When we reach the cars, he gave us a map of the chopped up park to help us.

For more information about the grasslands, click here.

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June 8, 2009 by Rick and Tinka.

The usual view of the San Antonio River is the cement version in the downtown area where you can dine on the banks and watch the tour boats motor by.  A little farther toward the southeast you get a different picture of the river.

Many times in the drier season, it is difficult to find water in the river.  At other times it is quite the reverse.  We’ve seen river levels rise 40 to 50 feet in this area.  Friends of ours in the vicinity experience floods every few years, on a regular basis.

On FM 775, just off US 181, about 20 miles southeast of San Antonio, TX, we can only be glad that progress has included a new bridge over the San Antonio River.

What’s keeping it up?

One can only wonder how many times those boards were replaced after being knocked out by high water. (Click on picture for close-up)

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