We stayed at a small quiet park in Falfurrias, TX last night after a pretty long driving day. The definition of a long drive is getting shorter with every trip I think. Yesterday's drive was five and a half hours. The last hour dragged by as usual.
Fallfurrias is a small town with a population of about 5000. It seems every small town has one thing or another that it is known for. Not the case here. The best I could glean from the internet is that they were once pretty good at making products from B grade milk, namely cheese and butter. But that was a long time ago. Still, a nice little town "In The Middle of Nowhere", Texas. Nice people too.
Tonight we are in the heart of the Rio Grande Valley, McAllen, TX. It's a large RV park in an urban setting. There are at least 300 RV's in the park but only a handful of people. Kind of like condo's in Florida, 90 percent unoccupied.
The Valley is quite built up, or rather, built out. Nothing taller than a few stories but the developed stretch goes on for 70 miles or so along the border with Mexico. So far, we're not that impressed. Weather is nice though, 90 degrees today and cloudy. Tomorrow the forecast is for 100. And sunny!
We took a drive today to Progresso, another small town. It's directly across the Rio Grande from its sister city, Nuevo Progresso on the Mexican side. We went as far as the border crossing and turned around. We didn't have our passports with us. If we had, we could have parked on the US side and walked across the bridge into Mexico.
This is the parking lot.
Went out for Mexican food again tonight. I had the Chimichanga appetizer. It was outstanding, but I could only finish a quarter of it. The rest is in the fridge along with Darlene's chicken fajiitas which she couldn't finish either.
We did however polish off the margaritas.
We arrived in Austin Friday afternoon. After two full days of interstates we decided to travel on secondary highways from Texarcana to Austin. There is so much more to see off the interstates and although the route was shorter it only took a little longer to get there. Well worth the extra hour, and NO TRUCKS!
Yesterday I went to the storage yard to start getting the Unit ready. I found it exactly the way I left it. It started right up, the generator too and everything appears to be working.
Tomorrow we move it from storage to a local camp-ground where I still need to fill the water tank, the last item on the long list of things to do. We'll stay there the one night and on Tuesday, we're off. But not to our planned first stop.
Two weeks ago I had booked Tuesday through Friday at Mustang Island State Park on the gulf. The day before we left Toronto I received an email from the park saying that due to storm damage, the park would be closed all this week. Funny how such a little thing can really make a mess of your plans.
I found a solution though. Since the park re-opens on Monday April 4th, when we had planned to be in the Rio Grande Valley, I switched the two. So now we're going to RGV first and then to Mustang Island, before we head off the Big Bend National Park.
Sorry, not too colourful yet without pictures but we'll have lots of them soon. Stay tuned.
But just to start things off, there's nothing cuter than a Pug puppy. Otis is just 12 weeks old and belongs to Ella, our niece here in Austin.
We,ve been doing little else but driving for the past 2 days.
We managed to duck the bad weather leaving Toronto yesterday. Had some serious rain this morning leaving Terre Haute, IN. I'm pretty sure the last of the winter's road salt has been washed from the underside of the car.
Tonight, our second night on the road, we're in Texarcana, a town which straddles the state line between Texas and Arkansas.
1050 Km's yesterday, 1192 today. The final few hours really seem to drag by each day. Tomorrow will be an easy day, about 5 and a half hours to Austin.
Went out for mexican food tonight. The margaritas were WAY too big. Must get some sleep now.
Seems like it has been a long time coming, but only a few more days until we head south again for warmer weather and more great adventures.
The CR-V is serviced and ready to go. The little car had a bit of a setback (more like a push forward) in December due to a "rear ender". Hard to believe the insurance claim for this came to well over $5000, which was getting very close to a write off.
But they fixed it right (my choice of body shop, not the insurance company's) and you would never know it had been hit.
We are planning to take 3 days to travel to Austin, overnighting in Terre Haute, IN and Little Rock, AR. These are the places we stopped at on the way home last November. They break the trip to Austin nicely into thirds and we know the hotels (pet friendly) and some good restaurants.
Our loosely planned itinerary for the next 6 weeks includes Padre Island National Seashore at Corpus Christi, the Rio Grande Valley near Brownsville, TX, Big Bend National Park , Palo Duro Canyon near Amarillo, Branson, Missouri, Nashville (again) and a stop in Charlotte MI at the Spartan factory for what American Coach owners jokingly refer to as "the $5000 oil change". Spartan, the manufacturerof the Unit's chassis offers a 44 point inspection for $100, but I'm guessing it doesn't end there. (I'm definitely not planning to spend 5K, but we'll
have to see what
they find.) They're not cheap but nobody
knows these machines like they do.
So with the exception of the first destination, this trip will be desert rather than beach.
Oppressive heat, wide open spaces and stunning vistas are some of the things my research tells me we can expect. And maybe the occasional rattlesnake, scorpion or tarantula. Comes with the territory.
Last year I promised to tell you how the unit got its name, "The Unit". There was a forerunner to this unit, you see. The original UNIT.
The story on how it got its name isn't terribly interesting, or even funny, but here it is anyways.
I bought it at a large RV dealership near Stoney Creek in 1998. When I asked the salesman (who was also one of the owners) to tell me truthfully if this was a sound motorhome (I know, as if...) he replied that this was "a good unit" and they would stand behind it. A few months later when it started going through antifreeze at an alarming rate, I took it back to them. Broken head bolt, $1500 cost to me. Long story short, after I reminded him of the "good unit" conversation (now in writing) he begrudgingly agreed to do the repair and pick up the cost.
A few "Original Unit Stories"
I bought it in spite of the threat of divorce. I think she over reacted.
The drapes needed to be replaced due to sun damage. I asked Darlene if she would sew a new set for "our new toy", which was no small task.
Big mistake. Little did I know, I was about to have to learn how to sew. They didn't turn out bad. Unlike welding, in sewing you can easily undo your mistakes with scissors. Who knew?
We towed a motorcycle on a trailer for local transportation. We were younger then.
We took a 3 week whirlwind tour of the USA in the fall of 2001. Until last fall, this trip was often referred to as our best vacation ever. We covered more ground in those 3 weeks than we will in the 12 weeks of the fall 2015 and this trip put together. We made it all the way to the Grand Canyon. We were younger then.
I sold the original Unit in 2002, knowing our careers wouldn't allow us to spend enough time travelling to justify keeping it.
It was a "good unit" and we always knew we would get another one some day.
