Lake Conroe

This is a really nice place this time of the year. Today is the first cool day (upper 50's) we've had since arriving here two weeks ago. Most of the time the temperatures have been in the upper 70's during the day and lower 40's at night.

It's interesting how areas develop here in Texas. The commerce always grows along the large highways with residential development nearby about a mile or two away from the major roadways. Most major roadways (Interstate or State Hwy) have access roads beside them. The access roads are built first with a large right of way between them. When an area builds up and highways are needed, the highways are built in the right of way between the access roads with no disruption of traffic.

We've gotten out a bit since getting here. We went to College Station, TX one day. College Station is home to Texas A & M University and

The George H. W. Bush Presidential Library. The library was an interesting visit. We spent most of the day there. It was well done and there wasn't nearly as much evident effort to skew the history of the Bush presidency as we saw in the last Presidential library we visited in Little Rock, AR.

We've also visited the Sam Houston Memorial Museum in Huntsville, TX.

To understand the role of Sam Houston in Texas history is to understand Texas History. He was a bigger than life character that was instrumental in leading Texas to the status of a free Republic and then to statehood.

Galveston Island

We were curious about Galveston following hurricane Ike. We all know how things were portrayed on TV but we wanted to see for ourselves. On average, things looked better than expected. There was very little middle ground. Things either looked pretty good though there was evidence of damahe like the blue tarps on roofs, etc. or things looked really bad like total devistation.




The South Western end of the island (San Louis Pass) was devistated. The beach road was washed out and we traveled ten or more miles on the beach to get to the southern end of the Island

Texas

Here we are in Texas, Conroe to be exact. Lake Conroe is about 40 miles north of Houston on I45.

First, lets back up to the last post. Shamu started fine the morning after and we proceeded onward. Wednesday we spent the night at a beautiful Louisiana state park called Fountainebleu located on Lake Pontchartrain.

You could see the New Orleans skyline across the lake. Louisiana has the nicest state parks of any of the states. This was the fourth one we've visited in the past few years and they've all been top notch. Thursday we proceeded on to Lake Charles, LA where we stayed at Sam Houston Jones State Park, another beautiful one. Friday we drove on to Conroe TX. We're staying at Lake Conroe Thousand Trails. It's real nice here. Daughter Lara and here family live about 50 miles from here so we're close enough to see them on the weekends and far enough away not to be a nuisance during the week. Lara and Jeff both work and the kids are in school so their life is pretty busy during the week.

We had a nice visit today and got to see the grand kids for the first time in about six months.
This all new to us. All the family has always been fairly close by till now. The grand kids have both grown a lot and Matt who's 14 now has a deep voice where is squeaked and cracked a mere six months ago.

S T R E S S

The title for this post will probably be more obvious by the time I get to the end.

First, the good stuff. Service work at Freightliner was finished by early afternoon so we headed toward warmer weather confident that the coach is in good shape. In fact the alignment was off a bit and there is an improvement in handling albeit a slight one. We managed to make pretty good time but decided to stop north of Atlanta at Carolina Landing Thousand Trails. It's located on Lake Hartwell which is on the SC / GA line. Traffic was heavy and we thought that mid morning would be a better time to tackle I285 traffic around the west side of Atlanta. Everything went as planned and though traffic was heavy, it wasn't too bad. It was windy and for those who don't drive motor homes, this translates into stressful driving. By the time we got to Montgomery AL I was feeling a bit tired and decided to stop for a rest in the parking lot of Sam's Club. At the top of the exit ramp there was a traffic light and naturally it was red. Here's where the fun begins. I was sitting at the light when the engine stopped. It wouldn't start. This is a busy road and there's lots of traffic. I'm blocking one of the two right turn lanes. It wasn't long before the police arrived to inform me that I had to move it or they would. After a little conversation (negotiation) he agreed that he'd put out cones to divert the traffic for a while. I called Freightliner for help. They have excellent telephone help 24/7 and told me that the symptoms I described sounded like the engine's Electronic Control Module wasn't getting power. With their help, I found the in line fuse they suspected was the problem buried in a bundle of wires the size of your wrist. Not only was the fuse bad, the fuse holder was melted. The cop drove me to Auto Zone where I bought a new in line fuse holder . Back at the MH I cut out the old fuse holder, spliced in the new one and it still wouldn't start. After pondering the situation for about ten minutes with Carolyn and the Cop breathing down my neck, I decided to get out the multimeter and verify the circuit. Would you believe the new fuse that I put in was bad. Replaced the fuse and voila! The engine starts. Drove across the street to the Sam's Parking lot for a much needed rest. Like I told Carolyn, "it's 5 o'clock somewhere". During all of this, there were calls to road side assistance, the shop of the mobile mechanic they recommended and numerous interruptions by the cop saying his boss was insisting that we get Shamu off the roadway. Needless to say, stress levels were high.

By now it was late afternoon and Montgomery's rush hour was beginning. We decided to spend the night and try for a fresh start on Wednesday hoping for a better day.

It's time to go

January 2009 is here and it's time to go. Christmas activities with family and friends are done and it's time to head South. It's been cold the past few days and snow was in the air as we pulled out of the drive.

First stop, Forest lake Thousand Trails, Mocksville NC for a day of R and R and a visit with some of Carolyn's family in Statesville. Her Uncle Charles is now in a nursing home so we spent some time there on Saturday.

Second stop, Freightliner factory in Gaffney SC for some routine maintenance. We got new tires last January and still haven't gotten an alignment. The factory has all the best equipment so this is the ideal time to get the alignment checked and fixed if necessary. This is cheap insurance to protect the investment in new tires. The last set lasted about 60,000 miles. Our hope is that the new ones will do better. Freightliner has put in electric hookups in the back of the shop so we can arrive early and leave late if we wish to. Service on motor homes is a problem so it's great to have access to a factory facility where the help is competent and well trained.

Our appointment is for Monday Jan 5 so we'll arrive on Sunday and spend the night. That way we'll be ready for a 7:45 appointment.