Army!

Congratulations to Pfc. Ian Heyman on his recent graduation from Basic Training!

Time off is a relative thing.

Over six months, that is the amount of time its been since Toie and I have had any time off that didn't involve having to rig up or rig down the RV. Not that we haven't tried to have someone come out and keep an eye on things while we take a little much needed time for ourselves, it just seems to be "that" time of year.  We started upon our quest for a bit of time away over a month ago and it seems that the stars have not been aligned to our favor, so we kept soldiering on, the days becoming a never ending blur of traffic and dust.

We actually had an ulterior motive for taking the time. Lacey (daughter) moved from Missouri and has been staying with us so we figured on taking her to the coast and getting all the paperwork done so that she could make a little money and cover for us when we wanted a "date" night.  After many failed attempts of getting coverage for ourselves we finally decided that the girls would strike out for the coast on their own to get all the details taken care of and spend some time at the beach.

Yesterday morning Toie and Lacey made the 100+ mile, 2 hour drive across South Texas towards Corpus Christi. Traveling south on Highway 181 gives a glimpse and feel of what travel was like before the federal highway system existed.  Overgrown and abandoned roadside gas stations along with other "attractions" now barely visible hearken back to a time that the journey was part of the adventure, not just an inconvenient intermission to the destination.

Below are a few photos from that trip.

Corpus Christi Beach

Windmill near Taft, Texas

USS Lexington

Shrimp Boat in the Marina

Along the Waterfront

Standing on the seawall looking for fish in the water below

Water pumps and a good jockey

Over the Memorial Day weekend we had ourselves a bit of weather that at one point over an inch of rain an hour was falling here on our river.. err I mean gate. Just as the rain was starting as a light sprinkle I was informed that we were no longer had water coming from our kitchen faucet.  I knew we were getting low on water but by my reckoning we shouldn't have been out yet. Well I went out and made a beeline for the trailer on which our generator and 550 gallon water tank reside. Upon climbing up and opening the lid I found that we were indeed low but still had enough to get us through a few more days.  I pulled the door off of the generator housing where the starting battery and water pump resides and was quick to discover that the water pump was indeed dead a no amount of fiddling with it was going to bring it back to life.  Luckily I keep an old pump as an emergency backup for just such an occasion and swapping out the inoperative one only took a few short minutes.

In the meantime, the Big Rain was gearing up good and I finished in time to avoid a good soaking. We weathered the storm pretty well, only discovering a small leak, which incidentally happened right above the computer, effectively rendering every USB port useless due to a malfunction. At the height of the storm we had roughly an inch of standing water on the road and a RIVER running behind and under the left side of the RV. There was so much water that it washed out the edge of the pad we are sitting on, along with causing the front left of the RV to sink a few inches.  The car, which was parked in front of the RV, sunk about an inch as well. I collected about 4 inches of water in a five gallon bucket in just over 7 hours that day. That doesn't include the  rain we received the night before.

Yesterday I decided that we had to reposition the RV due to the washing out of part of our pad and today we moved it. Luckily the pad was large before the rain and I was able to move the RV into a better position, roughly 10 feet closer to the lease road. The RV now sits over top of where our mat once was. Since we are sitting on a curve I also changed the angle of the RV to take better advantage of the sun's position so that we are more shaded on the curbside during the evening.

We also discovered this evening that my backup water pump had developed a significant leak. Large enough to partially fill the mat that the generator sits on.  So now its getting close to 8pm and I know getting another pump tonight is out of the question. I had set the original pump on the trailer to show to our support guy when he showed up to refuel us in hopes of getting a replacement and returning the backup to its place in storage.  So here I am with two pumps, one with a leak and another that is dead. Easy fix in my book, I took the good pump off the dead motor and used it to replace the leaky one on the working motor and Wala! I have my backup pump back. 

Its been a busy day.

Don't let your meat loaf!

Memorial Day.

Today is the day we remember those who gave all so that the rest of us wouldn't have to.

Gremlins and water

Over the last day or two we have been the recipients of a copious amout of rainfall here at the gate.  Yesterday at the height of the storm we had about an inch of standing water on the road and a river a few inches deep running underneath and behind the rv. Resulting in the left front leveling jack sinking a few inches into the mud. After the rain subsided a bit I stuck a measuring tape into the bucket I keep sitting outside (that was empty at the beginning of the rainstorm) and found that there were 4 inches of water there. That is a whole lot of rainfall in a short period of time.  San Antonio Airport received about 7 inches of rain in about an hour period from the same line of storms that affected us so we are counting ourselves lucky.  Looking out the window I can see it has started sprinkling again and the radar is showing a storm coming at us from the northwest.  We continue to be under a flash flood warning for the time being.

On the subject of Gremlins.  I'm not sure if this place is haunted or what but it seems that everytime we solve a problem here, two more pop up.  It has become a constaant back and forth between us and the rig, We fix an issue, they have a problem. They get their problem fixed and we start having issues again.  The latest is the water pump for our external water tank suddenly stopped working, I keep a backup in the  basement for just such an emergency, and in a few minutes I had water restored to the rv and we were back in business.  Well they started having problems down on the pad this morning, something about a piece of stuck equipment.  I'm sure when they get that resolved, something will hiccup up here at the gate.    Stuff like this have been going on as long as we've been here and it has become a running joke between us and some of the righands.

Hopefully  we wont float away!!!

Happy Memorial Everyone!

I'm gonna go see about leveling this ole bitch back up.