Author: Steve

 

Drove the bus a few miles up the road to Texas Coach in Pipe Creek for some long-planned tweaks.  Getting out of their way while they work, we took a walk on the Kerrville River Trail.

 

September 2020 Trip Map

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Followed by a visit with Roger and Mary who just left the Valley for a new home in the Hill Country.

 

 

 

They only just left the Valley and have more stuff still in boxes than they’ve put away yet, but nice to see them again and their new digs.  Cool weather and a breeze made for a comfortable visit on their front porch.

 

 

To South Llano River State Park

 

September 2020 Trip Map

 

This is one of the coolest places we go.  A campground we love, hiking trails galore, a river, ponds, oak forest, and four bird blinds!  It would be hard to get much better than that!

 

Lora’s blind.

 

 

Here is what they look like inside.

 

And the view from behind glass the birds can’t see in.

 

Agarita blind.

 

 

Juniper blind.

 

 

Acorn blind.

 

 

All the bird blinds are stocked with seed and suet, and they each have an active water feature.  Great bird attractors.

 

Campground and scenery.

 

 

 

 

 

 

To Bandera.

 

From the wide-open spaces of roadside parking pullouts.

 

To a crowded commercial RV Park in town.

 

September 2020 Trip Map

 

It’s time to hookup, dump and fill, run some laundry, and take longer showers.  We’ll be here for the two weekend nights, then back on the tanks.

 

There is another named storm, Beta, brewing in the Western Gulf.  It has such a wide cone of uncertainty we don’t know if it is going to hit South Texas or not.  It certainly looks like it could.  It might be another slow-moving rain-maker.

 

We’ll watch from a distance.

 

Meanwhile, the Texas Sage is blooming.

 

 

 

We spent the afternoon here at Walmart in Calallen while the repair guy worked to take the ECM back out and get it to the shop to get calibrated.

 

September 2020 Trip Map

 

We didn’t gain any ground today, but we didn’t lose any either.  The ECM calibration didn’t go as planned.  It’s almost, but not quite the right ECM.  It’s good enough to make the coach drive, but the gauges don’t work right.  No problem, we’ve got another plan.  We’ll keep our appointment in Bandera next week.  Who needs to drive with gauges anyway; and besides, it’s only a hundred miles from here to there.  When we’re done with that, we’ll head for Holt Cat in San Antonio.  That’s only sixty-five miles.  They can install the correct ECM there and do the calibration.  Then we’ll have all our functions back.  Brilliant!

 

And tonight’s stop?  Choke Canyon State Park?  No.  Same parking pullout on the freeway in the dark as last night.  It kind of feels like home here now.  The difference this time is that tomorrow we’re headed north!

 

 

 

This morning’s view.

 

The bus came back to life just after midnight last night.  It needed a new ECM alright.  The ECM is a nice clean computer part, but some of the connections for it were hidden underneath behind dirty parts.  The change-out required hours of working underneath the engine of the bus by flashlight and headlights in the rain.  Our guy stuck with it and the new computer was functioning well enough the bus would run again.  He followed us the four miles up the road to a parking pullout where we spent the night to make sure we got there, then he headed off for the one more emergency call he had to make that night.  Wow.

 

September 2020 Trip Map

 

We were in a place we could open a couple slides and spent a comfortable remainder of the night, being able to shower and sleep in our own bed.  We ran the generator and air conditioning all night and got a good night’s sleep.  Now we’re going back into Corpus Christi to meet George so he can get our new computer calibrated to our coach so not only will it run right, but all the gauges will work properly as well.

 

Tonight, maybe Choke Canyon?