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Big Spring State Park

7am. Uppenattum. It was a warm foggy morning. A friendly fog, that held us and hugged us, but didn’t constrain us. It was close and thick while we were getting ready to roll, but lifted just enough to let us drive seventy on the highway. A nice early start, headed for Caprock Canyon State Park, in North Texas. That didn’t last long. Fifty miles into the day, we decided we’d rather detour to San Angelo, find the Wal-Mart, unhook, get some barbeque from our favorite barbeque place, check out the San Angelo River Walk, look at some jewelry made out of those neat pink and purple freshwater pearls they get out of mussels in the Concho River, then head north to Big Spring State Park. So we did. Driving fast on the highway, birds crossing close in front of us, I’m surprised by how little bird-thunking we do with this thing. We push a big block of air out of our way. So far, none of it has had any birds in it. The sleep monster never struck this trip. Ten hours a night always took care of it. We can get up early and get by with eight hours on driving days. My mind rambled to running. I ran every day, but didn’t really cover that much ground: fifty or sixty miles. In perspective, over the course of an entire month, I ran the distance of one of Stephanie’s training runs. Every January, on vacation, I stay active. I exercise every day. And when I get home I’m surprised by how poorly prepared I am for the demands of racquetball. I attribute it to being in “running shape”, but not “racquetball shape”. My mind continued to wander, and arrived at another possibility. Altitude! I forgot about the altitude. I’m not immune to altitude. After a month at sea level, no wonder I get winded during racquetball bursts at five thousand feet. I have to reacclimatize. Getting this close to home, Judy is feeling pleased that we have made it an entire month on the road without stopping at a Laundromat. Practicing life on the road. Life without Laundromats. Didn’t seem like such a problem to me. I didn’t mind dropping Judy off, then coming back for her when the laundry was done. Nice early stop for the night. Time to walk around and explore before dark. Big Spring State Park. Two, count ’em, two campsites. We got the last one available. I haven’t figured out yet whether we got the best one or not. From up on top of this hill, we can look down over the lake where the sandhill cranes hang out every evening. There are some here now. Thousands will pass through on the spring migration. We’re spending the night at 2,500 feet. Based on elevation, we’re half way home. A 250 mile day. Tomorrow, we’ll cover a lot of ground.
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Buckhorn

We did it. We left. Had a quiet restful night. Got up nice and early. Went birding with Dennis. Then got ready to leave. It’s funny how much longer it takes to leave after you’ve been there for a week than it does for an overnight stop. Judy got her hair washed, we got the barbeque put away, the bag of oranges in the cabinet, the chairs back in the bin, the boats back up on the car and tied down, the utilities all unhooked, the slides in, the jacks up, the suspension back up, and backed out. Judy stood outside and made sure I missed the car, the shelter, and the tree. Said goodbye to Rick and Angie. Then we drove a quarter mile to the dump station so we could start out empty. Then we drove a mile to the gas station so we could start out full. Then we drove twenty miles to the propane station so we could start out with that full too. Drove twenty miles to make one more stop. Then it was time for lunch. The first day out never covers much ground. And besides that, Judy is moody. She doesn’t like the trip back home as much as she likes the trip down. I sure don’t want to drive late today, until one of us gets tired and cranky. The propane tank still read half full, but we want to be sure to have enough heat for that Colorado snow. I was crawling around under the Freightliner a few days ago, and I noticed that there are no springs under there at all. There are air bags holding the whole thing up, but how can you do that with no metal at all? Leafs? Coils? Looks empty. The reason I was crawling around under there is a longer story. Maybe it won’t take longer to tell, but it has gone on for months. It has to do with fueling. There is a notice beside the fuel fill hole. It says “drain water from the water/fuel separator after each fill up. See owner’s manual” I’ve never had a diesel before. What does that mean? I could look it up, but I had an easier solution. I asked the guy I was buying it from what that meant. He said he didn’t know but he didn’t think it mattered. I thought it probably did matter, but if it hadn’t been done for two years anyway, it probably wasn’t urgent. I looked around for something that looked like a water/fuel separator, but couldn’t find anything. After a few weeks of keeping an eye out for it, I decided to make a careful search. Nothing. I was desperate, so I looked it up in the owner’s manual. It said: “drain water from the water/fuel separator after each fill up.” See operator’s manual.” That took care of that for a while. Next effort, I dug through all the paper we got with this thing and found the operators manual for the Freightliner. It said: “drain water from the water/fuel separator after each fill up.” It went on to describe the water/fuel separator as a doohickey that had a glass bowl on it with a screw fitting on the bottom. If there is water in the bowl, you open the fitting to drain the water out. It said they couldn’t tell me where it was because the final manufacturer, that would be Fleetwood, got to locate it wherever they wanted. I searched the vehicle again. Nothing. This trip, I decided to get serious. Judy called Fleetwood for me. They have incredible customer service. You call them and tell them your vehicle number. They call your vehicle up on the computer and tell you anything you want to know about your unit. We called. Roland answered. He looked us up. He said it was located under the vehicle. I looked under it. He said no. Way under. Attached to the frame. I crawled under. Cell phone in hand, I crawled while he described. It’s on the outside of the frame, passenger side, two feet behind the front wheel. It’s not there. No. Not the front wheel, the rear axle. Two feet behind the rear axle. It’s not there. What’s it look like? It’s a doohickey with a glass bowl. From under the motorhome, on my back, on the cell phone I asked him, “Are you sure I’m supposed to be on my back under the motorhome in the gas station every time I fill up to do this?” He mumbled. I never found it. I gave up. Again. Then I met the guy next to us at Goose Island, from Ohio, towing a travel trailer with a diesel pickup. We talked about lots of stuff. We talked about the separator. I described it to him. He said sure, it probably looked like that. But it could be inside a plastic housing. Judy looked in the engine compartment in the back and found something neither one of us recognized. He identified it as the separator. It doesn’t have a glass bowl showing. It doesn’t have a screw on the bottom. It is enclosed in a black plastic canister with a black lever on one side, and a short drain hose attached. He showed us how to use it. We don’t have to get under the motorhome to get at it. We don’t even have to lean over. A perfect solution, even if it did take a long time to get to. Now the Bounder has been properly burped. Wonder if I should call Fleetwood and tell them where it is? I was wrong. It did take longer to tell. Bill is about ready to leave on his Spring Training Trip. He’ll leave just before I get back from my trip. Let’s go for the record. How long can we keep at least one brother in the air at all times? Stopped for the night at a private RV park we like. If you’re ever passing through the Texas Hill Country and are looking for a full hookup private RV park convenient to the freeway, we recommend Buckhorn Lake Resort. Stream. Lake. Ponds. Swans. Stocked with fish. No fishing license required. Perfectly level, well separated sites. Very nice. It’s at exit 501 on Interstate 10. Oh no. I didn’t get to the showerhead, hot mirrors, Buddy at Tackle town, GPS rest stops, or the Lazy Daze. Ok, I’ll do the Lazy Daze. There’s a thirty-footer here. He was towing. I watched it from a distance and was struck by how small the wheels look. It’s hard to imagine those wheels supporting enough brakes to provide a lot of stopping power. Especially towing. They’re regular Class C size wheels. Class A wheels are a little larger. Diesel wheels are larger still. Guess they’re all proportional to the weight of the vehicle. I looked again. I think what else makes the wheels look small is that it was wearing fender skirts. I never noticed that before. The Lazy Daze has fender skirts. How about that? A flashback to the fifties. A 250 mile day.
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Goose Island

Wow! It was a long and loud night. Wind came up. And up. And up. By midnight, it was shaking the whole rig. There was lots of noise. It sounded like branches scraping the roof. We’re not parked next to a tree. Vents flapped. Awning straps slapped. The wind blew all the water out of the bay. By daylight it was calm. That’s no way to leave, after a rough night like that. We signed up for another day. New oyster beds to see. Birds discovering the uncovered oyster beds to watch. I dried my hair without any electrical incidents. I made sure there was no electric heater or coffee maker running at the time. Last night we watched a car drive through the moon. Late at night, eleven. The waxing moon set, through the binoculars, an orange crescent going silently flat on the bottom. Then, suddenly appearing again! It was setting directly behind the Copano Bay Bridge. Just then, a car drove past, clearly visible in the darkness, back lit entirely by the light of the moon. Wow. I wonder if the people in the car felt it? Decided we needed another Port Aransas day. Drove there. Crossed the ferry. Shopped. Did the bird lagoon. Had lunch on the beach next to the jetty. Checked out a few more things. Drove home. Got home just in time for another great sunset. It was a good moorhen day. Saw several. Saw a moorhen chase a coot. Saw another rail. Saw another ruby crowned kinglet. Tiny little thing. About the size of a hummingbird. Ducks, mergansers, loons, grebes. You know. Took a little side trip to a good ducking spot. Spotted a few. Then found Judy’s swan again. The swan that’s not supposed to be here. When I could finally get Judy’s attention diverted from the swan, we checked out some ducks I couldn’t recognize. They looked a lot like a duck we’ve never seen before: the American Black Duck. They’re not normally around here so there wasn’t much chance, but, That’s it! They match exactly. American Black Ducks. Gottum. Checked out a little park on the way back. It’s called Lighthouse Lakes Trails Park. Sounds good. It is a low-lying saltwater marsh, honeycombed by marked trails, with a lighthouse on the other side. The Lydia Ann. We always look for it. You can see the lighthouse off in the distance from the road. We’ve seen it from up close on the water in the sailboat one year when we sailed out to Port Aransas from Corpus Christie. You can put your kayak in the water at this park, and paddle all the way over to the Lydia Ann and back in sheltered water. That’s a good thing.. You don’t have to worry about the headwind coming up after you have crossed the bay. It will always be a reasonable paddle back in relatively calm water. We’ll have to remember that spot for next year. We’re not stopping in Glenwood Springs on the way home. The office picked up another out of town job while we’ve been gone. The new client in Glenwood Springs wants it done right away, so I tried to set it up for next Monday and Tuesday so we could catch it on the way home. They want it done soon, but not that soon. When we go home, we’ll just go home. The TV remote puzzles us. Not because we can’t program it. No surprise there. What puzzles us is that when you push the button to turn the television off, the television goes off. Then it blinks back on. You blink it off again. It goes off. But it blinks back on. Again. And again. Persistence always pays. It will turn off and stay off. Eventually. A trick TV remote? A party gag? I want to talk about the north star, and the ferry current, and two bathrooms, and the water/fuel separator, and full-timers, and kayaking in the wind, and going room-to-room, and the other kayak fisherman, and the two switches, and Cut and Shoot Texas, and Luling Texas, and traffic light triggers, and cold hands, and banking on the road, and the walk-in clinic, and gas pump shutoffs, and candy canes, and the retractable extra axle, and truck cabs. But I’m running out of time. Maybe while I’m driving home, nothing new will happen and I can write each evening about the rest of this stuff. Maybe. I know! Another trip. I can spend my time on the next trip asking the questions I didn’t get to on this trip. But then…. Oh well.