GETTING THE 5TH WHEEL WEIGHED

Tuesday, November 6 –  Our voting precinct is right here in Rainbow's End, so we were able to walk over and cast our ballots early today.

Only in Livingston would you find this type of sign.

We also are getting the 5^th wheel and truck weighed today. We first drove the truck fully loaded with fuel and supplies, as it would be on a typical travel day onto the scales.

Mark Nemeth reads the scale.

We then returned to our campsite and hooked-up the 5^th wheel. We returned to the weighing sight for the final weighing.

Chris helps out with the weighing.

The results were very good with all four corners of both the truck and the 5^th wheel coming in way under maximum allowed weight.

Chris and Mark go over the results with Paul.

We now need to download tire statistics so we can adjust inflation rates. Since we are under weight, we can reduce the tire pressure in both the truck and 5^th wheel tires.

After weighing, we pulled-out for the two hour drive to the Stafford Elks Lodge on Route 59 just South of Houston. We are frequent visitors of this Lodge, staying here whenever we are in town visiting our daughter, Carrie. We are at site #6 and will be here through the Thanksgiving holiday.

Look at that blue sky, and the temperature is in the 80's….ahhhhhhhh! 

It still looks like summer here with all the green trees and bushes still in bloom.

Most of the afternoon was spent trying to aim the satellite dish properly and get reception on the TV. Two of the neighbors were here offering their advice, Marsha was on the phone with Direct TV, and eventually we were successful in getting reception. We did find out that it will be necessary for a service technician to pay us a visit to fix our receiver. We do have a picture, we just can't record on the DVR.

With the TV working, we settled back to watch the election returns and spend the evening unwinding after four hectic days traveling from Ohio.

ON A SIDE NOTE: While taking pictures at our weighing session today at Escapee's Rainbows End, Marsha was reading the SmartWeigh poster.

She looked closer and noticed a picture of us at our last weighing in Livingston two years ago. It was on the poster advertising Escapee's Smart Weight Program. Then later that evening while reading the latest edition of the Escapee's magazine (November/December 2012), Paul saw the same picture on page 96, the last page in the magazine. Pretty neat!

That is our Phaeton in the upper-right hand corner and Paul and Mark.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!

MARSHA IS NOT A HAPPY CAMPER TODAY

Monday, November 5 – It's been a year since we were “HOME” in Livingston, TX. Rainbow's End Escapee's Park is the national headquarters for the Escapee RV Club and is our official mailing address. We have all our mail sent here, where it is sorted and forwarded to us upon request. We are very satisfied with our mail service here at Escapees.

Boy, is this place packed! Many are here to vote, or snowbirds on their way South, or arrivals for the Boot Camp seminar coming up later this week. Glad we are only going to be here one night. We want to vote, pick-up our mail, and get the 5^th wheel weighed. We should get that all taken care of by noon, and we'll be on our way to Houston.

Site #114 – pull through for overnight stays.

We are parked right across the street from the office.

Looking right.

Looking left.

We had a catastrophe today! When Marsha went in to set-up the 5^th wheel, she was greeted with dishes smashed all over the floor. Two cupboards flew open during our travel and dumped the contents on the floor. She felt so bad. Several of these dishes were her grandma's and others were wedding gifts we received when we got married. She said she traveled three years fulltime in the motor home and never had this happen.

In talking with one of the neighbors here in the campground, we learned we need to bungee those cupboard doors closed. Wish we had been told that earlier. So we ran out to Walmart to get the necessary supplies to secure the cabinet doors that have breakable dishes in them. Sort of like locking the barn doors after the cows got out..... :<((

Thanks to a suggestion from Donna and Karen, we tried Bella in her kitty carrier today. She still is an unhappy kitty while traveling. She rode for about an hour in it and then stuck her head right through the darn thing. The zipper is broken and of course Bella jumped right out. We purchased a new one at Walmart. Sure hope this one works.

A very unhappy kitty.

"Mom, why are you doing this to me?"

"Now this is much better. I knew I would get my way sooner or later."

Siesta time. How does she sleep like that?

One thing we both noticed today was the absence of any sway on the 5^th wheel/truck combination when large trucks wiz by on the road. We traveled on I-30 today. It was filled with trucks. Even with the motor home, we experience an occasional “hair raising moment” when trucks flew-by. We seem very stable driving the Ford 350 dually and towing the Cameo. Could it be a result of the DUALLY tires on the Ford? Hope it rides as well in windy conditions.

Get out there and vote!

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day.

DAY 2 ON THE ROAD!

Sunday, November 4 – We again pulled out of our campsite at first light. We switch to Central Time Zone and dropped Daylight Savings Time yesterday so that was a two-hour time change for us. To say we were up early and ready to go is no surprise.

We are in a “sprint mode” having left our home base a month later than we intended and wanting to get to Houston to catch-up with our daughter. We normally try only to drive 3-5 hours per day or about 300 miles. Our first day on the road we covered about 400 miles.

Today we drove 475 miles in about nine hours.....way to long!  But we arrived in Benton, Arkansas with no problems and in pretty good moods – Paul didn't find anything to get all riled-up about... :<)

Our drive was uneventful. We noticed that the leaves haven't all changed colors and dropped off the trees, like up in Ohio.

The Ford F350 on board computer did let us know it was “Cleaning the Exhaust Filter” during our trip.

Paul had read about this and was expecting it. It has to do with the DFT and Ultra Low Sulfur diesel fuel required in today's diesel engines. Periodically, the engine runs at a higher temperature to burn the pollutants rather than exhaust them to the air. We didn't notice any change in the engine running but we imagine our MPG decreased slightly, but we don't even want to look at those figures.... :<(

We are at J.B.'s RV Park and Campground in Benton, AR. A very nice campground. The owners are wonderful, friendly people. The area is wooded, very long gravel sites, full-hookups for $23/night. A little over our target of $20.

Marsha is standing at the end of our Site #14. It is huge.

A little closer look.

From the back. The motor home next to us looks close, but it isn't.

Looking right.

Looking left.

After arriving and getting set-up (We're getting experienced at setting up...only took about 15 minutes.), Paul sanitized our water system. The 5^th wheel was winterized when we took delivery, and we didn't want to change that until we got to a warmer climate. We did run water through the system last night but didn't drink any of the water. We'll leave the bleach solution in the fresh water holding tank while traveling tomorrow to sanitize everything. Then we should be good to go!

Bella was a little fussy again this morning. She never meows. She's very quiet! But the last two mornings, she meows for about two hours until she tiers herself out, then she settles down and crashes (sleeps like a drunk kitty) for the remainder of the trip. Crazy!

By-the-way.....this time change is killing us. Here we are at 6:30 p.m. and it feels like bedtime. It gets dark before supper, and it's hard to stay awake till 10 p.m....but come 5 a.m. guess who's up and ready to roll....LOL

Tomorrow we will arrive in Livingston, TX – our “official” home. We want to get the 5^th wheel weighed, pick-up our mail, and on Tuesday we want to cast our ballots. So glad this election business will be over.

Stop back and check our progress. Everyone be SAFE out there!

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!