I sing that every time we take off for somewhere new, “On the Road Again”, I think it’s an old Willey Nelson song and that’s about as far as I know the lyrics too but I sing em anyway!! Drives Chris nuts!! TeeHee. But I figure he’ll come around just like the “Ding Ding” going over the state lines. My sister and I would holler out DING DING at every state line when we traveled as kids. I still do it to this day. Chris has recently joined in on the fun after all these years of protesting. Too funny!! We haven’t gotten to do the DING DING holler yet…still in Texas. We made some progress but we aren’t in a big ole hurry so whatever.
Let’s start from the beginning, shall we??
The rig has new brake pads but not a new rotor. The little town of Pearsall didn’t have a RV book anywhere so the only way to know what kind of rotor to order is to take the wheel off and look. Couldn’t park the old girl at the mechanics overnight so everyone put their thinking caps on and between the NAPA and the mechanic and Chris they decided it was probably X rotor and placed the order. Boy were they wrong!! The rotor is part of the drum and lug nuts the tire goes on. No one saw that one coming. Even if they had known they couldn’t have ordered the part anywho. We need to go to an RV specialist for that. But the mechanic agreed the new brake pads would do the job for a while until we can get to a bigger city and wait for the part to come in. Chris is thrilled with how much better she is driving with the new pads and the right pressure in all the tires. But with all the confusion it did take a little while longer than we were hoping and we spent the majority of Friday in Pearsall. We couldn’t have picked a better place to stay there!! They were super groovy about us staying way way past check out and adding on an additional day. They didn’t blink an eye about the kids, the room was super clean, the shower was one of the best in all the hotels we’ve EVER stayed in, the laundry was fast and the cheapest we’ve seen yet at only $1 for wash and $1 for dry and the people were super friendly and helpful. If you ever have the pleasure of traveling through Pearsall TX try the Royal INN, they won’t disappoint!!
We didn’t make reservations anywhere for Friday night because we weren’t really sure we were going to be able to leave… So where do we go?? Well once we were actually ready to hit the road we would be getting into San Antonio right at rush hour so we cooled our jets at the closest rest stop for a couple of hours to let all those crazy 9-5ers get home for the weekend. It gave us a little time to get some stuff in the rig organized and run the vacuum again and search for a spot for the night. We found the Camping World on the other side of San Antonio and since they always offer free overnight parking to RVers we set the navigational beacon and headed north. We didn’t find our way to the Camping World but a big truck stop on the other side of San Antonio. Took me awhile to feel comfortable but we both slept as well as we could in the heat. We knew we weren’t going to do another night without a plug-in, not good for us or the kids!! We set our sites on Fort Worth and found this cute little, cheap, campground just outside the city with all the amenities including a big pool and showers!! Sold!! They had openings and fun stuff to do around the site so we set off!!
We knew we had a long day of traveling ahead so first stop was the Crack House aka The Cracker Barrel. Saturday morning at the Crack House was probably not our smartest move but regardless of the wait we had a fabulous breakfast and got a free map of all their locations. Very handy seeing as they also offer free overnight parking to RVers!! Score!! We knew we’d be traveling back up 35 the majority of the way so we set the cruise, so to speak, and went with it. After a while it was time for a gas/piddle/drink reload stop and after all that I had the brilliant idea to drop the top on the Miata before we hit Austin. Gotta keep up on this bronzed goddess tan after all!! Austin traffic sucks, even midday Saturday, very poor design with only one major interstate/highway going North/South through the State Capital!! Once we made it through Austin there were two rather large suburb towns north that 35 also goes straight through. I used the walkie-talkie to tell Chris once we got out of the mess I needed to stop for a drink reload and possibly put the top up. I did mention how brilliant the idea was right? He check the GPWes and sure enough we were only 25 miles from a rest stop. Sold!! Then everything came to a screeching halt. The whole interstate was at a crawl. What is going on?? Then the police cars, ambulances and fire trucks start coming out of the woodwork from every direction. Cars and trucks, even a church van, started bailing off the interstate through the grass median. Ok, this is looking worse and worse!! For 5 miles we crawled through the stop and go traffic then all 3 lanes needed to merge into one. Oh Joy! One of the beautiful parts of me following in the Miata is that I can get us into tight spaces by going first and leaving lots of room for Chris to go ahead of me. It’s super nice for changing lanes, parking spaces and it worked splendidly for this merge!! When we finally got to the accident it was horrific. A single black Jaguar had just been extinguished and was completely totaled. They were still working on the lady on the side of the road. I tried to find some info on the crash online without any luck. I pray she is doing ok… We stopped at the first exit to get me something cold to drink, wander in the HEB air conditioning and put the top up on the Miata. I was just a little pink after all that…brilliant I tell ya, brilliant!! Onward we go. One of our final stops for the day was in Crawford TX which just happens to be the hometown of George W Bush, former Mr President of the United States of America!! Pretty dang cool!! We actually had ice cream where the former President eats when he’s in town. Super cool beans!! The workers showed us some pictures of them with the former President on his trip through a couple of weeks ago. Snazzy!!
More of the adventure to come!!
Stay Tuned for random updates!!
Madcap Out!
Kofy Thyme 