Colby T. and the Land of Cowboys

April 5, 2012

Well, after all that waiting for my trip to Bandera, TX, today finally got here. It was miserable waiting for it to come. Last night, I barely slept at all. Then I was so tired this morning, that, when I did wake up, I let the dogs up normally, went back upstairs to the couch for my little snoozeroo, but when I woke up after the first 45 minute interval, I was so tired that I set the timer for the Carson schedule. I realized I was going to be late for work. At Braun Station, I have duty starting at 7:15. But, on Carson days, I don't have to be there until 7:30. I texted the boss and told him I would be there at 7:20, so all was OK.

The rest of the day was spent doing stuff on my list and whatever new things people threw my way, or just passing time helping classes, talking to other teachers, eating lunch, etc. But, I won't lie... My eye was on the clock all day. It never left it.

Finally, three o'clock came. I said my goodbyes, ran to the truck, and flew home. The plan was to get home, change, use the restroom, let the dogs out, put the few things that were already packed into the truck, and head over to the storage lot to get Colby T. I got it all done, but, just as I started up the truck, I got a text from N2S asking what the earliest time was that I could pick him up. Evidently, he had a band contest at another school, so they were signed out for the day. When they got back to Marshall, the band director said they could go home, but the bus wasn't leaving for over an hour. I called and told him I would get him, but he had to go to the lot and help me hitch up. He agreed, so that's what we did. Then, I dropped him off and hit the road. It was a little bit of a late start, but not that bad.

When I was leaving Helotes, I remembered that I wanted to stop at Dino and Gino Liquors for a bottle of Scotch. I pulled in, but, just as I was ready to park off to the side of the parking lot, I noticed it was one of those painted fire lanes. (We call the one at school The River.) It took me a few loops to decide where to park. I didn't want to block anyone in, but I also wanted to be legal.

When I finally went in the store, the two people who were working in it asked me all about the Colby T. I invited them to go out and check it out, so they did. The lady really liked it and asked me where they were for sale. Then she took photos of it before going back in and selling me my Glen Livet. It was nice to have someone admiring something of mine. I don't usually get that.

I got back on the road and had a nice slow and uneventful ride to Bandera. I love the drive. It is very nice. You get to see lots of pretty Hill Country. It won't be long before it is too built up, though. They seem to be building homes at the top of every other hill. For now, it is a nice thirty minute country drive with rolling vistas.

As soon as you enter town, you turn left on Main Street to head towards the river. The Pioneer RV Resort is located right before the Medina River bridge. I haven't really walked around it much. I'll tell you more about the resort tomorrow.

A man welcomed me and led me to my site in a golf cart. I spent a while getting things set up. Of course the first thing I did was plug in the power and turn on the AC. It was pretty hot today, and it took about an hour before the trailer felt “cool”. It was bearable before that, but not “cool”. Now it is almost 10:00 PM, and I can't find a setting that isn't downright cold!!! I am freezing. I don't want to turn it off. I keep adjusting it, but haven't found the sweet spot, yet.

Anyway, I hooked up the sewer pipe for the first time. I also got the city water running. I don't have the pilot for the hot water heater lit, yet. I'll do that tomorrow when I want to take a shower. I'm just not ready for that, and don't see the need to burn the gas all night long keeping water hot.

I did have one little snafu to my plans. I went to WalMart yesterday and bought a cable wire because I had been led to believe that I had built in cable connections. Evidently I don't. It says in the manual, “To utilize the cable access, locate the exterior hookup on the side of the recreational vehicle. Attach cable to access hook-up and trailer hook-up. If your antenna inside control switch has a cable selection, move the sliding switch to cable. Otherwise turn to “OFF” position and hook TV coaxial cable into separate park cable jack.” I don't know what that all means, if it isn't saying I have a cable hook-up. I wasn't going to watch TV anyway, except for the Spurs game. I can get plenty of San Antonio local stations. Unfortunately, for those who don't live around here, the Spurs are only shown on a Fox cable channel. If they play a major market team like the Lakers, it's broadcast on a local channel. They play the Hornets tomorrow, so I'm out of luck.

Because of my learning stage. I do everything with my manual. The neighbors probably thought I was crazy hooking up my sewer and water while reading the directions one step at a time. Oh, well! I am a newbie. I have to learn somehow, and don't want to always be pestering Jack with my newbie questions. I don't want to blow my head off lighting the gas pilot either.

The other little snafu I had is a WiFi issue. I knew that I was going to have it free here. I assumed the code was written on my welcome brochure/map. It has been at the two other RV parks I have used. Not this one. You have to ask for it in the office, which was closed by the time I realized it. As I passed another family of RVers, I asked if they knew whether or not we had a common password, or if each of us had our own. The man I spoke to told me he didn't know anything about it. I'll have to get my code tomorrow morning.

At about seven, I decided I was hungry and headed into town to get some barbecue at Sid's. When I got there, it was closed. I went to the grocery store instead. I got some meat, cheese, mustard, and low-carb tortillas. I was really surprised to find them. There weren't many choices for non-carbers at this store. I made some microwave tacos for dinner. They were pretty pathetic, but who cares? I'm in the Colby T.

I made myself a cup of Keurig coffee, poured a little Scotch, and started doing some writing. Finally went to bed at about 11:30.

April 6, 2012

It is amazing to me how well I sleep in this trailer. Even when I had two 16-year-old boys crammed in here with me, I slept good. I did wake up a couple of times during the night and used my toilet. How nice is that? No more pee bottle. No more putting shoes on and looking for a tree, or worse yet, hiking to the bath house in the wee wee hours.

I actually got up and started my day at 8:15 by having a cup of coffee and eating my Quest bar. Then I put the dinette back together and tidied up before heading over to the office to get my WiFi code. As I left the office heading for the bath house (I can't bring my self to put solids in my camper toilet, if you get my drift. Jack F. says that day will come. I'm just not ready for it, yet!), the lady called and asked me to return and register. I thought I had been registered last night, but evidently not. Once she saw that I had paid in advance, everything was set.

After using the facilities in the bath house, I walked around the property a bit and took a few photos. When I got back, my closest neighbor was already gone! Later during the day, a new guy came in one of those little Casita trailers. I think it might be smaller than mine. It's nice looking though.

I got everything ready and headed over to the Hill Country Natural Area for my hike. This time, the ranger sent me on a gentle walk through the hills that never once made me gasp for breath. It was a well shaded hike, and the breeze had a coolness to it. It was almost a hypnotic experience. I loved it. There were so many vistas, so many flowers, so many lizards, so many butterflies, and so many birds. Rachel had jokingly responded to my text that I was headed for a hike with, “Go commune.” That's exactly what I did. I know God was a busy fellow during creation, but he surely took His time when he crafted Texas.

I thought a friend of mine was going to be there riding her horse today. Every time I saw horse riders, and there were a plethora of trail riders, I would ask for her. Some knew the name, but didn't know where she was. Turns out she will be there tomorrow. Oh, well!

I forgot to mention two things. First, I foound a geocache on the hike. I had four of them in my GPS, but had only planned on getting them IF they were coincidentally on my trails. This one was, so I grabbed it. Second, I got a Voxer message saying that Jack F. had downloaded the Voxer app. I suggested it to him earlier in the week for when we go to Corpus for the Beach to Bay. The funny thing is that I didn't have any service for my phone! I had just tried to send a picture on Facebook, but I wasn't high enough on the hills to get any bars. I sent a message to Jack, and thought he didn't get it. But, after a few minutes, he sent one back saying he had. Now, I'm not saying that it will always work when there's no phone service. I'm just saying that I was amazed.

After the hike, I asked the rangers about a sign I had seen saying that Tarpley was ten miles away. That's the tiny little town in the middle of nowhere with the gourmet restaurant, Mac and Ernie's Roadside Eatery, that was featured on the first tripleD episode. I asked if it was really possible to get there from the park. They said it would be five miles on the dirt county road and another five miles on a paved road. I decided to go for it. It was a beautiful day to go for a drive in the country. You can't get much farther out in the country than this!

When I got to Tarpley, I just wasn't hungry, so I decided to pass it up and head for Bandera instead. I ended up at the BBQ place I had wanted to eat at last night. I ordered a half rack of babyback ribs. That's all- just the ribs. I usually don't mess with any sides on this low-carb diet. Anyway, I took the ribs and sat outside at a picnic table in downtown Bandera. It was great.

Back at the trailer, it was time to figure out the pilot light for the hot water heater. The manual said to be sure the hot water heater was full of water before lighting it, but I couldn't figure out how I was supposed to tell. I ended up calling Ancira RV about 5 times during the process. I wish we had actually lit the damned thing during the orientation.

Anyway, just as I was going out with my lighter, Floyd, the manager, came and handed me a paper that said, “6 McQueeny” and told me I needed to get moving, because checkout time was way earlier in the day. I told him I had paid for two days, but he said I needed to go to the office and talk to the lady, which I did. Evidently, the leaving of the last guy in my space, Jim McQueeny, didn't get recorded correctly, and they thought he was still here. The lady remembered me from the morning and took care of it.

Back at the camper, (You'll notice I switch between the terms camper and trailer a lot. Can't help it. Don't know why.) I got the pilot light lit and had lots of hot water. Unfortunately, I also had lots of loud beeping of my carbon monoxide alarm. I called Ancira back, and he told me that was usual for the first time, because I was burning stuff off the burners, etc. It drove me crazy. I decided to go ahead and get my shower over with and turn the gas back off. I'll deal with the beeping on the next trip, if it happens again.

I stripped and climbed in the shower, but before I could figure out how to get the water to come up through the shower head, I noticed that the tub wasn't draining. I had been told to keep the grey water valve closed so I could dump it after the black water to clean out the system. I even asked the Ancira dude a few minutes earlier, since I had him on the phone. I wanted to know how I would know that the tank was full. He said there was no way I could fill it in two days and to leave the grey valve closed. Well, I dried my feet, threw some clothes on real quick, and went and opened that valve. I left it open, and I will actually run water to fill the tank up, if necessary tomorrow, but I am not willing to shower standing in dirty water that's not going down the drain.

What did I learn about showering in the trailer? Probably won't happen much. It was tight and awkward. If I am boondocking, it'll be nice to have as an option. If I'm at a park, I'll use the bath house showers.

After I was dry and dressed again, I went out and turned off the hot water heater and the gas. That stupid alarm still went off every five minutes for about another fifteen minutes. Okay... Here's what I think. I think that the tank was full of some kind of winterizing stuff. It had a smell, and the hot water was foamy. I think heating it caused something in the air to be detected wrong. When I get to the storage lot, I'm going to totally drain the hot water heater. I'm not sure they like floods here.

I sat down for awhile with a cup of coffee. I had a response from smokedummy, a buddy of mine on the Open Roads RV Forum who also has a Retro 140. I had mentioned to him last night about my lack of a cable connection. He said he couldn't find it on his either, but came up with a plan. He was going to open up the box under the port side dinette bench where the water tank and hot water heater are stowed, and run a cable wire out through the shoreline opening. It sounded like a good idea to me, but my bench was securely bolted down. Fortunately, Rachel gave me a little tool box full of tools as a house warming gift for the popup. I took the bolts off and lifted the board. I didn't realize that the shoreline (the electric wire that plugs in to the post at a campsite and powers the entire trailer) just went nilly-willy into a section of the bench box. I threw the cable in there, then threaded one end out of the trailer, and the other up through the finger hole on the bench board. Now I have 49 channels of cable TV. Fox SW (150 at home) is one of them. In fact, the Spurs just tipped off against New Orleans. Time to take a break from writing.

Well, the Spurs are playing really well. Saw some amazing plays. Loving the newer players, too. Still makes me angry that we aren't taken seriously nationally. Even this ten-win run doesn't seem to be noteworthy. The Lakers could lose every game and still get the accolades and network attention.

Anyway, once I got the cable set up, I went ahead and put the antenna down. That's one less thing on my departure prep list. I have a pretty long one. I know that it will all become routine some day, but I still go through every step one at a time right now. Then, before I drive away, I go over the whole list a couple of times again. If I can't remember doing something, even though I crossed it off, I go back and double check. I've heard too many horror stories. Besides, I'm the bonehead who pushed the popup bunk in, knocking over the cooler, breaking it, and flooding the camper with 20 pounds worth of melted ice water.

I spent a little bit of time just relaxing and processing some of my pictures from the Flip video recorder. I had planned on taking a trip into town to look around, but I was really pooped.

At about 5:00 pm, I did hike into town. It's only about two football fields length from the RV resort to the start of the historic downtown area. It took about ten minutes to get to Busbee's BBQ. I went ahead and bought some brisket for later. Then I walked farther down Main Street and took some pictures of the downtown area, including the courthouse and water tower. Then, I walked back toward the RV resort. I was passing a place called the Chicken Coop. There was country music coming from inside, so I went in and drank a Lonestar. It was a rustic country bar. I enjoyed it. I stopped in some other little stores after that. I took a picture of the Bandera General Store and sent it to my sister. She loves Bandera. She has a bit of a cowboy fetish. I figured it would be nice of little brother to point out that he was staying for two nights right down the street from all her favorite places.

Back at camp, I finished up all my pictures and started working on this blog post. I wanted to put the pictures on Facebook, but I just couldn't get the WiFi to work right. Every site but Facebook loaded. Facebook loaded a textual version like you used to get on an iPod touch before they created the app. Anyway I gave up. I stopped writing this to watch the game. The Spurs won by nearly 30 points. Even a blow out is fun to watch for me.

I took a trip to the bathhouse during halftime. Remember, I said I'm not fully using my trailer toilet. That doesn't prevent the need to make a deposit elsewhere. I know... TMI. Deal with it! While I was walking over there, I got a great view of the full moon glowing bright orange over the river. I tried to take a picture with my iPhone, but it just looked like an orange dot on a black background. Not the impressive view I was seeing with the bunny showing better than ever! According to Facebook, it is equally beautiful in Decatur, Illinois and St. Louis, Missouri.

April 7, 2012

Another great night of sleep in the Colby T. In fact, I slept so well that I didn't even here the Casita and the big RV he was traveling with pull out sometime before 8:00 AM. When I am sealed up in the trailer with the AC running, I hear nothing from the outside world. That's why I like early spring. I can have the windows open and hear the sounds of camp.

I made myself a cup of coffee and ate some bacon tacos for breakfast. Walmart sells “bacon jerky”, which is actually just a package of cooked bacon. It tastes and chews just like bacon that you cooked earlier in the morning. I like it. A few seconds in the microwave, and it was as if I had just taken it out of the pan. It was an easy to prepare and easy to clean satisfying meal.

I went outside to close the grey water valve so I could start building up a supply of water in the tank. It wasn't really raining or anything, but there was a mistiness that made me want to finish up all the outside stuff just in case. I went in and ran the hot water to both drain the hot water heater and fill the grey water tank. That was when it hit me. I had to GO! I stood there in a panic. Should I run to the bathhouse? Will I make it? Do I use the toilet in the Colby T., even though I wasn't ever going to do “that” in it? Finally, the decision was made for me. Let's cut to the chase. Jack F. was right, sooner or later you will end up pooping in your camper! Damn it! Why does he have to be right about everything?

Well, all in all that wasn't so traumatic. Neither was emptying the tanks. In fact, it was kind of a let down. After watching all the videos and reading all the stories about it on my camping forums, I was ready for something really disgusting. The reality is that you see nothing, you smell nothing, and you don't get anything on you. Backing up the trailer is still the worst part of camping!

I went ahead and cleaned the toilet, tub, and kitchen sink before disconnecting the city water. I made sure I put a few gallons of water back into the black tank and poured the blue stuff down in. I undid the cable wire and stowed the TV in its travel spot. Then I had one last cup of coffee before stowing the Keurig. I would like to say that I sat down and enjoyed it, but once I got started on the departure prep, I kept at it. Pretty soon everything was stowed, and my gear was back in the truck.

I brushed off all the sofa cushions, swept and mopped the floors with my Swiffer, and cleaned the counter tops and dinette. When I was putting all the cleaning stuff away, I found the can of lemon pledge that I had bought earlier and forgotten, so I went ahead and wiped down all my cabinets and doors. Everything looked great. I sat down and went through my checklist to see what else I needed to do. There were only a few things left, but they were mostly hitch related, so I turned off all the lights and the AC. I went out to disconnect the shoreline, and when I was finished, I noticed a lot of dried mud on the front of the camper. It got thrown up by my left side tires because I drove through a puddle at the storage lot. It was dried on like cement chunks. I got a tub of water and some paper towels. It came off pretty easily.

I did the last few things and started hitching up. It took me about twenty tries of backing up and pulling forward to get the hitch lined up with the receiver correctly. I had an audience sitting about 50 feet away. They must have enjoyed it. It isn't easy to by yourself, especially when you can't see behind you. At a state park someone would have helped guided me. At an RV park, people aren't as helpful for some reason. When it was finally hitched and everything was ready for departure, I sat at the picnic table and went through the entire check list again.

I was finally satisfied that I was set to go so I went over to the office and checked out. I told the managers (maybe owners) that I was really nervous about the hill going out of the park. They told me another way to go that avoids it. I did that, and within an hour, Colby T. was back in prison. I didn't have any issues backing in at the storage lot this time. I think it's because the utility trailer that is angled oddly was gone.

So, now I'm sitting here finishing this up. Then I'll post it to the blog site and upload my pictures. After that, I'll lay back on the couch for a few minutes and reminisce about my trip and dream about the next one. That will be in two weeks. I'm going to go to Goliad SP for three nights. It'll be my longest and farthest trip so far. I can't wait.

All this weekend has done is tease me for retirement. I live for the day when I'll hitch up and leave a campsite just to go that very day to another. Wanderlust has taken over every fiber of my being. I totally get where my parents were coming from!