Saturday, March 7, 2009

Return to Baytown

















The scene of last year's melt down in the road




I woke up in Baytown, Texas this morning...with a 'fro. The humidity here is playing unflattering tricks on my hair and curling the pages of our books and magazines. I slept under an open window last night and when I looked in the mirror this morning I nearly screamed at my reflection. My bangs looked like two big cork screws. For a second I thought I might have accidentally stuck my finger in the wall socket in the middle of the night.




It was near 80 degrees yesterday as we were approaching Baytown, the site of last year's one-way-street disaster and my subsequent melt down in the road. To recap, John was talking to Tre on his cell phone as we were pulling out of the RV park, "I'm really starting to get the hang of driving this coach," he said as I'm hopping up and down in my seat pointing at the one-way sign dead ahead of us (pictured above) and hollering "WRONG WAY, WRONG WAY!!" Check out last year's March blog post if you want to re-live all of the gory details.




So this year I tried to get us into another park so we could avoid a repeat of the entire circus act (dead battery on the Camry, Breezy and I sinking into Texas muck over the tops of our feet and such) but Murphy wasn't having any of that. After emailing the other RV park in town asking for a reservation and not getting an answer, I called and got a recording that said they were full. So I was forced to call the Houston East RV RESORT (that's a stretch) where we stayed last year . John was amazed that I remembered the details of the roads and the turns and the park. I'm not. When you are in a heightened state of stress those details brand themselves into your brain. So when I called the Houston East RV Resort the same nice lady, who I know thought we were the stupidest RVers in the history of RVers last year (and we probably were), answered the phone. I let her give me the details on how to drive under the Interstate in a U-turn lane and into the park off of the one way service road. I knew how to get there but I was trying to behave as though I was new to the park so that I wouldn't jar any memories loose and she would think, "Oh no, THOSE idiots again." We made the turns correctly this time and made it into the park and into our space without incident. When John it the air brake and shut Mary's motor off he laughed and said, "We've come a long way baby!" No kidding.




So we are traveling west through Texas now. We passed through Houston earlier this morning and I snapped a few pictures. The repair on Mary's skylight is holding even through some pretty hefty winds and thankfully we haven't had to test it in the rain...yet. It is cloudy and they are calling for some scattered thunderstorms today. If Murphy takes a snooze we may get through without rain.




















Houston. Click on this photo and read the sign in the lower left corner.




Yesterday we traveled on the roads from hell through Louisiana and east Texas. The trip from Milton, Florida to Baytown was a bit of a Deja Vu. I was hopeful that some work had been done on the roads but they looked and felt exactly like they did last year...terrible. I got up this morning and had to get some dog food out of one of Mary's lower bays so I jumped out and the first thing I noticed was that we lost another hub cap...the same one that we lost last year on the same stretch of road. If we continue to make this trip I'll have to start buying them by the dozen.





That brings me to the continuing saga of Monaco Coach Corporation. Just for the heck of it John called their number again yesterday. Now they have a recording saying that they have filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 bankruptcy law. They guided us to their website for contact information. So I went to their website and found a place to email them and ask to please allow us to buy a part for Mary's broken skylight. I haven't heard back from them yet. I would imagine the load of emails they got yesterday probably overloaded their server. If I get a hold of them I'll add a dozen hubcaps to the order.




I wouldn't have thought that the altitude from Tampa to Baytown would have been that much different. I'm puzzling over that at the moment. Mary has one of those two sided Sleep Number air beds. I like mine set on 50 and John's sleep number is 85. 85 feels like plywood to me. Funny how men and women are so different. So we had our dinner last night and settled in to flip channels and at 7:30 I looked over and John was fast asleep in his recliner. He woke up at 8:00 and shuffled off to bed. I stayed up and watched a little more television and at 9:00 I couldn't keep my eyes open any longer so off I went to bed. The room was stifling hot so I opened the windows and turned on Mary's Fantastic Fans (that's really what they are called) and got into bed. I thought the mattress felt a little firm but I was tired and fell asleep pretty quickly. Then I spent the rest of the night flopping around like a fish out of water. Every time I'd flop it went through my half-awake mind that I must have made a mistake and fell asleep on the dining room table instead of the bed. I woke up sore hips and shoulders this morning and a little cranky from disturbed sleep...not to mention my terrifying image in the mirror. When I checked the Sleep Number on my side it said "100". Murphy again. I wish the little bastard would take a powder and let us alone for a few days!




We just stopped in one of Texas's Picnic Areas so the dogs could stretch their legs. We are somewhere between Houston and San Antonio at the moment. I snapped the leashes on the dogs and we stepped out into gusty wind, wet humidity and the stench of cow shit. Some of my favorite things. I have my hair double banded into a snug ponytail to keep from looking like an escapee from a local institution. The dogs sniffed around while the wind knocked me around the area and when I stepped back into the coach John looked up from eating a banana with peanut butter at the dining table and cracked up. "What's funny?" I asked. "You should see your hair," he replied. I smirked. "Having a PICNIC?" I retorted. I've never quite understood the whole Picnic Area concept along side of a busy Interstate in Texas. Then I walked into the bathroom and looked at my hair. I screamed and went back to my co-pilot's seat where we have resumed being blown all over Interstate 10 on our way to a place called Ozona, Texas.




We aren't stopping in San Antonio this year because we need to get on to Scottsdale so I had to figure out where the half way point was between Baytown and Las Cruces, New Mexico where we will go tomorrow night. It turned out to be Ozona. I vaguely remember Ozona from our trip through west Texas last year. It stuck with me due to the unusual name and because we had gone so long without seeing any civilization that I began to have one of those Twilight Zone moments where you wonder if you have entered another dimension and are going to spend eternity driving in a motor coach through blasting wind, eating grit and looking like Frankenstein's sister (it's the hair thing again). I remember wondering what it would have been like to grow up in Ozona, Texas. I called the RV Park office at the Super 8 Motel in Ozona last night to make a reservation. The woman who answered the phone laughed like I was some crazy foreigner who didn't understand how things work in the United States of America. "Honey, you don't need a reservation! Just drive on in here and park!" she said. I thanked her and hung up. Stay tuned for our Ozona experience.




Okay, that's it for today. If you think of us, think of John wrestling Mary across Texas in this wind. We should be at our destination by late this afternoon. It might be time to break out the Scotch bottle again!





















Breezy and Ransom waiting for John to fill Mary up at Flying J

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