Month: February 2021

We leave for “Home” a little later this morning. The weather has finally settled down and should soon be returning to “Texas Normal”.

          No more ice, snow, or frigidly low temperatures.

          At least for the present.

          We’ve been on this truncated  journey now for six days. If that stupid alternator hadn’t crapped out on us, we would have been able to put precious miles behind us last Saturday and escape westward.

          But no, that didn’t happen.

          Good thing we’re retired!

          That particular concept hadn’t really sunk in until this past week. The ability to do absolutely nothing (except survive) for that length of time has escaped me my entire life.

          Not even on vacation did I ever do nothing.

          No lying around on the beach.

          No naps.

          No not doing nothin!

          I was always doing something.

          Not this past week. For six days I did nothing. Nothing of consequence mind you. Nothing that made any difference to anything or anybody. Nothing that positively progressed the position of mankind one iota.

          Nothing.

          Except watch movies, play cards, and walk around Walmart looking for Monster Energy Drinks which I am happily addicted to.

           It was a futile search.

          The shelves of the Walmart’s, local grocery stores, and gas station convenience stores were devoid of my preferred elixir.

          The supply trucks were not getting through. The roads were in such a state as to make rational dispatchers of all trucking companies think twice before sending their vehicles into the fray.

          The shelves of the stores looked like a repeat of the Covid shortages. Couple a Storm Mentality with the assurance of no re-supply and you’ve got the makings of a severe supply-chain issue.

          Items were flying off of the shelves. Not just the regular stuff, even the obscure things began to recede from view. When your favorite staple is not available, you pick the next best thing.

          “Hey Honey, they’re out of eggs!”

          “Go get those disgusting powdered ones!”

          And just like that, the items that you’d never buy in a million years become treasured procurements because no one knows how long the situation will last.

          As they say, ‘Any port in a storm.’

          I searched the now familiar locations every time we went into our beloved Walmart Haven, hoping against hope that some Intrepid Monster Energy Drink Driver had been able to persevere long enough to battle his way into the blitzkrieged war zone, and deliver the needed supplies to the appreciative troops.

          That did not happen.

          But I will tell what did happen.

          On the eve of our last full day in Winter Wonderland, we made a farewell sojourn into our Walmart just to see if anything had changed.

          It hadn’t.

          Nope.

           Not one little bit.

           As a matter of fact, the situation had gotten even worse.

          As I came around the corner of the aisle and looked to see if the Delivery Gods had smiled down upon this store, I was not surprised to see nothing.

          Oh well, it was worth a try anyway.

          Just for fun, I peered into the recesses of the adjoining shelf.

          Wait!

          What did I see?

          I thought that I caught a glimpse of something green. The flavor that I crave is the green one, not the blue or yellow or gray.

          Green!!!

          Which apparently is most other people’s favorite also because that’s the one that everyone is out of.

          My pulse quickened! Not wanting to get my hopes too high, I bent down for a better look. Is it really green, or just another blue one?

          Maybe….

          I reached in and carefully extracted my hoped for prize from the shelf.

          Yes! It’s a green one!

          Hmmm…. Maybe?

          Again, I reached back into the vault

          Out came a second one!

          Then a third, fourth and fifth!

          I praised the lazy stock boy who upon running out of space for the green ones, put the extra‘s in behind the blue ones so that he didn’t have to take a partial case and return it to the back room. I know this trick because I was one of those grocery clerks back in the day!

          I quickly scoffed up my prizes and headed for the check-out, hoping that no one else would see me and hijack my booty. Paula helped carry them because five in one arm was taking too much of a chance of dropping this precious cargo.

          They are now safely ensconced in our refrigerator awaiting their sacrifice for my enjoyment.

The Walmart of Fredericksburg (Texas) Parking Lot has never looked so good! We stayed here once before, when it was so hot that we need to run the air conditioner full time.

          Now it is the cold.

          We were finally able to be rescued on Tuesday. The roads were passable enough for the Service Crew to be able to venture out, drive for 3 hours, and replace our alternator.

          Luckily, that was in fact, the problem. Until then, it was only a telephone diagnosis. Servicing anything motor related on one of these diesel coaches is problematic.

          There is no “hood” to open and work under.

          In most cases, you either need to lift the entire coach up in the air or have a garage “pit” to be able to work under it.

          I had to disassemble the entire rear vanity in the aft bathroom which gave access to the motor from above.

          And even that was a tight squeeze for John, the mechanic. It was a good thing that I had prepped for this event the previous day because it took me several hours to complete the task. It’s interesting that in the Motor Coach Manual, they give the instructions to accomplish this operation as, “Remove the screws from the cabinet face and set the entire assembly aside.”

          There were 35 screws that needed to be “removed” and it took  me the better part of three hours to complete this task. Had I waited for the guys to get here to start the process, we may still be on the side of the road!  

          We weren’t really aware of the extent of the hazardous road conditions until Paula left on her expedition to get gas in the Honda Lifeboat. We stupidly had only a quarter of a tank or so of fuel when we hooked up the towbars on Saturday morning. We really didn’t give it a second thought.

          We were towing it, not driving it!

Little did we know that we were soon to be at Ground Zero for             ‘The Great Texas Snowmageddon Massacre of 2021.’

          That is literally exactly where we were.

          All of the epitomes of meteorological excesses converged in that area just as we were passing through it and breaking down at the same time.

          I’ve always said that if there is going to be an event of catastrophic proportions that you may as well set a record for all of your troubles. What good is getting 30 inches of snow and having the record at 31 inches?  You may as well get a few more and at least have the bragging rights for a “Record Setting Event”!

          Who knew that way back when we set our sights on Texas for the Winter that my old thought process would bear itself out! It brings to mind another old saying,

          “Be careful want you wish for!”

          So here we sat at the intersection of Interstate 10 and Texas 290.

          Here is where the next services of any kind were located:

Kerrville, 40 miles to our East.

Junction 21 miles to our West.

Fredericksburg, 41 miles behind us.

          There is NOTHING in between these areas, so with 49 miles left on the tank of gas in the Lifeboat, Paula set out for Junction as soon as the repair guys got there. The weather was sunny, the temps around 19  and we could see the vehicles moving nicely in front of us on I-10. Junction is good sized town, it does not have a Walmart, but there are amenities galore for a town on the Interstate.

          It had everything that we could want except gas.

          Yup! You heard me. No Gas!

          The entire town was bled dry as folks abandoned the highway and sucked up every drop of fossil fuel they could during the storm. And of course, the re-supply trucks were strewn about on I-10, so no fuel was forthcoming.

          Who knew?

          Paula limped back to our relatively safe break-down spot with only about 10 miles left on the tank. Now there were no ifs, ands, or buts about it, Lifeboat really needed to be towed!

          The unsuccessful expedition out and back to Junction was apparently quite harrowing. Unbeknownst to us, who only had a small view of I-10 from where we sat, the road was, in fact, a disaster zone. Paula lost track of ditched cars, jack-knifed tractor trailers, and overturned vehicles with their wheels straight up in the air , looking more like dead animals than anything else on her fruitless sojourn into the unknown.

          She was quite shaken when she finally arrived back at camp.

          The guys finished up around noontime and we started the process of extricating ourselves from, what were to unfortunately find, were the relatively safe environs of our ‘Four-Day Camp.”

          Little did we know what was ahead of us but were soon going to find out.

          While we sat for those days, there were some vehicles that came down Route 290 from Fredericksburg to access I-10. They were moving along nicely so we did not think that reversing our course was going to be a big issue.

          It was a big issue.

          No, it was a huge issue.

          Maybe that doesn’t even do it justice.

          It was a gargantuan, humongous, massive, immense, and colossal issue.

          That may be overstating it a bit, so feel free to remove just one of the aforementioned excesses from my narrative.

          But just one.

          For before us lay the Route to Salvation, to the next Oasis, to Fredericksburg, Home of the Walmart Parking Lot and all of the safety and supplies that come with its opening arms and snuggly parking spaces that await weary travelers like ourselves.

          But first we need to “Run the Gauntlet”

          Not just any feat of winter driving skills mind you, this test had requirements.

          You needed to be in a large motorhome, weighing at least 26,000 pounds, with air brakes, (not as smooth as hydraulic brakes) towing a car behind you and only one lane partially open on the wrong side of the road.

          Oh, and the road needs to be ice and snow covered the majority of the way.

          And it needs to be 41 miles in length.

          It took us three and a half hours to arrive at our destination. Most of the way our speed varied between 12 and 16 miles per hour. There was one dry stretch for may be a quarter mile that I was able to get up to 24 mph, but the key is that you need to slow down from 24 mph when the road becomes dicey again. The problem with towing on slippery roads is that when you go around a bend, on a hill, and its banked, the towed vehicle wants to “slip” sideways and drag your rear end with it. So, one needs to keep up enough momentum so that it tracks behind you, but not so much that you start to skid to the opposite side which would require either a too rapid turn on the wheel or applying too much of the dreaded “air-brakes”.

          The fun part was playing “Chicken” with the oncoming traffic in the other lane which was the lane that was “open”, and we were travelling in. I would wait until I was sure that the approaching opposite vehicle could see me, (it was evident that I was endeavoring to stay in the traveled tracks on their side of the road) and in enough time, gently alter my course to take me up and over the snow hump in the middle of the road, and travel as smoothly as I could on the ice and snow of the lane I was supposed to be riding in.

          Whew!

          You may be asking yourself by now, “Why in the name of all that is Holy are they putting themselves though this?”

          We were asking ourselves the same question, but the answer is simple.

          We had no idea that the road was in that bad of shape when we started out.

          And there was no turning back.

           There were times when I wished that we were still back at “Safe Camp”, but the road was only one lane and there was definitely no room to even attempt a turn around. So, the only course was to forge on, hoping that there were no hills too steep to climb, or worse, to go down.

          We finally pulled into town, which only had partial power, found our Walmart, and proceeded to get gas in the Lifeboat and do some shopping. The Walmart‘s condition reminded us of the Dark Days of Covid, shelves bare and not much hope of anything getting through for re-supply.

          It’s only a four hour drive to Danny and Katie’s from here but it’s still several days away, depending on the weather

          But were safe, warm, and dry.

          And we were able to procure Sour Cream and Cheddar Potato Chips from Walmart. 

          Who could ask for anything more!

          Ah, Texas, the warm breezes and abundant sunshine make this place the perfect setting to spend the Winter in. Our days are filled with outdoor activities dressed in shorts and tee-shirts, with plenty of sunscreen to ward off those wonderfully evil rays of warmth!

          NOT!

          It seems that my old motto of, “If it weren’t for bad luck I’d have no luck at all,” is rearing its ugly head one more time.

          And it involves the infamous Interstate Route 10 in Southwest Texas. You regular readers are quite familiar with this roadway from former posts. It seems that this road has a personality, a mean streak as it were, that makes it very hard to establish a good relationship with and the worst part is that I don’t think it cares one bit about how I feel towards it.

          Once again we decided to abandon the warm, sunny forecast of snow and record low temperatures and do our best to get out of Dodge. We thought that we could squeak out in the weather window of opportunity that availed itself to us.

          Destination, Palm Springs, California!

          Frank, Joey, Sammy, Peter, and Dino were going to be in town. Frank gave me a call and said that us New Jersey guys needed to stick together, so he invited us out for a few days.

          All we had to do was bring the Taylor Ham and hard rolls.

          We left central Texas early Saturday morning hoping to arrive in Palm Springs midday Monday. The temps were in the high 20’s but unfortunately there was just enough moisture in the air to get things a little slippery, but still drivable. It takes us about 4 hours to get to I-10 from Brenham under normal circumstances. This time it took almost 6 hours to accomplish the same route.

          All would have been good.

          We could almost taste the westward advances that awaited us.

           If we finally entered the highway.

          NOT!

          “But what to our wondering eyes should appear, but massive dash warning lights that started to leer,”

          Yup, just like Apollo 13, the bells and klaxons started their audible shouts as the appropriate indicator lights on the dash began their psychedelic dance in front of us.

          “Uh, Houston, we have a problem.”

          Actually, I wish we were in Houston because there aren’t any weather-related issues there!

          It is now Monday morning and we are now entering Day #3 of our….

“Polar Roadside Breakdown Adventure”

          I guess that if you are going to breakdown basically in the middle of nowhere with low temperatures that have broken a 66-year-old record, then being in a motorhome is the way to go. We really do have all the comforts of home because……  we are HOME!

          But, depending on how long this lasts, the logistics may get a little dicey.

           Even though we can’t run the big engine, we are ok because the house part of the motorhome can be run independently from the chassis. We have electricity (generator), water, heat , food, puzzles, books, and movies, but all of these are in limited supply until we can get going again. And that is the gazillion dollar question.

          They don’t do Winter very well around here and who can blame them? Why waste tax dollars on an event that happens so infrequently. That’s why there is one snowplow for the entire state and their salt/sand distribution force is a retired guy with a Scotts Fertilizer Spreader that he fills with sand and rock salt.

          Manny, the tow guy that we’ve been in contact with, admitted that they are not good when the weather gets like this because……              The weather never gets like this, hence no snow/ice driving experience!

          So here we sit.

          Have you ever sat for over 40 consecutive hours listening to your Hazard Flashers do there incessant ding – ding – ding – ding? Even though we are on a relatively low-use road, it would be suicide to NOT have the little bastards doing their jobs. I wish that there were a silence mode for these guys!

          As I write this, the wind is buffeting us around, it is still dark outside, the temperature is 4 degrees, and the wind chill is at -17 degrees. Maybe today will be our lucky day and the non – Ice Road Truckers will be able to venture out and perform a rescue attempt. Where are the Reality TV people when you need them!

          Stay tuned!