2019 Winter in Texas

[The Wiz]

Sad.

[JEBar]

just took couple of more pictures of the camper ..... that was one hot fire .... the burned though wall and roof are where the frig should have been .... that strongly points to it being the cause

[JEBar]

OK, we've mentioned that the weather here on Lake Conroe today hasn't been ideal .... just checked and it sure worse in Estelline, SD where we spend our summers ....

WIND CHILL ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM MIDNIGHT TONIGHT TO 9 AM CST SATURDAY...
WHAT...Very cold wind chills expected. Wind chills as low as 35 below zero expected.
WHERE...Portions of northeast South Dakota.
WHEN...From midnight tonight to 9 AM CST Saturday.
ADDITIONAL DETAILS...The dangerously cold wind chills could cause frostbite on exposed skin in as little as 10 minutes.
PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... A Wind Chill Advisory means that cold air and the wind will combine to create low wind chills. Frostbite and hypothermia can occur if precautions are not taken.

its often said that most things are relative .... all in all, I'm pleased that we are in Texas

[JEBar]

per today's forecast , sustained NW winds coming in behind a cold front will be 20 to 30 mph with gusts to 40 mph through our area .... they are calling for it to get down to 29 tonight, the only subfreezing temp in the forecast for the rest of this month .... no word yet from our CG but history says they will want us to disconnect our water ....historically at such time above ground water pipes freeze and burst, hopefully it won't get cold enough for that to happen .... while traveling we often see campers in use that are in pretty rough shape .... I sure hope the furnace in the one shown below is in good shape .... I suspect that tonight they will need it along with supplementary electric heaters

[JEBar]

its hard to believe that we only have 3 more days left in our first stay at Lake Conroe .... with above 50% chance of rain on each of the next two days, we've taken up our outdoor carpet .... largely due to cold temps we've only sat outside on the carpet 3 times and do not foresee doing so again before we leave .... the grill and its table will be the next items packed .... our deck/steps will taken care of on Thursday .... we are looking forward to spending the weekend in Granbury, TX were we will visit with some of my wife's 86 year old relatives .... thankfully, the weather forecast are favorable but with the weather, who knows ????

[JEBar]

packing up day .... grocery shopping day .... fueling the truck day .... tomorrow we head north to Granbury to spend the weekend visiting my wife's last living Aunt .... on Monday we are scheduled to arrive at Thousand Trails Medina Lake Campground .... the location of that campground is such that its a 60 mile round trip to the closest shopping centers in Boerne, TX .... with our truck, we try to minimize the number of those trips during the 3 weeks we are scheduled to be there .... accordingly, we plan to stock up on staples today .... thankfully the weather forecast for the weekend and early next week is good .... sure hope it proves to be accurate

[JEBar]

packing up day .... grocery shopping day .... fueling the truck day .... tomorrow we head north to Granbury to spend the weekend visiting my wife's last living Aunt .... on Monday we are scheduled to arrive at Thousand Trails Medina Lake Campground .... the location of that campground is such that its a 60 mile round trip to the closest shopping centers in Boerne, TX .... with our truck, we try to minimize the number of those trips during the 3 weeks we are scheduled to be there .... accordingly, we plan to stock up on staples today .... thankfully the weather forecast for the weekend and early next week is good .... sure hope it proves to be accurate ..

[JEBar]

we've now been in Granbury, TX for 2 days .... weather has been cool but good .... we spent yesterday with my wife spending most all day visiting with her last living (age 89) aunt .... they spent hours going through boxes of old pictures of people I don't know anything about .... I napped a great deal of the time in a chair .. .. it was a very good day .... some campgrounds (CG) are better than others .... to say that our site at our current one leaves much to be desired would be a considerable understatement .... the slope of the site combined with the height of the sewer hoes attachment is such that it takes some doing to get a downhill flow .... without a good (strong) auto leveling system one would have to pull the camper up on such a high level of blocks that stability can become an issue .... been there, done that .... the first two pictures show our current setup .... the second two show a large Class A motorhome having to employ the same setup .... today we plan to spend more time visiting my wife's relatives and to going out to eat later in the day .... after that we plan to return to the camper and get ready to head to Medina Lake in the morning

[JEBar]

we are settled in for the evening .... tomorrow morning we are due to pull out for a 245 mile move to Thousand Trails Medina Lake CG .... with my wife having some Kroger fuel points stored up we decided to top off our truck's tanks .... we took on 35 gallons which was the most we could get with her 20 cents a gallon discount .... for the most part in this area, diesel seems to be priced at $2.599 .... Kroger had their diesel priced at $2.459 so we paid $2.259 ..Cool .. the truck's tanks aren't full but they are close .... depending on how many times we have to make the roughly 55 mile round trip drive over to Boerne, TX we could easily not have to take on fuel again until we get to Columbus, TX to reach our next CG

[JEBar]

268.3 miles covered in 5 hrs 10 min with 2 brief rest stops .... for us today's drive was rather unique .... it is the only one we have where we don't travel an inch on an Interstate .... over the next few days I hope to post several pictures and comments about our current campground .... we haven't been here in about 3 years and for my money several things have gone downhill .... enough of that for now, will post more later .... we really enjoy Texas Hill Country, it is very different from any of the geography we have back home .... during the day's drive Maureen made our reservations for this summer's trip to South Dakota .... glad we aren't out there today, the picture below shows the snow piled on our site

[Mags]

Ready to tunnel in and build that igloo.

268.3 miles covered in 5 hrs 10 min with 2 brief rest stops .... for us today's drive was rather unique .... it is the only one we have where we don't travel an inch on an Interstate .... over the next few days I hope to post several pictures and comments about our current campground .... we haven't been here in about 3 years and for my money several things have gone downhill .... enough of that for now, will post more later .... we really enjoy Texas Hill Country, it is very different from any of the geography we have back home .... during the day's drive Maureen made our reservations for this summer's trip to South Dakota .... glad we aren't out there today, the picture below shows the snow piled on our site

[JEBar]

there is sure enough there to make a pretty large igloo .. .. as this is being typed it is -12 in Estelline, windchill -36, Life Threatening Cold Weather Alert .... a few more pictures from yesterday

[JEBar]

with the temp reaching 60, I got out and took a few pictures of our current site and the obligatory picture of Medina's ever present deer .... 50 amp sites are scarce here so we are on 30 amp service .... the folks two sites up from us are on a 50 amp site and are scheduled to leave tomorrow .... if they do not extend their stay, we hope to move up there .... all in all, our current site is a good one .... if it had 50 amp current, we would be perfectly happy here

[JEBar]

just received the following screen shot from relatives in Estelline .... have said it before and will say it again, we are sure happy to be in Texas

[JEBar]

for us today has been moving day .... as noted earlier and can be seen on the campground map link below, 50 amp sites here at Medina Lake are fairly scarce .... today 3 came open .... 1 was too small for our rig .... backing into 1 was way above my skill level .... overhanging large limbs made the 3rd a tough back-in but we were able to corkscrew it into place .... by looking at the campground map, we moved from site R6 and moved to F122 .... as can be seen, we are much closer to the lake, not a big deal for us but it does proved a nicer view .... the overhanging tree limbs negate using our roof mounted satellite TV dish so as can be seen in picture 5, we have put out our portable VuQube dish .... one very pleasant surprise is our Verizon MIFI signal strength scale is pegged .... that is something we seldom see .... as can be seen in the 6th picture, one of the Medina Bucks that stopped sports a pretty nice little rack


https://rvonthego.com/media/com_rv/uplo ... 8a1ed958c5

[Blackdog]

I do a lot of work in Port Isabel/South Padre Island to McAllen/Mission area. That part of Texas is full of "Winter Texans" and I can't blame them. I'd rather be wearing short and than fighting snow.
Was on South Padre Island Monday/Tuesday. My Texas License plate seemed out of place. Alaska, Canada, Montana...all the "cold states" were there.
They tend to drive very slow - we joke, if they drive that slow on the trip down they must have left home in last June!
A warning - Credit Card skimmers are everywhere - they got me Tuesday, Master Card caught it right away and asked if I was transferring money to Mexico. If the credit card machine looks funny - best to pay cash.
Enjoy Texas!
Michael

[JEBar]

A warning - Credit Card skimmers are everywhere - they got me Tuesday, Master Card caught it right away and asked if I was transferring money to Mexico. If the credit card machine looks funny - best to pay cash.
Enjoy Texas!
Michael

we got hit by one a couple of years ago .... it had to have happened at a fuel pump at a Valero station in West Conroe ....

[JEBar]

a bit of history ---- when we were here at Medina Lake back in 2013 the lake near the campground was dry (picture 1) .... ranchers had fenced the lake bottom and were grazing cattle down there .... when we were here back in 2016, the lakes water level had recovered as can be seen in the second picture .... at that time they started a burn pile for brush (picture 3) .... picture 4 shows that the water level wasn't anywhere near the brush pile .... now that we are here in 2019 we find the water level is even higher (contrast picture 4 with picture 1) .... take note that the burn pile wasn't close to the lake .... in picture 6 that pile can be seen sticking up out of the water .... as can be see in the last picture, the water level isn't far from some campsites ....

[JEBar]

ever have one of those days when after it is over, you look back and nothing makes sense .. .. well, that pretty well sums up our day .... our campground charges $5 per box to have packages brought in by UPS or FedEx .... consequently, we have delivers sent to General Delivery at the local post office .... today we we expected 2 boxes from each of them .... in an unexpected mid morning call from FedEx dispatcher, I learned that they couldn't deliver our packages to the Pipe Creek post office because they refused to accept any of their packages .. .. they told me that their driver would be passing the post office in roughly 25 min and would be happy to deliver them directly to us if we were parked in a lot next to the post office .... off we go, got there in 20 minutes, sat for an hour, no show .. .. finally my cell rang (that in itself is fairly rare) from a lady who said she worked at the local FedEx, they had our packages, would hold them for 3 days to give me time to change the address to where we wanted them delivered ..Confused Confused .. got the address for the CG and called her back .... packages to be delivered tomorrow .... back at the camper my phone rang again, once again it was the dispatcher saying their driver was sorry she'd missed us .... further, she would be passing withing 5 miles of the campground and would meet us at a convenience store between 4:00 and 4:30 pm .... off we go again but this time on a much shorter drive .... we'd been there about 20 min when a FedEx van pulled in beside us .... the lady was most surprised as she handed me both packages that they were at her distribution center waiting for her to deliver them tomorrow .. .. she was also most surprised to hear that while we were waiting on her earlier today, Maureen went into the post office where she was told that they routinely accepted both FedEx and UPS with deliveries coming in everyday ... she promised she'd look into it .... once again back at the camper I checked Amazon for the status of the 2 packages they were due to deliver .... both were tagged to be returned to Amazon because they were declined by the addressee .. .. called UPS, no help .... called Amazon who confirmed the packages were on their way back .... money refunded and we cancelled the order .... will reorder in a couple of weeks when we get back to a town where we know the post office accepts packages addressed to General Delivery from both UPS or FedEx .... once again back at the camper, still can't make much sense of it all ..

[Shakey Jake]

Weird, to say the least.