Yesterday afternoon I came to meet another internet friend I know already for at least 5 years - his name is Joseph Foster. He stopped by while being on a fishing trip, and he brought along his father. The following pictures also feature Celia Bain, wife of our host Lee Bain, known in fb as "ND Wind".
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During the last week we had the typical summer temperatures of Texas - and our under-floor A/C, which received a refurbished cooling unit just 4 years ago in New Mexico, had partially quit on us. The unit has 2 compressors and the one who kicks in at the second phase did not work anymore. We had some cooling, but it was far from being efficient.
Campingworld canceled our appointment after 2 days by phoning us that they do not work on under-floor units. We contacted other companies - same thing. Finally we found someone here in Granbury who could serve us right the other day by driving up to us and inspecting what has to be done. The conclusion was that we would have two roof Air Conditioners installed by removing the skylights in the livingroom and in the bedroom and place those in the openings. Complete new wiring had to be done, both units had to be connected to the main electro panel. Our trailer ceilings are so good insulated that it was impossible to drive the cables ahead inside the walls, it had to be done externally, the cables along the walls or inside cabinets. Bedroom A/C can be regulated by hand because of the convenient ceiling height, but the one in the livingroom is to high up and needed a thermostat at the wall. Now we have to watch it that we do not start to shiver...hahaha!! Just in time before the next heat wave comes in August. The price was very reasonable, we were actually astonished - only $ 2,612.00 This year we had two refrigerator cooling units replaced, a couple of tires for the trailer bought and the microwave replaced, and now this. We remembered that the rooftop A/C's of our old motorhome were very noisy. These new ones are not disturbing at all when blowing, it is just an occasional background noise..... Somewhere in my blogs I have mentioned that we hit areas sometimes during our travels which have records in weather. That was exactly what we experienced here on Sunday, June 22. 2014 Weather forecasts are pretty accurate these days - and residents here ( Granbury, TX ) were hoping that the predicted rainfall would relieve the area of a 2-year severe drought. Lake Granbury was 11 feet lower than normal. This time their prayers were heard by the "weather god". Sunday it came down in sheets, flash flooding occured - in some areas of Granbury residents had to be rescues from the rising flood waters, by boat, by water planes etc. Hindsight: No injuries were reported. Seven homes were destroyed and 4 had major damage. And Lake Granbury rose up 6' !!! This event lasted Sunday with the heaviest rainfall - Granbury 6,5 " Monday and Tuesday it rained also, bringing another 3". I opened our entrance door just a tiny bit to snap a very fast picture. We had thought that our chairs were safe under the awning and left those outside. They were soaking wet. Well - during the following days, we let the sun do the drying job. We were astonished how fast the waters were absorbed by the thirsty soil. We discovered also some wet spots inside our trailer, small ones - here and there. Dieter knows the spots and when it will be completely dry, he will remove some old caulking on the roof, clean the areas and apply new weaterproof caulking. No wonder that had happened, the trailer was enveloped in flash rain like like a submarine in the ocean. Nothing happened to the awning, Dieter realized during the heavy rain that he had to lower it more as it already was on one side because the water started to collect on the fabric. As he did so, he unleashed another "Niagara Falls"....... After leaving Deming, we camped in Van Horn and in Big Spring, and we arrived here on May 31. The drive from Van Horn to Big Spring was a day "from hell" - we had 2 tire blow-outs on our Fifth Wheel, with long waiting periods for the serving truck to arrive. We were disgusted by the way our Good Sam Road Service handled the emergency situations. It was very hot outside, the asphalt was melting....we had to run the truck on idle for hours on end in order to have air conditioning. Fortunately - there was no material damage other than some missing caps and some minor paint damage. Dieter could remove the big tar stains yesterday very well with a special solution. We were supposed to arrive in Big Spring 1:15 PM and we finally arrived at 8:30 PM. The manager at that campground served us well personally after office hours, I had called twice before to explain our being late. The owner at Broken Spoke is a personal friend of ours, therefore I am not posting anything what our daily lives here is concerned, privacy held high... Following are four pictures today - one shows you the damage on the R side and the other the lot we are parked. The dog on the last 2 pictures is Gus, the best friend of the owner Lee. The dog is very friendly, too. The minute we spoke to him, he liked us. Once in awhile he comes to our lot to see what we are doing. We like it here. The area is wonderful - Granbury is an old historic town worth seeing with all modern institutions, shopping opportunities - and a big hospital.. Landmark is also Granbury Lake, created by the Brazos River. Broken Spoke is situated on Weatherford Highway, ca. 4,5 miles north of the center of town. June 09. 2014
Some pictures follow to depict how nice this place looks.... Since we aquired our Western Horizon Resorts membership in 2002, we stay here now the 5th time. It might be the last. After 2 driving days we both are pretty tired and want to rest - read and have a drink. Here are some pictures from today, later on I will post more we took at other times.... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- May 16. 2014 Yesterday we had our second refrigerator/freezer repaired. Another bill short of 9oo Dollar....The cooling unit was replaced. If you campers out there are in this region and need work on your RV done, we can strongly recommend the man who worked on our fridge yesterday. It was a pleasure seeing him work and for Dieter to be of a little help with lifting. He was very particular with every thing he had to do and even recognized a mistake the repairman did in Florence with the other replacement of the cooling unit. His name is Greg Nickel ( from Cochise, AZ) and his phone number is 520-678-1418 - Apache RV ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- May 30. 2014
We looked for a place by establishing the itinerary which would be convenient for one night only, where we did not have to disconnect the truck and it had to be close to Interstate 10. We had planned to stay in Sundance 1 RV Park on N Thornton Rd..
We were quite surprised when we arrived here - it is more a city than a park! And we do not have to drive the long Florence Blvd to reach I-10 East, Thornton Rd. has a ramp to I-8 and we can connct from there to I-10. I took 2 pictures outside but it is too hot to go on a photo safari in this place.... The 3rd pic I took inside from the resort map to show you how huge this park is. We arrived in Colorado River Oasis RV Resort yesterday.
We were sad to learn that just another one of the wonderful Western Horizon Resorts was sold into private hands.... Western Horizon members can still make reservations, but the price of $ 2.00 per night is gone, upped to 12 Dollars per day. We wanted to stay here 2 weeks, but now we reduced it to a one week stay. Some smart marketing people calculated wrongly. For us it has little meaning, because over the years we got our investments into those memberships back many times over. Since we decided to settle down at the next best opportunity, it is not of any urgent concern anymore. Many of the southern Western Horizon resorts are sold by now, also the two in southern California we very much frequented, also the one in Nevada. So far our home park in St. David, AZ, is in Western Horizon's hands, we just learned.... there we will stay for 3 weeks next after one night parking in Casa Grande, AZ...... It is already hot here, the weather forecast predicted 104 degr.F. on the following Saturday. The place is almost empty because the crowd is just waiting in the wings for the summer to come - for swimming, boating, water skiing etc. The following pictures give you an impression of the beauty of this place... This is the picture from just one cactus in this resort in the desert. The second picture is a close-up. I had to hold my camera very high to get it.....
As I wrote before, the work on my dentures was scheduled for today and has been done to my satisfaction.
A couple of pictures cannot really give you an impression of the border city Los Algodones in Mexico. But I took 6 anyway at random locations. Enjoy! We arrived here yesterday in the early afternoon. After Dieter was finished doing all the connection and stabilizing, our neighbor came over to him and they talked for a while. His wife gave us 2 pieces of her freshly baked chocolate cake today and we talked away for half an hour and laughed a lot- - and then they left. The resort is closing for the summer on April 30th....We are leaving on April 28th. We visited here very often in the last 8 years and we like to stay here. The many kind of birds are a delight to hear, and when a lot at the eastern fence is available, we always take it - free view onto the desert and the mountain Pilot Knob. Our cat Ellie takes traveling well, she is in a carrier and is with us in the truck. She was quite astonished yesterday that her surroundings changed so drastically. Today she had hardly time to eat or drink because the wildlife outside - especially the birds - let her go from window to window to soak it all in...... And the street to Los Algodones in Mexico is only a couple of miles to the east from I-8. My dentures need to be underlined. It is a very well-known secret that Mexican dentists take only a fraction of the cost than we would have to pay in the US. The same with pharmaceuticals, people from all over the US visit Algodones for those two reasons foremostly - but to drink a Margarita accompanied by Mexican music and search the street for treasures is fun, too. We drive to the border, leave the truck parked on a huge parking lot and go over as pedestrians. Of course, you need to have a valid passport. This is one of our membership places where we pay only $ 3.00 fee per night incl. 50 Amp. electric and full hook-ups. But the stay can be only for 2 or 3 weeks at a time.....as it is with all our memberships, excluding Escapees. There we can stay as long as we want but have to leave when a resort is filled up to make room for the next incoming camper. That explains our extended travels and visiting the same resorts back and forth some times. May I remind you that you can comment on this page because it is in blog format. If you have a question concerning RV'ing, I believe I can answer all....... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ April 18. 2014 On Tuesday, April 15th, we were visited by our friend Pat, we met her and her husband Sam in 2000 on a campground in Florida. He died in 2005 and she settled down in Yuma, AZ. Whenever we are in this area, we visit each other. Or she catches up with us where we just are when she makes a trip with her car. These meetings are a joy, we laugh and laugh..... Yesterday she invited us to a Chinese Buffet in town, together with her friend Bob. Wow, tasted good! On Tuesday she ate what I cooked. According to her, it was very good, too. We will visit her in her home on the 24. On Tuesday we will drive to Algodones to a dentist - some work on my dentures...and - of course - we will stock up on Tequila and Kahlua. We are allowed to "import" one liter each. I made some other pictures 2 days ago........The last one was taken from my seat at the dinnertable...( view onto Pilot Knob and the surrounding desert). April 14. 2014 After our evening walk today I took some pictures of the setting sun......I will show you three of them...... |
AuthorMy name is Karin Bartsch. Archives
July 2015
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