RV camping: The new twilight zone

I received positive feedback from readers from recounting a Texas trip, including jail time, while doing bird photography. The state of Texas has proved to be interesting RV-wise, too.

On US Hwy 10 in west Texas going east you could almost go to sleep at the wheel because the road is straight or nearly so going to Fort Stockton.

It is mile after mile of nothing but mile after mile. It is open country and mostly flat land. The most common objects breaking up the boredom are the hundreds upon hundreds of large wind turbines on the low ridges. There are no buildings, no houses or gas stations and very few gravel crossroads. It is 3 o’clock in the afternoon and the sky is clear and blue.

About 3:30 p.m. a large storm is coming in the from the west. I am suddenly driving into a 60 m.p.h. headwind. Out of the passenger side mirror I view a twister coming down out of the clouds. It is not reaching the ground but it is close. I am pulling a 26 foot trailer house and have the gas pedal is nailed to the floor, but the speedometer won’t pass 60 m.ph.

It is hard to believe but the twister was off and on in the mirror and I could not outrun it. This continued on for most of an hour until Fort Stockton appeared. Finally, this was a place to pull over at a Dairy Queen for some ice cream and a well-earned break.

Coming to a fast stop

My next episode occurred on the Galveston Peninsula on the Gulf Coast highway. This time I had dropped off the trailer and was proceeding to turn on a side road to go to the beach. For a few years I had driven a dump truck and semi so always went through a routine of checking both rear view mirrors before making a left turn across oncoming traffic.

It was a well-marked intersection with a 35 mph speed limit sign.

What did I see but a car behind me trying to pass? My turn signal was on and I had the right-of-way.

The car passed me doing at least 60 mph with its brakes squealing.

It did come to an abrupt stop after dead centering on a large power pole behind the intersection.

I called 911 and was expecting to see an injured driver, but he opened his door and staggered out.

I walked over to talk to him.

He asked me if I could help him to start his car.

I realized at that point that, to put it mildly, he was stewed to the gills and could barely walk.

This had probably saved him from being hurt. He was relaxed, to say the least.

The power pole had pushed the radiator clear back inro the engine.

The car was dead meat.

Costs without benefits

The next photography trip took me north one winter from the Edwards Plateau towards Lubbock and the Texas Panhandle. The outside temperature was a nice 65 degrees. I was pulling the RV trailer and it took most of the day. Before I arrived in the town of Hereford there was a truck transmission problem. First gear was not working and needed repair. The truck went into the local Ford dealership and required a new first gear part. It was a German 5-speed transmission. The part would take three days to arrive.

There was a free town campground for RVs. Because it was a hot area in summer the RV plug in the box was set up for 220 volts. My plug was 110 volts so it would not work.

That night a cold front came in from the north and it dropped down to five degrees. Fortunately, the trailer had propane heat. Finally, after three days in the trailer, the truck was fixed. The temperature went back up in to the 30s. However, a new problem came up. The gray water had frozen in the downpipe, breaking it. I found an RV repair shop and had the pipe repaired. No birds were photographed that week while the cost exceeded $1,000.

My dollars, his lack of sense

My last trip was north to Alaska by truck and trailer. I swear that nearly half of the things in the trailer were broken, even the trailer itself, due to bad roads. I went up in early May and some of the paved roads had bad damage, cutting my speed to 30 mph or less. The expensive video camera I brought went down twice and once more in Nome, where I rented another truck. The final cost of the trip came to over $2,800 including air fares.

In Alberta, going south the RV park I used was in Brook, south of Drumheller. Pulling out in the morning onto a four-lane highway, I was checking traffic in the left mirror when the right trailer axle dropped into a hole. Some doper had stolen the drain grate from the edge of the road and the rear tire had dropped into it. No visible damage was found. I was still 100 miles from the U.S. border.

Arriving in Washington state, I was on U.S. Highway 90 about 10 miles east of Moses Lake when something weird happened. I was doing 60 mph with the trailer behind and saw a tire on a rim pass me in the passing lane. Not good, I knew I better pull off the road and check my trailer tires. My guess was right, the rear duel tire was gone with only the rear axle riding above the road.

I took the trailer into Les Schwab Tire. The axle was bent out of shape and a new one would have to come from Spokane. So, for three days I waited for it to come in. I think they sent it by way of the Panama Canal.

I arrived in Moses Lake in summer and it was 90 degrees and I had no workable camera to take pictures. My time was spent drinking coffee and eating popcorn in the shop waiting room. This repair only cost me about $1,000. Some drugee stole a water drain grate and got $10 for it at a junk dealer’s yard to pay for his habit.