Thursday, January 04, 2007

Day 2: Texarkana to San Marcos, TX

WOW......heavy, heavy rain attempted to drown TheHowserHouse during the night and early morning.........it didn't succeed in the drowning, but it sure as hell succeeded in awakening both the 1st Lady and I from deep sleep!!! And so, we laid there in the "twilight zone" between sleeping and grogginess until my alarm went off a little after 7am.

We had some coffee and tea(her choice, always), some cereal to brace us for the upcoming day with wonderful whole grains, and then as the rains began to subside, I began to unhook the umbilical cords and prepare for another day of driving down the interstates. We left the rv park and drove all of 1/4 of a mile before we took the exit to go to the Texas Welcome Center as we were RIGHT on the state line.....not sure whether the 1st Lady was in Arkansas or I was in Arkansas.....as it appeared that the boundary ran through TheHowserHouse......haahaha!!

After gathering up way toooooo much Texas materials, we again hit the interstate and off we went through the rains....and some not tooooo bad traffic. Drove around on the eastern side of Dallas on I-645 until we reached the south side and then took I-35 south towards San Antonio.

The weather cleared....and then became cloudy again.....and then the cycle repeated itself. The traffic became heavier as we went south and we just kept rolling down the highway without any stops, other than for fuel......UGH!!!! My second tank of diesel, purchase back in Arkansas only netted me 10.9 miles to the gallon......UGH,UGH!!!!! ( My thoughts are in words I won't type on here).

The farther south we drove the more the towns and cities seemed to merge together. AND....then.....we hit Austin shortly after 4pm.....and OMG.....what a mess we found ourselves in!!!!! AND.....I was desperately in need of more fuel.....the needle bouncing just under the quarter of a tank and empty!!!!! Well......I drove on because there was NO truck stops where I could get TheHowserHouse and the truck in for fuel. We called ahead and made reservations at this roadside RV Park in San Marcos.......and as I pulled in the "low fuel" light blinded me.....and I began to feel the muscles in my rear tightening more and more.

We were assigned our campsite......a WONDERFUL rv park with HUGE, HUGE sites!!!!! Just perfect for a Large Rig like ours. Well, after hooking up the umbilical cords, I turned on the engine....it DID start.....and dashed back along the frontage road two miles and made it to the pump!!!! Well......after filling it as far as it would go, I guess I still had 3 gallons left because it only held 35 new gallons of fuel!! I was sweating and worrying all for nothing.......that's alright because I will make certain this doesn't occur again!

Came back to our site.....the 1st Lady had taken a shower.....and off we went to these incredible Outlet Malls across the interstate!!!! WOW.......there was a Pottery Barn Outlet that was larger than our Wal-mart at home.........what a store!!! Also.....another large one was Crate and Barrel.....the great store that is in Chicago AND in Brentwood across from the Galleria in STL.

Returned back to TheHowserHouse and we are now just kicked back and watching a bit of tellie......only about 8 stations available on their cable hookups here.......that's ok....I need to catch up on some reading.

Tomorrow......we are off to the Rio Grande Valley......will not stop in San Antonio on the way down......as we want to go ahead and get an rv site amongst all of the 700 campgrounds that exist in the 50 mile stretch along the Rio Grande. We are constantly passing or being passed by other RV's headed south..........all of us "snowbirds" are flying down the highway to warmer weather, we hope.

And so........a good day......and

Life is Great....and I hope it is for all of you, also!!!

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