We've spent the past five days in Houston, and four of those nights in a hotel. Wait - What's that about?!?
Last Saturday, we were readying our rig for departure from Austin to Houston. We whipped out the RV Departure checklist on our Togo RV app:
Engine off - check. Inspect slide paths - check. Retract bedroom slide (rumble, rumble) - check. Retract dinette/sofa slide (silence). Retract dinette/sofa slide (silence). Retract dinette/sofa slide (silence).
We walked down to the RV park office to explain our dilemma. They extended our stay and recommended a couple of mobile RV services - "But no one will come out on a Saturday. You're likely stuck here until Monday."
Thank goodness for Giddy-Up RV Mobile Services! Stephen and Brenda (who used to work for RV manufacturers and dealers, and now own their own business repairing RVs) were at the RV park within a couple of hours, with tool boxes and know-how.
They determined that power was not arriving at the slide motor (under the slide) from the controller (under the bed; we could hear the relay clicking and there was power at the controller). They temporarily powered the motor from a portable drill's 12V battery pack (!) and we got the slide retracted. They also warned us that the battery connection to the auto-level stabilizers was damaged - and, sure enough, at our next stop, the stabilizer panel would not power up.
So we were able to depart Austin and make it to Houston. We had chosen a small urban RV park within five miles of Rice University, where we would be attending a college baseball game. The spot was small and tight, and gave us a chance to practice our teamwork skills as I spotted while Doug backed in (a multi-point maneuver). The site was level enough to do without our non-working stabilizers, and we kept the bedroom slide retracted to be on the safe side. With both slides retracted, it was an even cozier space! We caught up on Supernatural episodes (it's the fifteenth and final season!) and the final two episodes of The Good Place (yes, there were some tears on my part).
All seemed well until the next morning, when we discovered that the very spacious and clean bathhouse had no working hot water, and none expected until Monday. We decided to check out a day early, after dumping our black tank (successfully!) for the first time.
We parked the rig in a bus spot at Rice University, then attended the third game in the opening series of the season, against University of Texas. Such a sea of burnt orange in the stands! Those fans were rewarded for their loyalty, alas, when Rice fell 5-4 for a series loss of 3-0.
I checked on Hershey in his soft crate in the coach halfway through the game - he wasn't thrilled to go back into the crate after a walk through campus, but he is in general handling the crate quite well.
Traveling also allows us to see how things have changed. Although we've been back to Houston several times since graduating over 35 years ago, we still marvel at how both the Rice University campus and the City of Houston have grown. Houston's Texas Medical Center (in the background) is the largest in the world.
After the game, we moved ourselves, Hershey, the belongings we would need for a few days, and the belongings that would be in the way of repairs, into a hotel.
Then we dropped off our rig for replacement (alas!) of the bashed Togo Roadlink dome and for repair of the failed slide, the failed auto-level system, and the incompletely-installed Truma AquaGo tankless water heater. Also a state inspection in preparation for re-registering the motor home in Texas.
While waiting for the repairs to be completed, we've kept busy working - but good food is also a priority with me, and without our own kitchen, we have been forced to go out for pie and Texas barbecue. (Yes, I will stand up for Texas barbecue being the best barbecue!)
Another perk of traveling has been catching up with folks we haven't seen for a while. We had visited with my remote-worker colleague Darcy in Tennessee, with our friends at the Austin wedding festivities, and with a college friend in Houston we hadn't seen in over fifteen years. It's exciting to hear about new chapters in friends' lives: Walter, who was an oil-and-gas scientist for his career, has become a BMW/Porsche performance driving instructor on racetracks around Texas!
We should be back in our home on wheels in the next couple of days, and on our way to Corpus Christi to hang out with my mom for a few weeks. This shakedown period has been full of surprises (some good, some not so), but should leave us better prepared when we strike out for the West Coast in late March.
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