Louisiana Bound

This month we are on a Civil War quest. Sunday night we stayed at Sam Houston Jones State Park just a few miles outside of Lake Charles, La. Tall pine trees and beautiful fall colors abound. 

On our morning stroll around the park, we encountered signs indicating alligators in the area. Even tho we had some alligator bait with us, Lady, our Dashound, we saw nary a one. Darn.

Being a Monday, most everyone in the park had left the night before. Real quiet and peaceful here, and the scenery is beautiful.

Leaving this morning to head out to Kinder, La. Will stay there for one night before heading out to Alexander in search of a old fort used during the civil war.

TPMS

Tire Pressure Monitoring System. Don't leave home without one.

After a near blowout on my last toy hauler, see photo below........

....... I bought a TPMS from Tire Safeguard. 

This gadget will monitor your tires air pressure and temperature, and alert you of any problems. Each tire is installed with a little screw on sensor that sends its readings back to the display in the coach. 

After installing, you can set high and low thresholds for the air psi and temperatures. This little gadget will even monitor the psi on any towed vehicle as well. So I got four extra sensors to mount on the Jeep Cherokee when it is being towed behind the motorhome. 

This is called peace of mind while traveling.

Toads

One of the affectionate terms for the vehicle towed behind a motorhome is 'Toad". Another term I have heard is "Dinghy". After some research, we bought a 2014 Jeep Cherokee Latitude 4x4 for our "Toad". Couldn't be happier with this Jeep. It is comfortable, quiet, and fun to drive. It also performs flawlessly as a "Toad".

We went with the Blue Ox tow bar and Patriot braking system. Easy to attach and disconnect.

Here is the Jeep attached with the Blue OX.

With the rear view camera  in the motorhome, keeping an eye on the Jeep is a snap.

We also went to our favorite bike rally in September, so the motorhome pulls our 2003 Ultra Classic on a trailer quite nicely.

Gotta Go To The Beach

Jan and I usually like to hit the Padre island seashore every year. This year, we took The FR3 for a week long beach excursion. Other than having sand in every nook and cranny, we had a great time.

 This was our camp spot at Mustang Island State Park. Sand dunes and the Gulf behind us. There was always a nice sea breeze blowing our way, but that did little to keep the mosquitoes away. They were at times unbearable.

This was also the first time we had our Jeep Cherokee on the beach. I really like my 4x4 Jeep.

Of course, we had to find the shrimp as it was coming in off the boats in the morning, but this year, we were not able to find any. So we had to go down to one of the little stores that sells fresh shrimp, and buy from them at a little higher price than right off the boat. In any case, the shrimp was delicious.

This year we also hit the Aquarium that is downtown Corpus Christie. My favorite was the dolphin show. And being that we went in October, the crowds were non-existent. Perfect!

Casino Camping

Our first trip in the FR3 was to Oklahoma for my parents 65th wedding anniversary. It is about 400 miles there from Austin to Oklahoma City, so we decided to drive part way to the Oklahoma border and stay overnight at the worlds largest casino, Winstar.

Most casino's have decent RV camping, and the rates are usually lower than staying at a regular RV campground. Winstar has a pretty decent campground with a pool, hot tub, transportation back and forth to the casino, picnic area, etc.

It was a nice break to stay there for the night before heading out the next morning to Oklahoma City.

As we plan out future trips, we will definitely stay at one of the casino campgrounds if available.

Branson, Missouri

Branson Missouri is a great place to visit. We headed out to Branson in Sept after a great visit in Bartlesville. The drive wasn't bad, and there was a nice rest area just across the border in Missouri where we could stretch our legs.

We have been to Branson a few times before, and went to many of the shows that are available. I think my two favorite ones were the Red Skelton show, and listening to the Liverpool Legends. The actor performing as Red Skelton, and the four young men playing as the Beatles did an excellant job.

However this trip, we decided to just take the dinner cruise on the Showboat, and of course, get our feet wet in camping in our new FR3 motorhome. After picking a spot, and getting set up, we headed out to get tickets for the showboat Branson Belle.

Table Rock State Park has but a few full hook-ups for RV'ers, but it is a nice campground. There are a lot of other campsites that just provide power, but there is water and a dump site nearby. Table Rock  Lake is just behind our campspot, and there is a path that one can walk for miles.

Here is a picture of the Showboat Branson Belle. It is a fully functional paddle wheel showboat that provides dinner and a show while cruising the lake. During intermission, one can go outside and watch the sunset, or just stare at the paddle wheels in the back churning the water as it slowly plods along. The dinner was delicious, and the show amazingly good.

While in Branson, we drove over to Branson Landing, which is a shopping and dining area right on Lake Taneycomo.  While driving there, we came across a scenic overlook of the Branson area.

The view, however, was mostly homes and condos along the lake.

After staying a few nights in Branson, we headed on down into Arkansas. Next stop, the Crater of Diamonds State Park in Murfreesboro, Arkansas.

The Best $4.50 I Have Ever Spent

Jan and I stayed a few nights at Murfreesboro, Arkansas during our initial trip with Frances Rene 3rd in September. Murfreesboro is where the Crater of Diamonds state park is. Well, we had stayed there before, dug for diamonds, found nothing but heat and exhaustion from digging in the dirt,so this trip we decided to tour the town instead.

Believe me, there is not much to this town. We did find a lot of curio shops that were a little interesting. Heading into one little shop, we discovered some very interesting shaped rocks that I asked the store keep about. This store keep was a rather quiet old man that looked liked he belonged out in the diamond field rather than behind a counter selling pawn shop type stuff. 

We started to talk about hunting for diamonds and arrow heads, and then he showed us a book he had written about his big find. The book is titled " The Way I Found My Diamond and Why". Looking at the old man, I decided to buy the $4.50 book for hopefully a good read. The man's name is David M. Thompson. David even autographed the book for me.

You can tell immediately that David did not have a complete education. But the way the book is written, keeps you wanting to know more about his life, and how he became the man he was. One of his greatest accomplishments was beating his alcohol addiction. From the book, I felt that he was proud of that accomplishment.

I don't read books much, but I'm glad I bought this one. It was only 70 pages long, and at the end, I was wanting to read more. I am certainly glad that I met David, and I wish him all the best.

Black walnuts

On our 39th anniversary trip in Francis Rene 3rd (FR3), we stop over in Bartlesville for a few nights visiting Jan's mom. On Monday night there is a horrific storm with 60 mph straight line winds heading straight for us. We had parked our FR3 beside the house right under a black walnut tree. Once the winds came, these black walnuts fell from the tree and made crashing noises on the roof of the motorhome. I was rather afraid that these would smash right thru the roof vents, but this night, we were lucky. 

Here is a picture of the black walnuts in their shell. They are heavy and hard.

The next morning there were tree limbs everywhere. Power outages struck the town of Dewey. Again, luckily, we never lost power, nor had any significant tree damage, or most importantly, motorhome damage. 

Tomorrow, we hope to head out for Branson, Mo.

What goes around, comes around.....

I have finally become the person I usually yell at while driving down the highway. Regardless of whether the speed limit is 70 or 75, I drive this monstrosity of a motorhome down the interstate at 60 mph. Taking my time, no hurry. I'll get there when I get there. So please do wave when you pass me by.

Parking a Class A in the Back Yard

Each time I've bought a new RV, I've had to increase the width of my gate to the back yard. Didn't happen this time with the FR3, but for ease of mind, I guess I'll have to do it again. With only inches to spare, I was able to drive forward down the driveway and thru the gate into the back yard. Still working on a plan to back it out of the gate. Here are a few shots of how close it looks on the sides.........

I'm pretty sure for my sanity, and to keep the neighbors happy, I'll have to get a storage unit to keep it under. Plus that'll help with all the darn bird droppings I get every day on the roof.

The Forest River FR3 Class A Motorhome

We shopped around for almost 8 months before finally buying a motorhome. I was no longer going to pull a RV trailer behind my truck. This time I wanted to drive the motorhome, and pull my car behind it. Make sense?

The recognized term for the car being pulled behind a motorhome is a 'toad', or 'dinghy'. So for our 'toad', we bought a 2014 4x4 Jeep Cherokee that is capable of being towed '4 wheels down'. For a tow system, we selected the Blue OX base plate and tow bar. We had these installed by Hitch and Truck here in Austin, Tx.  Here is what it looks like attached to both the Jeep and the Motorhome.  Pretty simple, and easy to attach.

Then it was off to Alvarado to pick out the motorhome. On Friday we selected the Forest River FR3 30DS motorhome. After staying the night at the local La Quinta, Saturday afternoon we went back to the dealer for the walkthrough and final paperwork. They allowed us to stay the night in their overnight parking area to get used to the coach. This was a Saturday night, and even though there were other units ready to be delivered, we were the sole campers that night.

That is us in bay 8 ready to head home Sunday morning, pulling our Jeep behind us.

The drive home, about 175 miles, was uneventful and pleasant. I am definitely going to have to get used to driving a Class A. It is significantly different than sitting behind the wheel of a car or truck.

This was our first RV with slideouts. This FR3 has 2, one on each side. Sunday morning, I headed out to the Jeep at the rear of the coach to do something, but then on return I walked straight into the rear slideout. Blood trickling down my face, I headed for the door to get my 'live in' nurse, Jan, to tend to my wounds. It was at that moment I was glad there were no other campers around to watch this novice in action.

One of the few things I like about this 30' FR3 is that it has both a dinette and couch. Most of the smaller 28' coaches have just a dinette. I really like to stretch out on the couch in the evenings, so that was a big factor in selecting this model.

The RV Life

We bought our first travel trailer, a 23' Weekend Warrior toy hauler, back in 2005. It was used to haul us, the dog, and our 2003 Ultra Classic to bike rallies all over Texas. 

After 5 years we sold it and bought a little 19' Layton Joey, which turned out to be too small. 

So after a year we sold it and bought a 26' Keystone Fuzion toy hauler. This RV was big enough to haul both the Ultra Classic and a golf cart. But after 3 years, I started to worry about tire blowouts. We had one blowout on the 2005 toy hauler, and a very close call with the Fuzion. 

Then it was back to tent camping. We have a little Time Out trailer that is easy to pull behind a small car or truck. Real nice for a few nights, but not for more than a week. 

So we got the itch again, and drove out to Alvardo, Tx to pick out a 2015 Forest River FR3 Class A motorhome.  Here it is in the bay waiting for us to drive it home. More on this FR3 in another post.