Current Location: Traders Village RV Park, Houston, Texas

We got going this morning around 7:00 and started packing up the trailer for today’s trip. Malcolm climbed up on the roof to see how many acorns had accumulated on top of the slides from the oak tree we were parked under. There weren’t too many, but he used his extension window washer squeegee thing to sweep the debris off the tops. Val immediately closed them. The wind was blowing fairly good and causing it to rain acorns on the coach all morning.

We got everything unhooked and hitched up the truck just as it started raining pretty decent. We managed to hop in the truck ready to go without getting very wet, fortunately. Then it was off to head west to Texas. It was pretty windy and drizzly rain most of the way. The wind was hitting us from the front-right, causing fuel mileage to drop down to around 8.8 mpg for the first part of the trip. Once the wind died down, mileage slowly climbed to a 9.6 mpg average by the time we arrived in Houston.

Malcolm at the helm

Speaking of mileage and such, we are so glad we went ahead and purchased the new truck. It runs, drives and handles so much better than the old truck. Plus, it is so much quieter, we can actually hear ourselves think, let alone not having to raise our voices to talk. The increase in fuel mileage should offset the slightly higher maintenance costs of the new truck (diesel exhaust fluid, fuel filters, additives, etc.)

We stopped at the Texas welcome center on the way, and took a stroll on the boardwalk they have out back of the main building. It traverses the swamp out back and has several informational signs along the way. Had it been warmer, not as windy and not drizzling rain, we might have walked further along. It was a nice stop, though.

Welcome to Texas

Star and flags at rest area

Part of the boardwalk over the swamp

We stopped for lunch at Cracker Barrel just east of Houston. Since we were going to arrive after lunch, we decided to make sure we had food in our stomachs before getting to the RV park. We didn’t have much of anything left in the trailer for lunches since we had left it closed up while we flew out to Seattle and our hectic schedule since didn’t allow much time to do any grocery shopping.

Once we got close to the RV Park, traffic started lining up for the huge flea market that is adjacent. It appears to be a pretty popular attraction. Traffic flowed pretty smoothly onto the grounds. It was a little confusing getting checked into the RV park with all the other traffic and activity going on, but we finally found the office, got checked in and headed to our spot to get set up.

Our spot

Once we were set up, we found a local Kroger store and did our grocery shopping for the next couple weeks. One of our favorite foods, Skyline Chili, was peeking out at us on the shelves in the chili aisle. We picked up a few cans.

Come to poppa!

Dinner was breakfast this evening. That is, we fixed eggs, sausage, hash browns (freebies from KOAs) and biscuits and gravy (leftovers from Cracker Barrel breakfasts). After dinner, we headed out to put fuel in the truck and for Malcolm to check out the route to the office for work. Diesel fuel is running as low as $3.49 around here, with some stations selling gasoline as low as $2.89. We settled for a tank of $3.60 diesel, figuring the $3.49 stuff was far enough out of the way to offset the savings.

Once the office was found, Malcolm entered it into the GPS just in case. Then, we headed back to the trailer to do dishes, tidy up and work on blogging and other computer-related stuff. Malcolm heads into work in the morning. He will be working here for two weeks.