2017 Winter In Texas

[JEBar]

1-12-17 ... anyone who has followed our travels has, no doubt, heard me mention that once our plans are absolute and final, they remain subject to change at any second .... finished packing this morning, locked up the house, got in the truck, turned the key and it sounded like the batteries were down .... the truck has built in battery 1.2V battery maintainer which has been plugged in for weeks .... decided to hookup our 12A battery charger .... the truck's battery bank is buried under the cab so I looked for a place to hook it up under the hood .... found one that made sense to me .. .. charger seemed to be working .... tried to crank the truck, battery still too weak .... mistakenly knocked one of the charger connections loose and reconnected it .... turned key, dash went totally dead .... figured I must have blown a fuse .... checked all 3 of the truck's fuse boxes ... all fuses were good .. .. called Sportchassis and was patched in to speak with one of their Techs who works on them .... learned of a 4th fuse bank. buried under the cab on top of the batteries .... who knew :sack: .... called our local independent mechanic who came right over .... he isolated the bad fuse .... thankfully the first auto parts I went to had them in stock (yes, we now have a spare) .... replaced the fuse and all's good .... too late to head out today, all reservations changed again .... hope to get on the road in the morning ..

[JEBar]

JEBar, that is definitely the way to go camping! What a fantastic looking rig. I can imagine the look on any campsite owner's face over here if that ever pulled through the gates!

across the country rigs like ours aren't uncommon .... from the reading I've done, campers in Europe are usually much more compact .... the camper itself is 36' long .... many motorhomes 5th wheels are 40' to 50' long .... the Sportchassis has the same wheel base as a standard long bed dually .... the thing that makes it look so big is its height .... the positive thing about the height is, its easy to find in the parking lot when you come out of the door of Walmart .. .. the reason for the truck is ride ... with the cab, seats, and suspension all air assisted, traveling across country doesn't subject you to the jolts from rough roads .... its window sticker is about twice that of a well equipped one ton dually but it will outlast a bunch of them .... it didn't come with a manual, it came with a library .... as but one example, outside of standard service, the first mention of anything needing to be done to the motor is at a half million miles to change the bearing on the bottom of the pistons .... we've had it for 10 years and it has served us well .... when we no longer need it, we will put it up for sale and somebody will get a really good truck

[CT_Shooter]

Subject to change is a common plan in my world, too. Happy trails, JEBar!

[JEBar]

last summer when we got ready to leave South Dakota the camper's battery died .... at 5AM a couple of days later we had to make an emergency evacuation to avoid rising flood waters .. .. without a good camper battery we would not have been able to hookup the camper .... our daughter told us that the battery going bad when it did was a sign .... she now says blowing that fuse this morning was a sign that we weren't supposed to leave today .... don't know is she's right but we plan to leave tomorrow ..

[CT_Shooter]

... she now says blowing that fuse this morning was a sign that we weren't supposed to leave today .... don't know is she's right but we plan to leave tomorrow .

If everything for everyone was some kind of a cosmic warning sign, no one would ever want to get out of bed in the morning to see them. But, if you need to use that spare you bought today, well then maybe that IS a sign of a real problem. Good luck and all green lights ahead.

[JEBar]

I hope that this time tomorrow I'll be checking in on the forum from Augusta, Georgia ...

[dasmoeturhead]

Keep us posted.

[JEBar]

If everything for everyone was some kind of a cosmic warning sign, no one would ever want to get out of bed in the morning to see them.

understood ... the real reason we didn't leave today is pretty simple .... by the time the repairs were complete, we couldn't have reached our destination before dark .... while we can do so and sadly will probably have to do so again, we make every effort when going to an area with which we aren't familiar to not have to drive through congested areas, park our camper, and then setup after dark ....

[JEBar]

1-13-17 .... we have arrived and are setup in Heritage RV Park in Augusta, Ga .... I-95 south of where it crosses into SC from NC hasn't improved .... it appears SC's Transportation folks are still dedicated to repairing low spots in the concrete sections with speed bumps .... in addition, they owe an apology to folks who have to travel several sections of I-20 .... absolutely terrible .... due to bridge repair on I-95 just south of the the Latta Flying J exit, we chose to take a detour .... in doing so we probably did save some time over trying to get through a 10+ mile backup and we got to see some different country .... we filled the truck for the first time in over 800 miles at that Flying J .... averaged 9.9 mpg which is about normal .... thankfully the drive went well, camper and truck seemed to perform as normal

[BigAl52]

Wish I was there with you. I like to go to Corpus and Port Aransas. Ive also been to Kemah and stayed right on the gulf. I have a favorite place to eat close to Kemah called the top water grill. Wish I was there now as its a hell of alot warmer than it is here. Al