2021 Trip To Texas

[markiver54]

talk about an attention getter .. .. the forecast for Saturday night is calling for the temp to drop to 18° with a RealFeel of 1° .... WindNNE 13 mph with Wind Gusts tof 21 mph .... that's really cold for these parts ..... if it does reach 18, that will be a record for us .... it will be the lowest temperature we have spent while in our current camper .... the water system in our current campground is not designed to handle such low temps ..... in years past we have seen water pipes burst in the campground at temps well above 18 .... it should be interesting

Dang! that IS cold for that area. What do Ya do . Anti-Freeze and bottled drinking water...WOW! good luck, but, I know you'll figure it out. Hopefully it will be short lived.

[JEBar]

Dang! that IS cold for that area. What do Ya do . Anti-Freeze and bottled drinking water...WOW! good luck, but, I know you'll figure it out. Hopefully it will be short lived.

in the '02 SunnyBrook travel trailer we had before our current '06 SunnyBrook 5er we camped over a night when it got down to 8 degrees .... for us, preparations are pretty simple .... we will fill our fresh water tank, unhook all hoses and drain them, put our water filters back in the camper's basement, close and lock all storage compartment doors .... we will place an electric heater in our camper's big storage area ..will set it on 60 degrees .. heat from it can get down into the area where our water pipes and tanks are located .... at bedtime we will set two electric heaters in the living area on 65 degrees and open cabinet doors that have water pipes run through them .... as a backup we will then set the camper's propane furnace on 60 degrees .... it throws heat into all areas of the camper, including the basement and tank areas ..... should the electric heaters not be able to maintain their set temp, the furnace will kick in .... in short all should be OK

[markiver54]

As I said...was sure you have a plan for these rare occasions.

[JEBar]

yep, its not our first rodeo .... that said, we can be as prepared as is possible and things can go wrong in a hurry .... we've been in campgrounds where the electrical power can't keep up .... if/when the power goes off, things can go bad quickly

[BigAl52]

I looked at the weather down here it says upper 30’s but Ive seen that change on a daily basis. Hope it doesn’t get that low up there Jim

[JEBar]

yep, change it does .... just checked the forecast and good news .... the predicted low Saturday night had risen from 18 to 24 .... that's still cold but at least for right now its moving in the right direction

[JEBar]

I need to stop checking the forecast .. .. it seems like every time I do, it gets worse .... as of 5 min ago :

Saturday high 47 low 28 ... Low Clouds And Cold ... 25% chance of precipt

Sunday high 44 low 29 ... Cloudy and Very Cold ... 14% chance of precipt

Monday high 45 low 38 ... Cloudy With A Chance of Rain ... 35% chance of precipt

we've had great weather for the last month so we probably shouldn't complain ....

[JEBar]

UPDATE :

our i10 TireMinder has been in use during 4 long days driving that have covered well over 1,000 miles .... must say I'm impressed with its operation .... so far, it hasn't lost track of any sensor at any time .... more times than not, I couldn't say the same for our former PressurePro TPMS .... for some reason, it would often lose contact with a signal from the driver's side front tire of our Sportchassis .... the odd thing about it is, that sensor was the closest to the control panel .... the next system test should take place when we reach Lake Conroe where I will need to turn off the monitoring of the camper's tires

UPDATE :

having now done so a few times, I've gotten reasonably proficient at turning the camper sensors off and on .... there are still several functions that I don't know how to turn on or off .... so, the manual stays in the console right beside the truck's driver's seat

[JEBar]

UPDATE :

yesterday's tow from Majestic Pines back to Thousand Trails Lake Conroe covered 9.8 miles and took us 12 min ....

[JEBar]

its most definitely stay inside the camper day .... its one of those days (with more on the way) when its really nice to have a really comfortable place to sit in a camper .... we did ride down to the Walmart in Conroe to pick up a couple of prescriptions .... since returning home we've loaded 4 lbs of meat into our Jerky dehydrator and its starting to smell good in here ..

[JEBar]

interesting few days on tap .... as is the case with much of the country very cold temps are here and more are on the way .... subfreezing temps are due to move in Sunday evening and its not anticipated it will get above freezing until some time Tuesday morning .... our current park isn't designed to handle long periods of subfreezing temps .... the water pipes are bare metal sticking up 3' or so .... unless they cut the water off and drain the lines, I'll be very surprised if we don't have multiple broken pipes .... in a little while I plan to completely fill our fresh water tank .... we will continue to operate off of campground water for so long as it flows .... with a full tank we can get buy for several days .... the problem will come Monday .... after a low for 23 Sunday night, Monday's high is forecasted to only get up to 25 and to drop to 12 that night .... if it does get down that low, it will be the coldest temp we've experienced while in our current camper .... its supposed to get up to 36 Tuesday .... we've just tested our furnace and it appears to be OK .... as noted "interesting" days at hand

[JEBar]

the forecast for our part of Texas is growing more and more interesting ====>

"Periods of snow, freezing rain, and sleet will impact Southeast Texas. Snowfall amounts will total approximately 1-3" with the highest totals falling north of the Houston metro. Areas in and north of the Houston metro are also expected to receive 0.1-0.25" of accumulating ice. Areas south of the Houston metro, including the coast and barrier islands, may receive ice amounts of 0.1" or less."

[The Wiz]

Dang Jim, you got to go Aruba and vaca with my sister if you want warm weather. Does that wonder rig of yours float?

[JEBar]

according to the forecast we have a cold week on tap .... Monday looks like the worst of it .... high of 24, down to 11 Monday night .... sleet and snow .... accumulation predictions are all over the place .... the light at the end of this tunnel comes on Sunday the 24th when temps in the 70's are due to return .... only prep left to take care of today is emptying the black tank .... this campground's water system isn't built for these low temps .... based on prior experiences here, I fully anticipate pipes to burst and the water to be shutoff .... hopefully our camper's fresh water tank can carry us through

[JEBar]

decision time .... at some point today I need to get out and disconnect from the campground water hookup .... shown below is our current setup, the tub hold 3 whole house filter elements .... all connections are quick disconnects .... to protect the water filtration components my plan is to put the tub back in the camper's heated basement .... to try and protect the campground's water hookup I plan to run a gray water hose from the CG faucet to the site's sewer fitting .... that will keep the water flowing and hopefully our faucet and pipe will not be frozen .... the third picture was taken when we were here back in 2011 .... their water hookup is still a bare pipe with a faucet .... I anticipate seeing several ruptures like the one in the third picture

[Hatchdog]

Too bad the campground didn’t install self draining frost free hydrants. Probably not thought of much in Texas but as your examples show, freeze happens.

[BigAl52]

They told us here to leave the faucet drip so were gonna do that

[JEBar]

its a beautiful, ugly morning on Lake Conroe .... beautiful being the gleaming white snow .... ugly being 17 degrees and the power going out about 5AM ....don't pay any attention to anyone who says you can't flood a propane powered generator .. .. I assure you that one can do so, enough said .... finally got ours going and have settled in waiting for daylight .... sometime overnight our camper's water pump failed .... with the campground water unhooked and at this point who knows if its working or not, having the pump fail complicates things .... waiting on daylight to determine how we proceed from here

[BigAl52]

No power down here either. I have no generator so here in a while I will be starting the truck which has 2 new batteries in it. The batteries in the trailer are new also but there is a good draw on them right now with the furnace and other accessories running. No snow here but plenty of Alberta wind.

[JEBar]

as noted above, its sure pretty out there ..... we have some things working and a few not .... we left the water running through the CG connection over night ..... after digging out the hose and connecting it to another that is connected to the camper, I anticipated water would flow into the camper .... no such luck .... it took longer than it should have (windchill in negative numbers probably contributed to it) to find that the inside of the fitting connecting the water hose to the camper was a solid block of ice .... cleared it out and we now have water .... pump still doesn't work .... our camper's propane generator will pull gas out so fast that it can freeze the tank .... doing so this morning only took a couple of hours .... rigged up Maureen's hair dryer on high in the propane compartment, will see if that helps .... power still out and we can't get through to the campground office to see if they have any word own when it will be restored