Saturday, March 1, 2025

18-21 February 2025 Deep Freeze 2025

 We had four very cold days for Texas. We prepared ahead of time by filling up the fresh water tank and topping off the Propane Tanks on Friday. On Tuesday morning before the rain moved in, we disconnected the water line and put the hoses up. Then dumped the grey and black tanks. The low Wednesday morning was 12F with snow flurries and wind chills below zero. David had to go into the plant Wednesday and Thursday for work. We were initially concerned Wednesday morning that there might be ice on the roads, but fortunately it stopped raining before temperatures dropped below freezing Tuesday and the north winds dried up the roads. Between the electric fire place on the propane heat, we stayed warm and cozy. Thursday morning the temperature dipped down to 8F. When David got up in the morning, he found that no hot water was coming out of the faucets in the bathroom, but cold water was running. When he went downstairs, no water was coming out of the faucet at all and the trailer was chilly. A quick check showed only one furnace was running and the stove burners would barely lite.  After taking Keirra for a quick walk (no she did not want to be out in the cold either), David checked the propane tank and found it was frozen up. The lower half of the tank was covered in ice and the pressure gauge showed a very low level even though the tank was half full. When the temperature of propane tanks is low and the level of liquid propane in the tank is below a half, the propane does not flash into gas as easily, this results in a pressure drop in the tank and can ice up the gas valves. With the pressure low, only one furnace could run. David swapped us over to the backup propane tank and reset the furnaces. We also suspect that the low temperatures in the basement had resulted in the water in the valve tree freezing up and cutting off water. We had learned about these issues from a fellow New Horizon owner that winters over in Missoula Montana. He had told us how his propane tanks had iced up and his valve tree froze. He had to buy special electric tank warmers to keep his propane warm in the below zero weather in Montana. With both our furnaces now running, the trailer quickly warmed up but it took a couple of hours for the water lines to unfreeze and water flow freely. Fortunately, there are no water leaks. Later that night, while trying to close the front door, the lock was very stiff from the cold, David was pulling hard on the door lock handle and it broke off! There was just enough handle left in one corner that we were able to get the door to close and latch. David replaced the lock and handle over the weekend with a better version. We were very happy for the warmer weather to come back for the weekend! Meanwhile, we continue our search for our next home. 

Broken Lock Handle


Sunday, January 19, 2025

13 January 2025 Conroe to Granbury, TX

 Today we left our adopted southern home, Leisure Lane RV resort for Granbury. We ended up getting a late start when it took almost an hour to air up the trailer tires to the required pressure due to the cold temperatures. The Leisure Lane staff was sorry to see us leave since we have been a winter fixture there for the last five years. We are staying at Bennett’s RV Ranch ($500 per month plus electric) until we find a home to move into. The drive was uneventful and we pulled into Bennett’s just before sundown. We have a long term back in site near the entrance. We chose Granbury since it is central to the area we are looking for a home. The RV Park is close to everything in Granbury and only 30 minutes to Fort Worth, but it is a long drive (1.5 to 2 hours) over to Dallas to see Leslie’s Mom. Leslie plans to try and get over to her Mom’s at least once per week. It has helped us figure out we may want to be more to the east in the Godly area to reduce that drive when we find our home. 




11 January 2025 Happy Birthday Leslie

 To celebrate Leslie’s latest Birthday we had two parties. One on 10 January at Cynthia’s and Felix’s House with the Family, including Lauren, Bryan and the Grand Nieces. Avery picked out some flowers and insisted that there had to be a Birthday Cake! Everyone had a fun evening that ended when Avery stuck herself in her eye with a plastic straw that she was playing with. Luckily, no serious damage was done. On Saturday night, David treated her, Cynthia and Felix to dinner at Schilleci’s New Orleans Kitchen for some wonderful Cajun cuisine. On Sunday we went to church and said goodbye to our adopted church family. 




Sunday, January 5, 2025

3 January 2025 Trip to Dallas

 Leslie and Cynthia took the opportunity to drive up to Dallas and visit with their mother, Diane, for the afternoon (before driving back). The took her out to lunch at Nordstrom’s and spent time catching up. Not to mention the 6 hours in the vehicle to catch up with each other. 

1 January 2025 Happy New Years 2025

 We spent our New Years enjoying a fire in our fire pit in the RV Park. The neighborhoods around us set off plenty of fireworks in celebration we did not feel like we missed out. Poor Keira does not like fireworks and spent the evening hiding in her kennel. We tried to bring her out by the fire, but the fireworks were too much for her.



2024 Summary

It has been an eventful year. We knocked off three bucket list destinations (New Zealand, Australia, and American Samoa), revisited past destinations, visited with family and friends and found several out of the way surprises.  We can summarize this year’s travels with:

1. Drove over 18,000 Miles in the Behemoth (Our F-350), 2349

miles in our New Zealand Caravan and another 1200 miles in our rental car in Australia.

2. Visited the National Park of America Samoa (total so far of 57

out of 63 American National Parks).

3. Visited 9 National Parks in New Zealand (out of 13)

4. Visited 8 National Parks in Australia (out of 726)

5. Visited 29 other interesting and historic places in the USA.

6. Visited with friends and family along the way.

7. Posted over 140 entries to our Blog.

8. Tasted wine in an additional 5 states (28 out of 50).

 

Our quest is not over yet! But after 7 years of living in our wonderful Wanderer, we are ready for something bigger and less bouncy. So, we will spend the next few months looking for our forever home in central Texas. We still plan to travel but are going to establish a home base to come back too. 

Wednesday, January 1, 2025

31 December 2024 Hello 2025

 Most of Leslie’s injuries from her face plant have fully healed except for her ribs. The ribs are no longer popping when she moves and her range of motion is much better. We spent New Years Eve like we have the past several years. We hung around the RV park, enjoyed a fire in our firepit and watched the neighborhood fireworks shoot off around us, much to Keira’s chagrin.  It has been an extremely memorable year and we have been very blessed to enjoy it! 



1-30 December 2024 Happy Holidays!

As usual, time seems to accelerate between Thanksgiving and Christmas! David had a lot of work hours as he tried to wrap up his assignments for the year. On 6 December, we packed up the Wanderer to take it to the body shop. As David was putting up hoses and cords, Leslie decided to walk the garbage over to the trash bin. Unfortunately, the boot she was still wearing, for the broken bone in her left foot, got tied up with her other foot and she did a face plant onto the road and trash bag. She bumped her nose and chin painfully on the pavement, jammed both wrists and her left elbow and cracked several ribs on her left side. David did not even know it had happened since he was busy with the Wanderer until she came staggering back to the campsite. Being the trooper that she is, we finished getting the Wanderer buttoned up and towed it down to High Class Body Shop in Spring. We spent an hour getting it turned around in the small parking lot to get it where they needed it parked (their large fork lift had been loaned to the RV sales lot next door). But once in place, we went over what needed to be done with Gerson, the owner. In addition to getting the nose cone repaired from the hitch failure damage, we also asked him to remove the New Horizon decal from the nose cone as it was cracking and peeling after 7 years of exposure to the sun. In addition, they were fixing a crack in the left rear fender they had repaired a couple of years ago and buffing out some branch scratches. David told them not to worry about plugging it in as the refrigerator would run off the batteries and the batteries would get charged by the solar panels while it was outside. We then headed over to Cynthia and Felix’s where we were staying while our home was in the shop. The next day, Leslie decided she really needed to see a doctor about her injuries, so we went to the Doc -in-a-Box we have been to before on SH242. After being poked, prodded, and Ex rayed, the doctor said nothing was broken (she did not tell him about her ribs) and gave her a prescription for anti-inflammatories and told her to take Advil for the pain. We stayed with Cynthia and Felix for two weeks, as it took longer to complete the repairs than originally planned. David flew to Albuquerque for work the first week (and to do some Native American jewelry shopping for Leslie). Leslie and Cynthia stayed up late talking almost every night. We made several dinners for all of us and enjoyed visiting with their friends and the Grand Nieces when they were over. On the 19th they finally called to say the Wanderer was complete. They had been sending us pictures along the way so we could keep track of their progress. We showed up on the 20th to pick our home up, only to find it was not really finished. They had not buffed out the branch scratches we asked them to do and the electrical repairs for the trailer cameras were not done. They had subcontracted out the electrical repairs to the RV Sales lot next door ($300) but they never actually did them. While they worked to correct those issues, we went and got lunch. When we got back, they were still not done, so David got out and helped. We did get the cameras working but it was a jerry-rigged repair. They did a beautiful job on the body work and the paint matches beautifully. We finally got out of there about 4PM and back to Leisure Lane to get set up just before dark. They are planning to send someone to our site to do a better repair of the camera electrical after the holiday’s. Once we got the Wanderer set up, we went inside and discovered it smelled really bad! It seems all the food in the refrigerator and freezer had spoiled. On further investigation, we found both the inverters were off line and showing a E02 fault. The refrigerator was running now that we were back on shore power. We emptied the refrigerator and freezer into trash bags and then began washing everything down. Some of the “juice” had leaked out onto the floor and ran down the floor to the back slideout. We washed down the floor, refrigerator and freezer as best we could. The smell would not leave the refrigerator, even with baking soda and a small room deodorizer in it. Even with a smelly refrigerator, it was good to be back in our own home! After several days of testing and research, David finally figured out our inverter issue. After digging deeper on the internet, David found an entry in a forum that said for the Xantrex PRO XM1800, you have to remove both the battery input power and AC input power for a few seconds to reset the unit. We did that and they both reset. They are now showing the same battery input voltage as the house system and no error codes. Everything seems to be back to normal. What we suspect happened is that when they had the Wanderer in the paint booth, the solar panels were not generating enough power to keep the batteries up and they dropped below 11 volts which shut off the inverters. When they had it rolled it back outside, the solar panels charged the batteries back up but the inverters stayed off line and the refrigerator stayed powered off. On Christmas Eve Eve, we volunteered at the church to be greeters for the Christmas Service. Leslie got to run the camera to take pictures of the families dressed up in their Christmas cloths. The Christmas sermon was wonderful as usual and the candlelight singing of Oh Silent Night made our hearts swell with joy. Leslie decided it was time to take the boot off and go back to regular shoes as her foot has healed enough it does not hurt. On Christmas Eve we went over to Lauren and Bryan’s for the evening. We had a wonderful dinner before exchanging gifts. Olivia and Avery tore through their gifts with gusto! It was fun to watch them tear open a gift, look at what was inside, say thank you to the giver, then throw it over their shoulder onto the pile so they could tear into the next one. We left early so the kids could get to sleep before Santa came and went home where we had our own Christmas gift exchange. A wonderful night! Christmas Day we went back to Lauren and Bryan’s to see what Santa had brought the girls and to have brunch. We then went over to Cynthia’s friends, Rob and Brigit’s for a late dinner and to play some games. It has been a busy but fun month!
Finished Repairs

Loft Church before Christmas Service

Piles of gifts before the chaos

Avery with one of her gifts

Olivia with one of her gifts

Gift openning Chaos




Pre Christmas at Cynthia and Felix's with Rob and Brittany

Adult games at Cynthia and Felix's