Albuquerque to San Antonio

Tuesday, November 5th.

During the night we were wakened by an unusual sound. At long last re recognised it: Rain pattering, no, drumming on the roof. It continued on and off till morning.

During one of these awakening moments Gillian remembered that we hadn't made the photocopies of the documents we would need for the Mexican officials: Our passports, the registration for the Jeep and Gillian's driver's licence (we think—but better safe than sorry).

Art got up just a little before 7:00 AM, had a bit of breakfast, a cup or two of tea, and put away last night's dinner dishes. All while watching the Morning News on Global BC of course.

When Gillian surfaced about an hour later Art set off in the Jeep for a nearby (according to Mr Garmin) Office Depot. When he arrived at the designated area there was no sign of Home Depot. There was a Sam's club and a Walmart and several other shops but no Office Depot.

Art went into Walmart which was fortunately open, and asked a clerk about Office Depot. It had closed some time ago. She wasn't sure where another one was but she was able to give explicit directions to a nearby OfficeMax. The GPS agreed; 10 minutes later the copies were done and it was time to return to the RV Park which was not in the GPS. Happily, a street that ran along side this mall intersected with Juan Tabo Blvd, which Art remembered led over the freeway to the street the park was on. Another 10 minutes he was home. It should be noted that Art's sense of direction isn't always what it should be which is why Gillian is the navigator.

The overnight rain had gone and most of the clouds were disappearing to the west. Which would be our direction of travel for at least the first part of the morning.

A stop at the office to top up the propane, hook up the Jeep and we were on our way at 9:55 AM

Today would be a long boring drive for the most of it. As Gillian's father would have said, “Miles and miles of Bloody Nuthin”. A good sign was a following wind along the I 40, but of course that turned into a near broadside wind when we turned south on the 285. Sailors would refer to it as being “abaft the beam”. This was with us almost all the rest of the way, making for a little wandering in the gusts. At least the clouds streaming by kept us entertained with their many and ever changing shapes and one a passing freight train was close enough for a good look.

We stopped at a wide gravel space on the side of the highway for lunch and a bit of a rest, Art making himself a large coffee to keep him going. A mile or so further on was a nice wide paved pullout and a few miles after that a proper picnic area!

3:15 PM we stopped in Carlsbad for fuel, at 3.879 per US gallon, and of course as we carried on through town we found several a bit more expensive and a couple a lot cheaper; at 3.759. One dollar a liter! At several places we saw regular gas well under three dollars a gallon.

3:50 we arrived at Carlsbad RV Park and finally got settled in out spot about 20 minutes later. We would have liked to have been able to carry on down the road another hour or so but there is a dearth of RV Parks or even Rest Areas south of here. As it turned out this was probably just as well.

Many sites including the one we were given are being renovated. We had nice clean new gravel to park on, new electric posts, new water connection and new sewer pipe. BUT the patio tiles are all stacked up ready to be installed on the dirt where we have to walk and or sit. Fortunately it is dry! A couple of rubber door mats should keep the worst of the dirt out of the rig.

So for this evening: relax, watch the news, have dinner and work on the blog. When we first arrived we logged onto the wifi internet with no problem but when Art tried to log on later there was no internet available in spite of a strong wifi connection.

Just as Art finished typing this on the word processor, the internet came alive!

Tomorrow we will aim for some point roughly halfway to Laredo. When Art set the GPS for a route through to Laredo the estimated driving time was nine hours. We don't do this unless we really have to. The town of Sanderson is roughly half way and we had noted previously that it looked as if it might have possibilities.

We did see on Facebook that friends of ours are in San Antonio today. They too are going to Mexico and will be staying at El Manglar, where we first met them a few years ago. Not sure if we will meet up on the way down.

Tried to post it: managed to connect to the internet but it is soooooo slooooooowwww. My blog page wouldn't open. I remember having this problem here last year. There are a lot of permanent or long term residents here who I suppose will keep it busy until bed time.

Wednesday  morning. Tia had blood in her urine this morning--another bladder infection it would seem. Almost same place and time as last year. 

We'll take her to a vet who hopefully with her history will just give us a prescription for antibiotics, though he may insist on a lab report. 

The internet is a bit better this morning, everyone is off to work and/or school I guess. 

More later.

Well, it's later all right; a day and a bit later.  To continue with Wednesday:

After breakfast and getting the above posted, Gillian and the dogs went to see the vet.

 Meanwhile Art had been getting the rig buttoned up ready to go. Art decided that since our site was dirt except in the parking area he would dump the holding tanks at their sani-station rather than at our site.

As he arrived at the dump station Gillian returned to the park Gillian and the dogs returned, Tia with a prescription for more antibiotics.

All done Art started the rig in order to turn around before hooking up. The motorhome, like all diesels, are equipped with a warning light to WAIT to start. Depending on temperature this may take several seconds to go out. This allows the computer to come up to speed and for any pre-heat system to get up to temperature. Art MAY, again May have not waited to start and it when it started it was  running very rough. He switched off, waited a moment or two, started again , this time being sure to wait for the light to go out, which was only a second as it had been driven from our site.

It started fine, ran fine, so he set of to turn around. Then the CHECK ENGINE light came on. This is usually not good. As he turned around the light went off. This in better. Then it came on again, and went out again. Hmmmmmmm. Or words to that effect.

So we hooked up the Jeep and started the engine again. Check Engine light on. And stayed on. While Gillian went into the office to see if they knew of a mechanic Art set off driving the rig around perimeter of the park, perhaps 500 meters. Two thirds of the way around the light went out. Along the way Art noted that the tachometer needle was bouncing down to zero then back up. He couldn't hear or feel any difference in engine running or speed.

Fortunately, a diesel mechanic lived in the park! They gave him a call and about 10 minutes late he arrived to lead us to the shop where he worked, several kilometers up the road. He was involved on another vehicle but soon another mechanic came to take a look.  We had laughed that we were on the road at the crack of noon, but just to the shop!

The diagnostic computer didn't show anything specific except one instance of a short to ground. Now it was beginning to look like an electrical fault, possible a connector or faulty cable. This is not an easy or quick thing to diagnose in a motorhome. Full access involves removing the mattress, the stuff stored under it, lifting the wooden base, and removing dozens of screws to remove the steel firewall above the engine!

They couldn't do anything for some time but recommended that we get it looked at fairly soon.

We finally hit the road at 1:50, heading south to see what if anything would happen.

How far we would get today depended upon a couple of things; how the rig ran, and how tired was the driver, where were the Rest Areas. We knew of one campground from last year which we would avoid at almost any cost.

We didn't need a lunch break—we had made BST sandwiches (Bacon, Spinach, Tomato) while the mechanic worked. I think he smelled the bacon cooking, he had looked hopeful!

Soon we left the Mountain Time Zone and were now on Central Time and in Texas, the final state in the USA until northbound in the spring. Now Art would finally have to dig into the computer documents to find the manual for his wrist watch. At least this would last until we're north of Puerto Vallarta in March.

At 5:15 MST we turned left onto the I-10, Eastbound for San Antonio. Though the rig was running fine, we thought we should head that way, towards the big shops. Art proposed that if the rig continued without a re-occurrence we would proceed to Laredo and if still OK, we would cross the border on Friday or Saturday. Gillian wasn't convinced that would be such a good idea.

We pushed east on the 10 to a Rest Area where at 6:PM, some three hours since leaving the shop we stopped to exercise and feed the dogs and have a bit of a break for ourselves. There was another Rest Area. about an hour and a half further east so we carried on into the dark. The rig started and ran flawlessly. Art was still hoping for the Columbia Crossing Friday morning, Gillian still not so sure.

Five minutes past eight we stopped for the night in a nice Rest Area. There were a couple of other RVs and a few trucks in and out during the night, but a nice sleep. Especially since there was no T.V. In the dark Art hadn't noticed large tree overhead! No loss, nothing on TV Wednesday night anyway, except the news and we weren't bothered about missing that.

Thursday 

We had been tired! We woke up at 8:15! Somehow we weren't on the road until 9:45 and the decision as to carry on past San Antonio if the rig continued to run well was made for us: As we left the Rest Area, still on the entrance road to the freeway, the tach began to bounce down to Zero and back, the engine was losing power and the CHECK ENGINE light came on. Just for a few seconds, but it was enough. Slowly the rig gained speed and the light went out.

At 11:40 we pulled into a picnic area to phone around for a shop. Fortunately, the Freightliner book and the Cummins book that were included with rig when new (2002) were still there when we purchased it about 5 years ago. Not only that, but the companies listed we still valid as were the phone numbers.

The Freightliner shop was too busy but recommended their Laredo shop, which turned out to only be able to get us in on Monday. We really weren't excited about spending 3 or 4 or more days in Laredo, especially if some of those days we might not be able to stay in the motorhome. We tried Cummins in San Antonio, but got the voice mail.

Half an hour later we gave up waiting for a call back and hit the road again. A bit later we came to a  Rest Area so we pulled off and phoned again. After a lot of fighting with the phone (Art HATES his “smart phone”) we finally talked to a live service person at Cummins who booked us in for Monday.....AFTER NOON! Art expected it might be an all day job unless we got lucky, but now we may be there overnight. At least we have the option of staying in the rig overnight parked outside their lot. We'll see how it looks when we get there.

We had been out of the flat plains for quite a while, since later yesterday in fact and were now what is known as the Hill Country, though the hills that we came through were hardly worth the name. I doubt the transmission downshifted once.

 Now one more phone call to make: Braunig Lake RV Resort at the south end of San Antonio. They have room! And for our four nights: $94.00! Carlbad was $42 for one night and this is a much nicer park with excellent staff AND an active group of volunteers who are full time residents in the park.

We arrived at 2:00 PM, only 2 minutes later than the Garmin RV GPS had estimated back at the Rest Area.

Art got the rig set up while Gillian took the dogs on their badly needed walk. Trekker was bit upset since during the drive the freezer door had opened and crashed plastic containers all over the floor behind him. He needed to get out for a while!

When they returned they were put out on their lines to watch the world go by. Happy dogs. Trekker of course wanted in first, while Tia, when asked if she wanted to come in turned her head and looked away. She couldn't have been clearer. This is her usual response.

Inside, Gillian and Trekker settled in for a nap, while unusually, Art stayed up taking advantage of a working internet. After a while he realised that he too was ready for a nap but first went to check on Tia. No sign of her! Not on the grass outside, she had crawled under the motorhome and was curled up snoozing on the other side. She gave a little wag as Art went over to her but when asked “inside?” He got the head turn away.

Happy where she was, Art went back in and settled on the couch. Some undetermined time later as the three of us wakened there was one quick bark at the door: Tia saying “I want in now”. Funnily enough neither dog will bark to go out, though Trekker will sometimes stand at the door and sound a very low grumbling growl. Tia will bark to come in, but not Trekker. He'll just stand out there looking sad!

We watched the 5 o'clock news from home at 7:00 PM, while Art did a bit on the blog, or tried to, but people were home from work and kids were home from school, it ran slower and slower until he couldn't connect any longer. We had dinner, and about 10:00 PM discovered that the internet was up and running so decided to post what had been written to date, then it was time to call it a night. Except that while Art managed to upload this post, we somehow got involved in an episode of Father Brown, which carried on until nearly eleven!

Hey! We're up to date!