Hot Ride

 

I'll get to the hot part in a minute but first more abut the last couple of days. Wednesday evening we had dinner with more old friends, Greg and Char, from missile duty and Tucson days. We used to visit them in the Dayton area, but now they are retired and San Antonio is home.

 

So on the 20th we unhooked from New Braunfels and decided to take the road less traveled again. That would be east to Gonzales then highway 111 out of there to Galveston ... really neat ride except for the "love bugs."

 

These black things really mushed up the bus and they dry quickly into a hard paste that took about an hour to wash and scrape off.

 



After a really nice trip through the southeast part of Texas we came up on Galveston Island from the west and landed at the Jamaica RV park about midway up the island. Below you can see the Gulf out in front of the RV and it was a quick walk to the beach.

OK, the hot part. About an hour before we landed in Galveston we noticed the RV getting hotter inside. We try to use the dash AC but we've had problems with it leaking and in a day's trip it normally needs a recharge, and really it wasn't designed to cool the whole bus on a hot day.

Our normal reaction is to turn on the generator and then let the roof air units do their work. OOOh. Hmmm. Generator is on but no power. Check everything possible. Hotter and hotter as the outside air is about 83 and 90%. Arrived in Jamaica Beach and quickly hooked up the shore power and everything works fine .... cool air.

We took a stroll that evening and the wildlife along the beach was great with pelicans and all kinds of sea birds.

The next morning we took off on what we knew would be hot and long day to New Orleans. We got going about 9 and went through Galveston proper and past the Galvez Hotel where we stayed many years ago.

And then decided to take the ferry across to the Bolivar Peninsula rather than slog through Houston. About an hour wait for the free ferry while I got a chance to troubleshoot our non-functioning generator. Hot and getting hotter. The ferry trip was about 20 minutes, but the trip planner (me) didn't realize that New Orleans was really about 400 miles from Galveston ... ooops.

So by the time we got across the ferry at about 10 am it took another 6 very hot and long hours for the old guys to get to New Orleans.

There was a massive 18 wheeler accident near Crowley, then Baton Rouge with its gross traffic jams, and then finally and slowly creeping into New Orleans at about 5:30 ... very tired and very hot with no air. But above is why we are here with the Flying Scotsman in the foreground and the Big Easy in the background .... this is it!! Plugged in and cool air and happy hour ... yea!