Caddo Lake State Park

Caddo Lake State Park is about a four-hour drive northwest of Houston. The entry fee $4, and the camping fee was $15 (with electric).  Showers, dump station, and bathrooms are available.

When I left Northlake RV park north of Houston, I already was having a bad morning.  Somehow, I was showing very low readings on my voltage battery indicator, which did not predict a long future for an expensive gel battery that wasn’t that old.  Normally, I rely on solar to top off the battery, and I’ve never let the battery get below 50% until now.

I headed off to Harbor Freight and then Wal-Mart to find a battery charger that worked for gel batteries.  Then I rushed back to the rv park and charged the batteries up to 80% before leaving. Unfortunately, the batteries wouldn’t take any more charge than that.  I always used to get the charge levels to 13.0, but now I can only go to 12.8.  I think perhaps the polar vortex may have damaged my somewhat fragile gel batteries even though the charge levels stayed high throughout the cold.

Then I had another Brew Hut equipment failure.  I know I remembered to flip up my rear stabilizers, and I found them in the flipped up position when I arrived at the campsite.  However, the stabilizer jack pad on the right side was simply missing.  I flipped the stabilizer down, and there was no rod/pad to let down.  So I had to rig up a temporary solution to have support under the right rear of the Brew Hut.  It should get me home until I can order the part.

Last, to add insult to injury the band on my watch broke.  It was just one of those days.

Once we set up camp, Calle and I went for long walks to burn off energy and anxiety.

She’s sleeping, as I eat my leftovers meal of pan-fried steak burritos with rice, ny strip, jalapenos, tomato, onion, and cheese, washed down with St. Arnolds Art Car IPA (maybe more than one).

If I can avoid further equipment mishaps, I’m headed for Arkansas.