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Ten Degrees and Getting Colder

  Cold Sunrise   That's just the name of the song written by Gordon Lightfoot.  It was actually -13 F when I got up this morning (wind chill -24).  Tucson may have pulled back into the lead!  There's a lot of weighing pros and cons of Colorado vs Arizona by the wood stove.  Not much else to report. I did enjoy a few games of pool and a beer with my brother this week.  We don't get together very often, so it's good to try to keep the lines of communication open, especially with my mother celebrating her 86th birthday next month.  He lives in Milwaukee and just started semi-retirement.  Our opposing politics and lifestyles keep things very casual and surface-level.  Not that there's anything wrong with that.   It's important to find common ground.  He and his wife have started going to concerts and recently saw the Steve Miller Band.  Music is one of our common interests.      

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.


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