From Little Rock to Austin — 10/16-18/2018

The very rainy and cool weather has continued for Arkansas and Texas, so Karen and I decided to move into a mode of expediting our travel toward Austin rather than to meander and sight-see.  In “expedite” mode, typically, we’ll enjoy somewhat leisurely mornings in the RV, getting our coffee, walking the dogs, catching up on emails, texts, social media, etc., then go into prep mode to get the RV ready to leave for the next destination. Karen, who is the researcher of the two of us, would have used the previous evening to scope out our next RV park, trying to find something in the 2 to 4 hour’s driving time from our current park.  We’d then make the drive, arrive at the RV park, usually early to mid-afternoon, and pretty much do whatever we wanted or needed to do.  Just like regular non-RV living, there is always stuff to do – go grocery shopping, do laundry, walk the dogs, check-in with the kids, contact friends, do some work, etc.  I guess “living the dream” as some folks like to say about our RV journey can look an awful lot like regular life!

Of course, the difference between RV living and regular living really comes clear when it’s time to move the RV.  Yesterday, we picked a relatively new RV park somewhat east of Dallas as our destination. They let us know that their RV sites were gravel rather than concrete pads.  This is not unusual, but they also explained that with the huge amount of rain they had had in the past couple of weeks, their RV sites have softened. We appreciated the heads-up and headed there anyway.  Upon arrival, we learned that their description was, indeed, accurate.  As we maneuvered to our site, we could see puddles of water and areas where the gravel/dirt foundation had gotten a little mushy.  We pulled into our site and got ready to put our leveling jacks down.  For those unfamiliar with RVs and campers, your vehicle comes equipped with leveling jacks, which look like thick metal poles that have about an 8-inch circular (or square) disk on the bottom of them that you deploy so that your vehicle sits level on your site, even if your site isn’t level.  In our RV, the jacks are electronic and hydraulic…and there are four of them – two toward the front and two toward the back.  There is a set of controls next to the driver’s seat that lets you deploy the jacks and helps you know when you have achieved level. While one person is doing the deploying, the other person is outside of the RV, placing pads under the jacks and watching to make sure the jacks come down and hit the pads/ground.  The pads are both a way to give the jacks a nice firm footing to land on and also to help prevent the jacks from damaging the surface they are landing on – concrete, gravel, packed dirt, etc.

Karen and I got our RV fairly level in the RV site.  We didn’t get it perfectly level because to achieve that would have required deploying the jacks to the point that it would lift our front wheels off of the ground, which is not recommended.  You really don’t want a 36,000-pound vehicle sitting in the air supported by four metal poles.  Once it was level, we went about our business in the RV (it was raining out), doing laundry, taking a shower, trying to get the WiFi to work (this is a recurring issue), etc.  Around a couple of hours later, Karen notices that the RV doesn’t seem level any more. She goes outside and the next thing I see is her waving somewhat frantically at me in the RV.  I open the window and she says “We’re sinking!”  She then explains that the two front jacks (and the pads under them) have literally sunk into the gravel/dirt/mud about 5 inches. Add into the equation that it’s raining fairly hard outside, it’s now dusk and will soon be dark, so we spring into action.  We realize that it’s unlikely there is another RV site at this park that will be any better and we’re worried that if we stay, we might not be able to get out the next day, so we make the decision that we need to pack up the RV fast, bring the leveling jacks up (hoping there aren’t any problems with them) and go find another RV park for the night.  We succeed in getting the RV packed up, getting the leveling jacks up, we are able to move the RV out of the site, and we get to the exit of the RV park.  Only we have a slight problem.  It’s after 6:00 pm and most RV park offices are closed by this time, so we couldn’t find another RV park.  Well, when you can’t find an RV park, it’s time to look for a Wal-Mart because they are one of the places that welcome RVers to park in their parking lots over night (with no hook-ups, of course).  We located a Wal-Mart not too far away from us, so off we went.  As we maneuvered to exit out of the RV park and onto the interstate, we were reminded, once again, that hurriedly packing an RV usually results in problems.  All of a sudden, we hear “WHAM!!”  We look toward the back of the coach and are greeted with the sight of a broken bottle of red wine on the floor.  Yep, the bottle had been left standing on the kitchen counter.  In our haste to pack up, we had missed that one.  The one bright note in this incident is that, thankfully, the bottle did not do any damage to our tile floor.

We did make it to the Walmart and after hunkering down in the parking lot, Karen and I looked at each other and agreed that this was an evening to head out for dinner and drinks.  We headed to the door of the RV, turned to the dogs, and told them to hold down the fort while we were out.

I’m betting that between this blog post and my last one (about our comedy of errors), you have to be wondering where the fun of RVing is….or, perhaps, more secretly wondering….are the Levines really cut out for RVing???