I have been sleeping like a baby. The last two mornings I didn't wake up until after 5:30. Dean even beat me out of bed this morning and had the coffee almost done when I got up. It got pretty cool last night. I think the temperature was about 39 or so when we got up and we had to turn the heater on for awhile. About 7, we took our morning walk - and we had to bundle up a bit, but by the time we were done walking our 1.5 miles, it was beginning to warm up nicely.
I don't think I mentioned in the previous two posts but the temperatures both days were in the 70's. Wow, I love this warm weather. Especially when I see how cold it is at home, and talk of black ice on the roads, etc. I do pray that everyone stays safe and warm and I do not mean to rub it in. I'm just so very thankful that we are able to be here and do this in our retirement. It is such a blessing to me. When my feet get cold it seems like I can't get warm enough so it's a wonderful thing not to worry about that.
We do not have any plans for the day. Since I didn't get quite all of my laundry done the other day - there wasn't enough room for me to do the full set of sheets I needed to wash, I only did the bottom sheet. I decided to go ahead and strip the bed today and wash sheets, and after my shower I will have enough to wash a load of towels, too. Then I won't have to worry about doing laundry again for a week or so. I've decided to break it up and do two loads every week and not let it build up since we are limited on the number of loads we can do at one time here.
I fixed breakfast of eggs, sausage for Dean and bacon for me, with some toast. We do have a little water in our holding tank, so Dean switched us over to that so we could use our bathroom facilities and the kitchen sink. I started to do the dishes and realized we did not turn the hot water tank back on when we got back to the RV yesterday. The water will stay pretty warm in the tank for quite awhile, so sometimes if you aren't using much water you don't really notice it until much later---evidently we didn't last night! Because of that I couldn't do dishes, I couldn't shower, and since it is off in the park, I couldn't do laundry so I decided I would catch up the blog. Here it is 2:52pm and we still have no water in the park.
In the meantime, Dean decided he was going to work on two of our gate valves that allow us to empty one of the gray water tanks and the wastewater tank. He got into the underbelly to see if there was anything simple he might be able to do for them to work better. He decided he would call a mobile RV unit to see if they could work on them, since we have an extended warranty for this type of thing, and it is going to require the purchase of some parts. He wanted me to go out and pull on the handle while he was under the rig and could see what was happening. I couldn't even pull the handle out - no wonder he wants to get something done. The worse part is when you push it back in, it won't go all the way so water leaks out of the tanks. He did buy a piece that he added, which has a valve within it that keeps the water from running entirely out into the sewer, but we still need to get this fixed. He started to call one of the Mobile RV companies he found online, but then we decided maybe he should check with the office first to see if there was someone they recommended. He walked to the office and when he returned, he told me they recommended the company he was going to call, A1 Mobile. They said there was only one guy that worked on these in the area during this time of year and gave Dean the number. Dean called him and he will come out on Thursday to take a look at it and see what parts are needed. We will be very glad to get this taken care of. We had hoped to get it fixed before we left Kansas, but our dealer was backed up with several units and couldn't get to it.
We decided to drive a short distance down the road from our park to check out Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park - World Birding Station. Lin and Debbie told me about this park on our way back from Mexico the other day, and how much they enjoyed watching the birds there, and it was one of the only places where you could see the green jay. We just went to the park office to obtain information today. We learned it would cost $5 per day, per person to visit; and an annual pass would be $70. However, whoever purchases the pass can enter the park as many times as they want throughout the year, and can bring up to 5 other people with them each time they visit. That is a perk in itself since some of our friends might be interested in visiting with us while we are here. The park has several walking trails so we are seriously considering purchasing the pass, and it opens each morning at 7 - when we normally walk. Not only would we enjoy the bird watching, we would enjoy walking these trails much more than our walks around our RV park each morning; and the pass would would also cover entrance fees to all other Texas State Parks for 2018. We plan to take more time as we travel back to Kansas so we could take advantage of staying at some of the state parks at that time.
They feed birds at birding stations in the park every morning, so the opportunity to see birds native to the area would be great. Dean and I really enjoy watching birds and seeing the different species, so a good chance we will follow up on this soon.
Later in the evening Dean grilled a wonderful rib-eye steak that we shared and I seasoned a couple of potatoes with olive oil and sea salt that we baked on the grill. Wonderful dinner - it was only $10 for the rib-eye and it was better than anything we could have ordered in a restaurant, and was perfect sized for the two of us. My husband really has perfected grilling a steak!
My back has really been bothering me the past couple of days - it started on the trip down here. It's not in the usual place I have pain when my back bothers me, and it seems to get worse as the day goes on. Sure hope it will quit on its own, but I'm beginning to wonder about that.
Dean and I both have outings tomorrow, so check back to see what we did.
Wonder if those electric gate valves are as nice and people say the are? Takes the cable out of the equation.
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