RV Trip 2023-24, part 2

Austin Attractions

Next on our research list was Austin. As before, we found some web sites to consult, and these were the most useful:

And as before, we selected the things we would most be interested in. Here are some of the attractions we liked:

Fredericksburg and Hill Country Attractions

And finally we repeat the process for Fredericksburg and the Hill Country. Here are some of the sites we found helpful:

Now, the thing we learned is that Hill Country is somewhat imprecise. By some definitions, San Antonio and Austin are part of it. That is why looking for Fredericksburg, the town in the heart of Hill Country, is a good strategy. In any case, we found some good candidate activities in this area as well:

Building the Trip

We again used RV Trip Wizard to build the trip, and set the circle for 250 miles as the planned maximum driving per day, because towing an RV is a lot harder than just driving a car. I can do 500 miles in a car on one day, but for me towing the RV means I have to be very alert, watching my mirrors all the time, and driving even more defensively, so a 250 mile maximum makes sense. And as before I set it up that I would drive two days in a row and then add a day of rest on the trip out and back from our home in Michigan. As it happened, there were two days that I went just over the 250 mile limit, by 269 and 274 respectively. But this got us from Michigan to Houston in 5 days. There we booked a few weeks at the Space Center RV Park. From there we looked that map some more, and realized we couold book a long stay in one park in the middle between San Antonio and Austin, and hit all of the other places of interest, so we picked a place called Schatziland RV Resort for a 60 day stay. You can often get cheaper per night rates by booking longer stays, so this made sense. Returning home after that would get us home 3 months after we left, which was perfect. This was the plan, at this point.

Maintenance

We had two vehicles requiring maintenance, the truck and the RV. We got the RV in first since we did not want to run into a time crunch like we did last year. We had a number of miscellaneous things, like a light fixture that didn’t work and a dripping faucet. But the big thing was windows. One had become visibly loose last year, and we held it on with duct tape. But when they looked into it, several other windows were coming loose as well. This is not really surprising when you consider that the RV goes through the equivalent of a major earthquake whenever you tow it, particularly when you are not on smooth highways. And they can be expensive, and ours certainly were. Just replacing the loose windows cost us several thousand dollars. But we got it done. Unfortunately, when General RV was finished, Cheryl was away in New Hampshire, and I had to deal with it myself. I towed it back to the storage lot, and managed to back it into the space without help, but it took me over an hour.

However, when I got home and looked at the paperwork I realized I had put it in the wrong space, so I went back the next day to try and fix it. But I could not get the hitch to lock in , and in my attempts to do so I managed to push the RV into the chain link fence at the back. I ended up returning the following day and called Roadside Assistance, and a fellow came out and with a combination of WD-40 and a stout hammer got things loosened up and got me hitched, and then I moved the RV into the correct spot. When I was done, I realized I had made a hole in the fiberglass at the back of the RV, and put some tape over it. It was all very difficult because we always handled this as a 2-person job, with Cheryl outside telling me what to do while I drove the truck.

The next thing of our maintenance list was the truck. We usually take it in for service before we hit the road, just on general principles. But we had one annoying little thing to repair, which was the Cruise Control. It had stopped working. I got along without it last year, but having it makes everything easier on those long highway miles. I hoped it would turn out to be something simple like a blown fuse.

A Change of Plans

While we were planning all of this, things were happening in our lives. We had some family issues to deal with, particularly an illness in Cheryl’s family, that had kept her busy. That was why Cheryl was in New Hampshire when I was dealing with the RV on my own. And it was the third trip she had made there this year to help out. In addition, we were on our last RV trip through late February, then we went to Hawaii, then to Spain, and then out to Colorado, and finally to New England. We were both pretty tired of traveling, and Cheryl in particular was thinking that just staying home for while would be a good idea. We decided to cancel our Texas trip this year, and maybe come back to it next summer and see if we feel like it. We have to decide if we want to continue RV travel, and if so, is this the trip we want to do? It is all on table, so we shall see.

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