Cherokee County

Day Five - Got away to a good start this morning and then straight to a Macca's so we could get some decent Internet access as the wi-fi at the RV park was pretty weak and probably a lot of users so couldn't get much done there.

As we travelled, the RV was sitting pretty steady as can be seen by the speedo snap attached. The oil fields continued on in abundance for the next 100 miles or so, but then once we passed Big Springs towards Colorado City it suddenly stopped and was replaced by wind Turbines, thousands of them. It was so much like the old generation of power and fuel handing over to the next generation of wind turbine power, pretty ominous I thought and at the same time so futuristic and good for all concerned. The shift from old ancient fossil fuels to the new unlimited supply of wind power.

The landscapes also started to change moving again towards more greenery and trees, undulations in the land, so different from the dead flat areas of the oil fields. We were now up into the higher lands away from the ancient inland seas that once occupied these areas and created the oil fields.

Lunchtime came and we took advantage of our mobile hotel environment and made use of one of the many roadside rest areas, cooked up a hearty hamburger and a cuppa. Sitting having lunch in our air-conditioned RV and just watching the world go by through the windows was really restful, and start wondering what the different drivers in the vehicles passing by had on their minds.

Where were they headed, what was their agenda for the day, so many heavy big rigs on the road (a big 10-4 there good buddy in their 18 wheelers). Were they married with families, where were they from, were they single maybe. We don't see that much big rig traffic in OZ on a Sunday, but here it just seemed like business as usual as they trundled on by to disperse their loads from coast to coast.

The clear blue desert sky's were now starting to bundle up some cloud formations as we moved further east, just some light fluffy cumulus clouds, but none the less, cotton wool in the sky. Just an hour and half from Dallas now and once there we'll find an RV park close to the Dallas depot of El Monte RV so we can get some steering and aircon issues sorted first thing Monday morning.

Arrived into the Dallas area around 4:30 and joined the peak hour traffic (thank god it was Sunday afternoon) but still pretty heavy and the motorways around the city centre had lanes as narrow as they are in Sydney. Our big RV just fit in the lanes and with the slack steering problem we are having made it a little tough to keep the thing in a straight line in the narrow lanes, but with the amazing negotiation skills of the driver it became a breeze.

RV parks are scarce around the Dallas area unless you head out through the outskirts and into the country areas. The nearest park we could find was over 50k from the city centre, but just 28k from where we had to take the RV for the steering check.

Upon arrival at the RV park the episode started that would have made a tremendous funniest home video. We selected a site to setup camp and plugged into the mains, set down the jacks and opened out the slides. We then noticed that the aircon units kept cutting in and out, so the first assumption was that the power outlet was tripping and resetting and we may have been on too low a power outlet for our RV. So in with the slides, up with the jacks and off to another site.

Got to that site and the power outlet plug did not fit our van so off we went to another site to hookup only to find that sites power outlet wasn't working at all. Upon further investigation it was decided that our RV was the correct power for the first original site and we returned to there to hookup again.

Once all re-connected our aircon problem retuned so as a last resort I decided to open the vehicle manual only to discover that we were not supposed to run both roof aircon at the same time, oops. Turned one off and then the cut-out problem ceased, amazing that, the wonders of technology. Why wasn't there an iPhone app to fix the problem, there is for everything else.

OK, finally settled in, chairs out and open a beer, OH NO, the beers warm. Turns out the gas pilot light had gone out so when we were driving the fridge was not powered, b*****, no cold beer, arrghhh.

That's it, so a semi cold beer, some dinner, and off to bed for an early start tomorrow.Read more