Laninga's Travel Blog

Well, we made it to Lake Medina, about 20 miles west of San Antonio.  However, the drought has still affected the local lakes, check out the picture of Lake Medina:

A view of Lake Medina...

The water is way, way down,  I would estimated that it is some 40 feet below normal levels.  Check out this shot, showing a floating dock with walkway:

Another view of the drought stricken lake

However, one thing that continues to thrive here is the local deer population.  They are all over the place, and relatively tame.  They will come close to you but not enough to give you any concerns for safety (of you or the deer).  They are curious, and will look you straight in the eye:

One of the many, many deer that live here

One nice thing, when we arrived a local RV service company (Class A RV Repairs) was giving away free BBQ dinners.  At first, we decided not to go, but we changed our minds and were glad we did.  It was actually quite good, and I would estimate that they served about 100 dinners.  I found that this company had an excellent reputation, and does high quality work at reasonable prices.  Good to know, if w need some repairs…

Friday, we will move on to Harlingen, the real “south Texas”.  Later….

Driving down the road we saw this monstrosity, parked alongside the road:

Yes, this is a truck parked alongside the road

Apparently, it is some sort of generator component used in a power plant near Houston.  They are transporting this over 100 miles, over some of the larger secondary roads.  When they move, they move slowly — and shut down the highway locally.   Fortunately, we passed while it was in one of its rest modes along the side of the roadway.

Some of the wheel "subtrucks"

I don’t know how many wheels there were in total, but my guess well over 320.  Many of these were on outriggers as shown above. There were about 20 of these outrigger trucks per side, each with 8 wheels.  That makes 160 wheels.  Then there were trailing supports and front supports, probably 60 wheels.  Then there were the main supports, probably another 100.  So I have revised my guess to over 320 wheels.

Detail of one of the truck wheel sets

I’ve added (since the original post) the picture of the wheel “truck”, as I found this interesting.  Check out all the hydraulics and other “stuff” they use to run this thing.  Brings up several questions, like how to keep all those trucks aligned and going in the same direction!

There were also at least 4 tractor trucks, don’t know if they all pushed/pulled at the same time or not but suffice it to say this was quite a load.  I did see a news article about this rig, and if memory serves it will take 3 days to move the 100 miles or so.

We just concluded the Thousand Trails Texas Rally in Conroe, TX.  Had a good time meeting new and old friends, and especially eating too much.  But it was WAY to cold here… last two nights were at 15 or so degrees.

Our flags: Thousand Trail Texas, USA, and Texas

Lake Conroe Thousand Trails is about 30 miles north of Houston, and on Lake Conroe.  The campground has about 170 sites, and most were taken this weekend.  We will stay here until next Saturday, when we move to the San Antonio area.  Meanwhile, we will catch up on some reading, a last few medical visits, and complete some minor car repairs and upgrades.

Lake Conroe, from the campground fishing dock

We’ve moved from Livingston to the Thousand Trails site near Conroe, TX.  It’s a nice location, out in the country and on a lake.  But we are only 10 minutes from most any kinds of shopping, restaurants, theaters and more.  And if we need more, Houston is just a short drive down the Interstate.

Tomorrow we drive to Dallas to do some (hopefully) final doctor visits,  visit family and friends.  We should be back in Conroe Thursday, just in time to “enjoy” the record breaking cold weather.

This blog will close out 2009.  It’s been a great year, with family visits in Vancouver, our Alaska cruise, visits with old and new friends, and our grand circle arounf the USA.  Sure, we are noticing our age a little more, but there were no major problems (like my bypass last year!).  December 31 finds us parked at our home base at Rainbow’s End in Livingston, TX.

Escapees home park in Livingston, TX

So we look forward to 2010, with new travels, new friends, and new adventures.  We invite you along as we experience the wonders of this great country of ours.

Happy New Year!