Ahhh, The fresh air of feedlots and refineries. We're home, Texas!


The feedlot is a random shot I took.  But the refinery/petro-chemical complex is a shot I took from atop a 90 ft distillation column at one of my jobs.

From August of '18 to October of '22 our rig has been in one spot on a beautiful lake working with fantastic people in north Georgia.  Between a birth of a grandson, an unreliable truck and COVID we chose to stay put for those four years.  The grandson will be four in a few months, COVID shut-downs and closings are in the rear view mirror now and that mirror is attached to a new truck.  We're back on plan and on the move.

Our first destination is home, Texas.  Livingston, to be more precise.  We're way overdue for jury duty and our timing will let us vote in person for the first time in ten years.

There was a lot of apprehension about hitching up because of sixteen years of owning a truck that spent way too much time in the shop, all of it for engine issues.  It had the last motor built by the Ford/Navistar relationship and it has become known as the worst-built motor in the history of diesel engines.  But now all that is behind us, I can say that, for at least the last 6,500 miles, the new truck has worked flawlessly.  We have not done any mountain passes while towing yet but based on how things have worked so far, I'm no longer dreading it.  We're good to go to for next summer's gig at 8,800 feet on top of a mountain in northern Utah.

But for now we are soaking up being at home.  There are cousins near us that I want to see in person.  Keeping up with each other on social media is okay but it can't compare to getting a hug and sharing a meal with them.

The trip from Allatoona Lake, GA to Rainbow's End, Livingston, TX was 800 miles.  Not exactly an epic trip, but that was not the purpose of this drive.  We're having to get through some drudgery chores before we can get to the fun stuff.

Yeah, 13 hours of driving time in a car at 70+mph. 
We spent about 15 hours driving over a 5 day period.

From our previous ten years of traveling we have learned to keep the driving days short and in full daylight.  If worse comes to worse (and it has for us) then finding roadside services are way easier in  the daytime.  And if not then we arrive at our day's destination with time to set up in the daylight and explore the local area's places to eat and get fuel.  We find that fueling without being hooked up to a trailer gives us more options to find stations with competitive pricing.  When you are fueling up with 70 or 80 gallons of diesel and 15 gallons of gasoline every penny of savings counts.

Speaking of fuel, Cyndee' little Hyundai Santa Fe, Pepe, got 20mpg with its fully loaded trailer attached.  A very nice surprise.  Not so much for the truck, Chief, he managed to squeak out 9.5mpg.  Yep, that's $411 (84.7gals @ $4.89/gal) of diesel for our little jaunt, ouch.  But with only 6,500 miles on the odometer I expect this to improve as the engine gets broke in.

All-in-all it was a nice trip across the Gulf States.  We got to stay in new-to-us campgrounds along the way and had very good driving days, with the exception of a 2 hour drive in hard rain through Alabama.  Of all the stops we have made, the RV park we are in for the next month has been the most challenging to get into and to get setup for living.

Our first back-in site this trip.  Extra challenging because of tree limbs.

What you can't see in the top picture are the utilities. 
Got as close to the power box as possible but still was forced under large, low hanging branches.

After going so long without backing a trailer of any consequence I was taking a little pressure getting into this spot.  Not only did I have to make a 90 deg back-in but also a bit of a "wiggle" to get in-between the power box and tree with low hanging branches.  Plus, I had an audience.  Neighbors and park employees are aware of the difficulties of this site and were anticipating a show.  But I've got say I was a bit pumped, I did it one stab!  It is a good thing I wore a button up shirt, if I hadn't I would have never gotten a pullover over my swelled head.  To my neighbors: sorry there was no drama.

The nearest TV station antenna is over 65 miles away.  There'll be no free OTA TV for us.  And the position under the tree totally blocks the satellite dish mounted on top of the rig.  It may take a day or two but I am going to have to break out the tripod and spare dish antenna and see if I can manually align to the satellites.  No streaming either.  Cell signal is minimal at best.  I did a couple of speed tests and never got anything above 1.0mbs.  Bummer.

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