Sunday, March 27, 2011

Preparing For The Trip To Branson, MO

When we arrived in Tomball we stayed at a park called Tomball RV Park. Nice little park with only about 45 sites, all with full hookups. The monthly rent was $275 plus 10 cents per kilowatt hour. We had a good site up until we had sewer problems once again. Their sewer line was plugged and the manager failed to get it fixed. He told us that we could move to another site so we did and then the billing problems began. Lets just say there was no contract, they tried to charge us for extra fees, higher rent for the space that they put us in..................well you get the picture.

We found a park ran by the county that had 8 full hookup RV sites and get this it was free. You can stay for 7 nights at no cost. The park is gated so you better be in by 10 pm or you will be locked out. Outside of that it is quiet, and a beautiful park. We stayed for the seven nights and then packed up and headed for Branson. Oh the name of the park is Spring Creek Park and it is maintained by Harris County. You can find them on the web by looking up Harris County Prec. 4 Parks. You can even make your reservation online if you wish.

We took off on March 8th and headed for Livingston, TX and staying at Escapees Rainbow Park. We stayed two nights because we needed to do some business in Livingston. When we got there and pulled into our site I started to unhook like always. When I pulled the lever to unhook the jaws to release the trailer it felt kind of funny. To my surprise the jaws never released. Oh Crap now what am I going to do?? I was able to play with the lever and managed to release the jaws, Thank you Lord. We found the problem which was a broken clip. We were able to locate one and the repair was made. We took off from there and headed north to our next stop.

We stopped at a Corps of Engineer park on some lake just outside of Texarkana, TX. This was a very nice park and the rates were good. We were able to get a pull through site and we left the truck hooked up, only staying one night. Next to our site was a playground so Bri was in hog heaven. 

We left early in the morning for our next leg of our journey which took us into Little Rock, through Conway and into Clinton. We stayed at a park just north of Clinton off of highway 65. There was no manager around but one of the residents showed us where to park and this site was also a pull through. I am loving these parks, no backing in. We still never noticed any manager around when we got ready to leave the next morning so we left some cash in an envelope and put it in a mail slot. I sure hope it was the right amount. We took our time getting out of there since this was going to be our last day of traveling and only about 150 miles.

Brianne is back to her old self when we travel. But on this trip she has begun to ask more questions and she seems to wonder if we are lost. I try to reassure her that Daddy knows where he is going. At least the GPS knows for sure. We drove into Branson and then into Compton Ridge Campground around 12:30 or so. The park was pretty much dead and after all of us checked out the bathrooms we located our managers, Heidi and Roger.  They said that the site we had last year was available and that we could go over there. Roger helped us back in and we got set up for the long stay. We think we made it look very homey. We like our site. Well I think that wraps up our trip to Branson so until next time be safe.

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Holidays With The Kids

When we left Arizona we headed towards the Houston Texas area. We used to live north of Houston in a small town called Tomball. This is a good central location to the rest of our kids. We arrived on December 9th, got set up and later that night our son and his family showed up. Our son, Chris and his wife Lauren recently had a baby girl. This was the first time we got to see the new addition. Her name is Jordyn and of course the cutest baby you have seen.

As the Grandfather I do have some privileges like teaching her how to stick out her tongue. Very cool. Now Sherry got all the baby time she wanted since they were only about five minutes from where we were staying.

The first family gathering was the following Sunday where we all gathered at our oldest daughter's place to celebrate some birthdays. You see in December we have mine, our son's and our eldest daughter. We all had a good time and this was the first time that the kids saw that I pierced my ear. Some liked it and some didn't. Oh well I like it.

Christmas Eve is the Lambros get together, when all the families gather to share and open gifts. It is great to see all the kids and grandkids open their gifts. Mel and Spencer's little one seems to be quite the shy one but she started to warm up to us later on.

We had one more gathering before we left which was a picnic. Great weather and food. We had planned games for the little ones and they all had a good time. Good family time with everyone.

Well until next time be safe. 


Sunday, March 20, 2011

Water Problems and Then Some

Hello,

Well I'm back. Amazing huh! I titled this post "Water Problems" because we had many water issues this past winter.

It all started back in Branson when the floor in the toilet area was wet. I went to investigate and found that the vacuum break valve was leaking. At first I thought it was the seal at the floor leaking. I had to replace that one once before. But that was not the problem. When we got to Houston I was able to get the new part and no more wet floor. Not for long.

Before we left Arizona we started to notice that the toilet started to back up. I am trying to figure out how a 3 inch diameter hole can be plugged up? None the less it was. I could plunge the toilet and the clog would go down. In the mean time I kept noticing that around the toilet was still wet. How can this be?! Nothing was leaking. So I thought.

I took the toilet off and noticed that the floor flange was cracked. So every time that I would plunge it would force water through the crack. Now replacing the floor flange doesn't seem like a problem but purchasing the right one is the question. There are 3 different types of flanges to choose from. Not sure which one I have. So we kept towels around the toilet to soak up the excess water.

Now in Houston we started to figure out what could be clogging up the toilet. We changed the TP we used and it still plugged up. We ran water and a snake down the vent tube and the plug was still there. All the while plunging and forcing water onto the floor. More towels please. Finally we tried some Foaming Liquid Plumber along with some boiling water and that seemed to do the trick. No more plug. It must have been a massive one because it even plugged up the valve when I was dumping and flushing the tank. I was able to tap on the pipe and away it went.

I have a flushing system on this trailer so I hook up a hose outside and the flushing begins. What I didn't know is that the piping goes through and under the bathroom sink. Guess what, water leak at a connection under the sink. I tightened that one and no more leaks there. 

What else could leak.......?????......How about the hot water tank??? You guessed it there is a small leak at the tank which is under the kitchen sink. Tightened this one and there is still a small dribble, more towels please. I think I have covered the water problems so far so until next time be safe.

Friday, March 18, 2011

Recap Since The Last Post

Hello There,

Well I know it has been awhile since I have been on this blog but forgive me. I will try to keep up on our experiences. There are many things to talk about so I may break this up into several blogs.

We left Branson in mid November and headed towards Arizona to visit my mother. We stayed for two weeks and celebrated Thanksgiving her and some of my brothers. While there I made some repairs to her house and we had a good visit. The park we stayed at was not the best in the world, as a matter of fact it was down right terrible. It was in the middle of downtown Mesa and the sewer pipe was broken and messy even after I told them about it they never fixed it. Really bad.

We left Mesa and headed towards Houston for the holidays with the rest of the family. We arrived in Tomball around the 9th of December.

Like I said I am going to start small for now so until next time be safe.