Texas and the Ongoing Refrigerator Saga

We left Lafayette, Louisiana, Sunday morning and figured we’d make it to just south of Houston by Sunday night, but the driving was pretty clear and easy, and we ended up making it to Corpus Christi. We figured we covered about 480 miles, and Tom drove the whole way, so it was a long day for him. We stayed at a Walmart in Corpus Christi, and it was way nicer than the Lafayette RV park. When we had pulled into the Walmart at about 7:30, four big RVs were already parked there. We were up and out of the parking lot around 8:30 the next morning, and we were the first to go. We aren’t sure if the people in the RVs were staying at the Walmart for more than a night, or if they just don’t move as fast as we do – and we think we’re relaxing and taking our time! Apparently we haven’t quite become used to the “retired” speed.

Before we got back on the road, we visited a nearby Home Depot to buy a 110 fridge for the camper. We had been stopping for ice every morning and putting it in the fridge in plastic containers, and it was keeping everything cool, but it was a mess because there was no way to completely contain the water as the ice melted and the trailer bounced down the highway. Temperaturewise, it was hanging around 40,which is actually better than when the fridge worked and it would get too cold and freeze all the produce, but we decided that we could still use ice when we’re on the road, and plug in a new fridge and cool it when we stop at a campground with electric. We spent $150 on a new mini-fridge, threw the box in the camper, and found a gas station with diesel for $2.29. It’s been running between $2.35 and $2.55 between Georgia and Texas, so we figured that was about as cheap as we’d see it, so we filled up both truck tanks and the 50 gallon tank in the bed of the truck.

We were on the road and heading south by 10:00, with full gas tanks and a fridge in a box. We pulled into Brownsville around 1:00, and stopped at the Tourist Bureau, where they were extremely helpful, both in helping us find a campground to use as base for a few days while we do what we need to do to get ready to drive through Mexico, and in steering us to the right places to get what we need for the trip. We found a campground that is off the highway, and has an internet connection – our new requirements for a campground, developed through trial and error on the way down. The campground, Breeze Lake Campground, isn’t really like any place we’ve stayed, although it’s really nice, and all the people are super friendly. It’s a mix of fixed trailers, RVs which have become fixtures, RVs that park for the winter, and a few people like us who are just passing through. Tom and I are easily the youngest people in the park.

Tom spent the afternoon we arrived taking out the broken fridge and putting in the new one. I think our new neighbors were probably horrified – two middle-aged dropouts showed up with their old truck and old camper, and immediately started heaving broken appliances into the yard and shouting at their barking dogs. Everybody here seems to have at least one dog, and it’s a big dog party, so Nock had plenty to bark at. She did draw in the second youngest couple in the park, who are also just passing through on a birding tour and are traveling with their Jack Russell bitch. He’s a chemist and she’s an attorney, and they left the rat race four years ago and started traveling around, much like we are. They said that they just bought a house near Dallas, and they’re not sure they like it since they can’t just drive around any more. They’re considering looking for jobs in Australia and spending a few years over there. Tom and I both decided that we would remember their story and that wanderlust seems to be a condition that isn’t easily shed.

This couple is also part of the refrigerator saga. After spending 4 years on the road, they’ve had all the problems and found all the solutions that you could expect. As we were talking, the husband asked what Tom was doing. The wife then asked if we’d considered rolling the propane fridge, since she said they’d learned that sometimes the cooling units aren’t completely out of ammonia, they just develop a bubble in the pipes that keeps them from cooling. So the men rolled the fridge, and we plugged it in, not really expecting anything. Guess what? It worked again. We’ve decided that we’re probably cursed as far as fridges go, since we had bought the new fridge that morning on a whim, and Tom had JUST finished installing it. The fridge we bought was a lot like the one we took out and sold before we left NY, so we could have just kept that one. But no, we had to sell that one, travel to Florida with a Rubbermaid cooler, pick up the propane fridge and install it, have that one break in GA and resort to ice, then decide to get a new 110, and then find out that the propane fridge would still work. Aarrgghh! We didn’t expect the refrigerator to be our biggest frustration.

Anyway, we decided that we would still take the old one to the dump and go with the electric only fridge. The people who told us about rolling the old one said that if it gets a bubble once, it’s likely to get it again if it’s not level, and we’re frequently not level. We decided we’d rather go through Mexico with the electric one and use ice when we need it, rather than have to uninstall the propane fridge, roll it, and reinstall it every time we stop. We look and act enough like loco gringos without doing an exercise like that in public every couple of days!