South Central Check in!

Texas, New Mexico, Louisiana, Arkansas & Oklahoma

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Re: South Central Check in!

Postby starleen2 » Wed Feb 10, 2021 10:02 am

:thinking: :thinking: May have to have you guys up to my place - we have a HUGE back yard about 3/4 acre just in the back not including the front! 8)
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Re: South Central Check in!

Postby 2bits » Wed Feb 10, 2021 1:01 pm

starleen2 wrote::thinking: :thinking: May have to have you guys up to my place - we have a HUGE back yard about 3/4 acre just in the back not including the front! 8)


That would be very cool since that part of the state is literally my favorite place in the universe!! Speaking of boondocking... I wanted a shower and something with propane and 12 V for boondocking ability so I bought at Shasta Reissue last week but the bathroom is going to be way too small so I'm selling it, and I found a jayco tiny trailer with a full shower and solar, 12v etc that I really want, it's a new trailer but it has some curves to it and looks like a tiny trailer because it is, which is uncommon and cool. Not to mention I love the rear side door campers, this one reminds me of my old '82 Shasta. More to come on that in the next month
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Re: South Central Check in!

Postby DJ Davis » Fri Feb 19, 2021 7:50 am

I hope all weathered/survived the winter slam we just experienced! Wasn't THAT something?! If that's a taste of what the northern tier goes through each year, then I'll pass on any future "portions," please! True, San Antonio is far enough south not to experience extreme cold except for every decade or so, but still, this almost caught me unprepared. I grabbed my Coleman stove out of the teardrop's galley for cooking since the house is all electric, but only had one full and one half-full of the small green propane canisters for fuel. I hadn't taken the time to fill my new 10 lb tank I got from Home Depot, I was waiting for an extended trip, like the Lake Murray outing. Fortunately we were able to do major cooking between the rolling blackouts at first, then were heating up leftovers with the camp stove when we lost power for almost two days. We never lost water completely - there were times it was at 25% of normal flow, but at least it was flowing! Some areas are either still out of water or on boil notice. Since the covid stuff started, we've kept a couple of cases of bottled water on stand-by "just in case."

After watching a couple of videos about those portable power stations, I decided to buy one (300W rating) back in Oct of 2020. That did great for keeping our cell phones charged. The review said you could connect an electric blanket to it, put it on the lowest setting, and it would go all night. I tried that, but unknown to me, the wife cranked it up to half power and it drained the power station in 1 1/2 hours. So much for my all night test. I do say, though, it's a great addition for off-grid/emergency needs. And if I can keep the wife away from the electric blanket control, I might be able to let you know if the power station can really last all night running an electric blanket!

So...next winter - a few of the small propane canisters on-hand AND my 10 lb tank filled and ready.
DJ

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Re: South Central Check in!

Postby 2bits » Fri Feb 19, 2021 8:28 am

Hey DJ, I feel VERY blessed that I had rolling blackouts the entire time. I also have a vintage natural gas heater in my living room that I light with a lighter, with no modern crap that wouldn't work in a power outage so luckily I was doing OK, that only heated most of my main area and I used a Mr Buddy heater to supplement. I also have two batter boxes like you, one a Black and Decker and the other is Harbor freight, I literally just replaced the battery in one of them the week before, so I bounced between the two charging them back up when the power was on. I have a cell phone booster that pulls some juice so it liked to drain them pretty quick but without it, I have no signal at all in the house. Along with my iPad for watching movies all was OK. I too, need to stock up on my little propane cans as I was afraid to use my coleman lantern as I only had 4 propane cans total and wanted to save that for the heater since my bedroom had no heat at all and that is what I was using. My power came back on yesterday and I had a shop light aiming up at my water pipes and kept them dripping and didn't have any breakages. I need to get all the snow off my carports as I am hearing alot or carports are falling down now!!

Thanks for checking in!!
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Re: South Central Check in!

Postby working on it » Fri Feb 19, 2021 10:23 am

2bits wrote:... I feel VERY blessed that I had rolling blackouts the entire time.


* I can't believe our luck, during this emergency. It was good for a change (I hope I'm not jinxing myself by mentioning this). No blackouts, no frozen pipes, no need to boil water. Quite a change from normal, at least at my house. We've been here for 28 years, and have seen more than our share of power failures and broken pipes under the house (the previous one on this site...we replaced it 3 years ago).

* We normally get rolling blackouts at least twice each summer, and spot power failures at least six times a spring-summer (from 1-8 hours, for unknown reasons...the entire block), and a squirrel will commit suicide on the transformer every year or so, too. So far, I've yet to have to run a generator to save the freezer contents, though I've considered using one on very hot, powerless nights, just for fans. During this winter emergency, my power only flickered twice (my UPS sounded off), but I didn't have to reset the undersink (kitchen) / bathroom heaters, even once. The ONCOR website showed two areas, within two blocks of us, with total power loss for four days plus.

* Water-wise, we kept a slight drip going on the sinks, not even the showers, and that seemed to work. surprisingly, there never was any interruption in our supply, though we usually get line breaks upstream, thrice a year (spring, summer, Thanksgiving) for up to a week.

* In a spirit of solidarity with those without power or with water loss, my wife turned off unneeded circuits, and used less water...and used up a month's worth of bird & squirrel food in just a week. Made her feel better (I fed the feral cats out back, too). I hope everyone affected recovers OK, and soon.
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Re: South Central Check in!

Postby aggie79 » Wed Feb 24, 2021 2:32 pm

Thomas,

Your new travel trailer looks great! Can't wait to find out more.

Pre-covid, we used campground showers, and toilets for the major "jobs." Post-covid, we started using the trailer shower and toilet exclusively.

We came Snow-maggedon pretty much intact. Out home is all electric - :cry: - but power stayed up all the time. (We're near a 911 dispatch center, police department, and fire department, so I'm guessing this is the reason for no outage.) City water supply was okay. We conserved on electricity and heat to be good. Our only loss was internet service provider. We survived on cell phone data but, since we don't have an unlimited plan, our data charges will be through the roof.

We keep our travel trailer at home, so it was a backup plan. I've never used the propane furnace in it. After this mess, I need to see if it works and/or give it a service. The trailer has two 30# propane tanks that were full. It would be a good option for alternative heat. I still need to come up with some type of emergency electricity to recharge the trailer battery so it can power the furnace blower. I'm leaning toward getting a portable generator. I've also never used the onboard water storage tank and pump. Probably need to go through that also. Our travel trailer is a "four-season" model with all the plumbing and tanks interior and/or encased in spray foam. The only exposed plumbing are the water connections and the gray and black water drains. I've already got heat tracer tape on the pipes and valves, and have insulated the pipes.

Craziness! :?

Take care,
Tom
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Re: South Central Check in!

Postby 2bits » Thu Feb 25, 2021 8:03 am

Not a week before, my little sister was saying they were going to sell their Casita and then the storm hit and their power went out for a five full days. unfortunately I didn't know this until the third day when I reminded her that she had a self contained camper! Her plans are changing on selling it now! Being fully self-contained is a big reason for me getting this new camper, the largest reason being the shower. I didn't use my Porta potty in my camper for anything but guests and freezing cold morning but after I used it once or twice I realized that's what it's for and it cleans up super easy so what am I saving it for? I paid the money, use it! The only reason I was able to consider a new camper is because they came out in a nice dark gray color, not the usual big white box which I can't do and the whole thing only weighs 2500 pounds so I'm getting the perfect package, it actually reminds me alot of Burts camper just one size bigger but still a small trailer. It has the usual rear corner bath floor plan and front dinette/bed which I will leave as a full-time bed. I am going to remove the couch along the side and put in a bar so when you're sitting down, you are looking out the window not at the inside of the camper. I had to do a custom order to get rid of all the features I did not want... I'm having them do it in aluminum skin not fiberglass, and doing the 8000btu window unit style AC instead of the overkill and loud 13k roof shaker. Doing this also save me $1000. The whole thing only cost me $13,000 Which is pretty good for a brand new camper. Glad I finally have good credit.I will try to upload a photo from my phone we will see how it works…
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Re: South Central Check in!

Postby aggie79 » Thu Feb 25, 2021 9:58 am

Thomas,

The trailer looks fantastic! Can't wait to see it in person!

Because of past health issues, we've been real careful about the coronavirus. Camping has been one of those activities that we put somewhat, but not totally, on hold. But on Friday, we're getting our second vaccination. That will ease our minds about the whole Covid-19 thing.

We'll see you in Oklahoma in April if not sooner.

Take care my friend,
Tom
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Re: South Central Check in!

Postby rjgimp » Fri Feb 26, 2021 1:13 am

DJ Davis wrote:If that's a taste of what the northern tier goes through each year, then I'll pass on any future "portions," please!


Up here in MinneSNOWta :snow we are usually able to walk on water for at least four months of the year. North of St Paul you can even drive on it that long. If you go north of Duluth, bring your big coat. :lol: :snowstorm:
-Rob


I hope to make it to a Procrastinators Anonymous meeting someday...
just as soon as the steering committee gets around to scheduling one!
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Re: South Central Check in!

Postby DJ Davis » Fri Feb 26, 2021 10:36 am

rj,

I've known a few folks from up there and each time they told me a tale of the winter conditions I would thank my lucky stars for being born in Texas! To each his own, but I'd rather be able to drink water than walk on it.

DJ
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Re: South Central Check in!

Postby rjgimp » Fri Feb 26, 2021 9:32 pm

Some 30 years or so ago we had a fairly long stretch of early cold but no snow, which created a walkable layer of about 4-5" of ice on the lakes clear enough that you could see through. One particularly mild early December Saturday I joined two of my uncles and a few cousins on one suburban St Paul lake for some ice fishing. It was absolutely fascinating! We were out about 30 yards from shore and could see right through the six feet of water to the bottom. All of the structure, vegetation, and fish were visible. It was like being in an enormous glass bottomed boat. You could jig your line and watch the fish take it and see it the whole time you were reeling in. I had never seen conditions like that before and haven't since.
-Rob


I hope to make it to a Procrastinators Anonymous meeting someday...
just as soon as the steering committee gets around to scheduling one!
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Re: South Central Check in!

Postby DJ Davis » Thu Jun 17, 2021 11:43 am

In a moment of foolishness, I decided to volunteer to be the Lone Star chapter director over at Tearjerkers. I proposed a gathering and got no responses. Folks read the post, but didn't comment as to whether or not they'd attend. Further reading of the "How to post events" tab suggested including a list of activities for the event. Since things had been quiet since I made the initial post, I decided to "shake things up a bit" with the following itinerary. I kept it "G" for the most part, but I hope that it gets some hits.

We might consider some of these "activities" for our future meets:


17 Sep - arrival at Lake Somerville State Park at your discretion
Lunch and/or dinner on your own or feel free to distract another camper and run off with their vittles
7:00 - 8:00 pm Mingle - meet 'n greet with whoever was brave/foolish enough to show up and decide whose campsite we're going to totally trash with all the fun(?) activities for the weekend by paper-scissors-rock elimination
8:00 - 9:00 pm Quilting Bee
9:00 - 10:00 pm Ghost stories around the campfire
10:00 - 11:00 pm Beer pong championship
11:00 pm until ? Finding your campsite
18 Sep - 8:00 - 9:30 am Chapter Group Breakfast and returning stray members to their campsite(s)
9:30 - 10:00 am Coffee break (Irish-style optional)
10:00 - 11:00 am Spearfishing in lake
11:00 am - 1:00 pm Lunch on your own
1:00 - 2:30 pm Mudwrestling
2:30 - 3:00 pm Tea and crumpets
3:00 - 5:00 pm Hopscotch, jump rope, and mumblety-peg contests
5:00 - 5:30 pm Dig out First Aid kits, Motrin as needed
5:30 - 7:30 pm Chapter Group Potluck
7:30 - 8:00 pm Digging through your camper for Pepto, Rolaids, etc.
8:00 - 9:00 pm Tequila shots (BYOB)
9:00 - 12:00 pm Loud boasting, bad jokes, and exaggerated tales of (mis)adventures
12:00 midnight Mystic chants and burning of a goat
19 Sep - As we all regain consciousness, search out aspirin, alka-seltzer, Bloody-Marys/Mimosas, strong coffee, etc..
9:00 am - Begin breaking camp, avoiding eye contact or mumbling apologies as appropriate, and swearing this was the best camping event EVER and planning when to do it again.
DJ

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Re: South Central Check in!

Postby capnTelescope » Tue Jun 22, 2021 7:20 pm

DJ: What? No water balloon fight? booooring. :lol:
I'll burn that bridge when I come to it.

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Re: South Central Check in!

Postby 2bits » Tue Jun 22, 2021 9:01 pm

capnTelescope wrote:DJ: What? No water balloon fight? booooring. :lol:



He is learning!!
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Re: South Central Check in!

Postby DJ Davis » Wed Jun 23, 2021 8:39 am

capn telescope: Hey! I gotta save activities for future gatherings, don't I...? Besides, it was a close toss-up between spear fishing and hatchet throwing, anyway! I had it on my list of potential activities, but figured I'd save water balloon fighting for the winter months...with an advisory to not let the filled balloons set too long outside. Relax...that still leaves all KINDS of fun stuff like snipe hunting, setting traps for Bigfoot, parkour, submarine races, cow-tipping, etc. Just curious...how much should one tip a cow...15%...20...? :thinking:
DJ

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