tbutler

Each season we participate in many activities at our winter home, Sandpipers Resort in Edinburg, Texas. One of my favorites is the weekly bicycle ride. Most of our rides originate as a car trip from the park to a location where we ride for several hours and then return to our cars and travel to a unique restaurant for lunch. In the process we explore nature areas, state parks and wildlife refuges. We also visit cities in Texas and in Mexico. Tomorrow will be the last ride of the season. To give you some insight into some of our winter activities, I'll describe a few of these rides. Rio Rico is an interesting town just across the Rio Grande River. In fact, the Rio Grande River used to be on the south side of Rio Rico. At that time it was part of the United States. Now it is in Mexico. The land was formally ceded to Mexico in the 1977. We park our cars on border at Progreso, Texas, and cross into Mexico on our bicycles. From Nuevo Progreso, Mexico, we ride East on a gravel road for about four miles to reach Rio Rico. Rio Rico is a small, poor community. There is a school and several churches. The children are out of school for a holiday and they come to visit us as we ride through town. We resolve to bring school supplies on our next visit to Rio Rico. When we return to Progreso we go to Arribas Restaurant and enjoy a Mexican meal on the patio as music plays inside. In the small town of Los Ebanos, Texas is another border crossing into Mexico. There is no bridge here, only a small ferry that holds three automobiles. The ferry is attached to cables and is pulled across the river by hand. Pedestrians may assist in pulling the ferry but usually only the tourists do so. We can get about 20 bicycles on the ferry alongside the three cars. Across the river a two mile bicycle ride into the town of Diaz Ordiz takes about 20 minutes for our group. We ride through town seeing homes and businesses. On occasion we have stopped at a bakery for some cookies. The church on the square has been remodeled and we enjoy touring the building. The priest visits with us explaining that the vast improvements were possible with a donation of a church member. After our ride through town we arrive at a favorite restaurant. Villarta features seafood. The menu is in English for us but the waiter speaks very little English. Service is good and the prices are very reasonable. Everyone enjoys eating at Villarta. We return to the ferry for the ride back to our cars. About an hours drive West of Edinburg, Texas is the town of Rio Grande City. We park our cars at the Lacks furniture store on a remote corner of their large parking lot. The manager is friendly and happy to give us permission to park there. We ride across the bridge on our bicycles and then four miles into the town of Carmargo, Mexico. We ride through town to a small footbridge where we cross over a stream and then stop for a rest. Those who want some refreshment can stop in the small store and purchase a Coke or a cervesa (beer). We resume the ride to a small village, Villa Nueva. It was founded after people fled Carmargo to escape a flood. After several years without more floods people moved back into Carmargo. There are large abandoned stone buildings and a scattering of small homes. We stop to visit the school. Everyone has brought school supplies to leave with the staff at the school. This has been a tradition of our bicycle rides for at least seven years. Today the children are out for recess following their lunch time. Children swarm us as we arrive. They extend their hand and say, "Good morning," even if it is the afternoon. A teacher explains that they have their English class in the morning so they know good morning. The principal and teachers visit with us and take us through the buildings. We leave them with a teachers desk piled high with paper, crayons, pencils and pens and many other resources. Lunch this day is at El Johnny, a very nice Mexican Restaurant. Here the menu is in Spanish and we all collaborate to interpret the choices. Everyone enjoys their food. We travel back through town and then over the bridge to the US. Each of these three towns are totally different than the typical tourist border town. There are no shops for tourists here and the restaurants are patronized by the local populace. We take one tour to South Padre Island, riding from one end of the tourist area to the other. Everywhere we see the damage done by Hurricane Dolly in mid-summer 2008. Roof repair continues everywhere even though nearly five months have passed since the hurricane. We pause to watch dolphins leaping in the bow wave of a passing ship. Admission to the state park is free for bicyclists. We ride past a beach that has only a few hardy people on such a cool day. During the winter, the town is quiet and restaurants are glad to see us. We enjoy some fresh fish at Dirty Al's. Al is dirty, not the restaurant! Good food at reasonable prices. Another trip we cycle around Port Isabel. We see the old Yacht Club now being remodeled and turned into a hotel. The owners give us a tour and talk about some of the history of the old building. A side swing drawbridge takes across the ship channel where we can see the shrimping fleet in dock. At the end of the road we can see the causeway to South Padre Island. Our leader describes the events of several years ago when a barge traveling the intercoastal waterway hit one of the bridge piers and knocked down a whole section of the bridge. Several people drove off the high bridge during the night before authorities were notified and closed the bridge. South Padre businesses were severely affected by the loss of their connection to the mainland. These are just a few of our bicycle rides. We enjoy exploring South Texas and Mexico, meeting people and learning about the history of the area.

Ken, Nancy and Katie Too, The US mail situation has several solutions. 1) We use a company in South Dakota, there are several, ours is MyHomeAddressInc.com (MHA) out of Emery, South Dakota. For about $250 per year they will handle your mail for you as you desire. We also pay for the cost of sending each mailing, any packaging needed and they charge 0.50 per mailing for handling. They will also give you a "home address" as the name suggests. They can register your vehicles in South Dakota and with a South Dakota drivers license (good for 5 years) you will be a resident of South Dakota. Like several other states, South Dakota has no state income tax. This more than pays for the expense of all of the above. We simply e-mail them (or you can phone their 800 number) to let them know where to send our mail and they will mail it to us. We elect to have our mail sent out once every week. We also tell them to send all our mail, they will toss out the ads and catalogs for you want. They hold our mail when we are in Canada. Many times we have them send the mail General Delivery to a U.S. Post Office along our route of travel or where we will be staying for some time. We also ask them to ship the mail via U.S. Priority Mail so it arrives in a timely manner. We have occasionally encountered a glitch (some the Post Office fault, some communications problems between us and MHA) but this has been our method of mail deliver for almost eight years now. There are other states that have similar companies that do pretty much the same thing. Among them, Texas, Florida are two that I know of. We bought a book that covered many aspects of choosing a home state for full timers. I don't have it anymore and can't remember the title but if you search the internet I'll bet you can find it or its updated successor. Look in Family Motor Coaching magazine for some of these companies. There are legal implications to changing your state of residence, be sure to consider this one carefully. 2) I believe that FMCA still has a member benefit for mail handling if that is all you want. You could maintain your residence where you are now. For some retirees there is no benefit in having a income tax free state as their retirement system requires them to pay income taxes on their retirement in their state at the time they worked. I believe the cost for this is pretty minimal. Check your membership benefits on-line or in the January issue of Family Motor Coaching. 3) I have heard some people use Mail Boxes etc. or a similar mail handling company. They won't offer any of the other services that the first category of businesses will. I have no idea what their rates are or how they handle forwarding. 4) There is an organization for Full Timers, Escapees, headquartered in Texas. You get a Texas address and their mail forwarding service if that fits your need. You can use this address for a home address also. 5) Some people have a relative or friend who will allow them to have mail sent to their address and forward it to them. Here you work out the deal with your friends. I guess if you are generous with them, they might not tire of having to sort out your mail, packaging it and sending it to you. Note: If you have your mail sent General Delivery one of the tips we got when we started was to choose a Post Office in a small town. In larger towns, only one Post Office will receive all General Delivery Mail for that town. It is the main Post Office and may be in a busy downtown not suitable for an RV. We almost always try to do this. We use the U.S. Post Office website to get the zip code for the post office, it has their address and you can get a map showing where that post office is located in the town. Hope some of this helps you. Glad you have you out there on the road with us. Enjoy the adventure.

Thanks for the information and suggestion. That your system doesn't do this is definitely indicates ours is a little too touchy. I may have to make a stop at the HWH factory in the near future to have them look at our installation. I guess I could shut the system off after leveling. It wouldn't hurt to try and find out just how inconvenient it is to keep it reasonably level. Maybe it would stay level enough that the automatic mode wouldn't be missed.

Yes, I read about your multi-state campfire. Sounds like great fun. You'll fit right in with the crowd down in "the valley." We'll plan on seeing you in the fall!

I am Tom, my wife is Louise. I'll not spend time on further introductions. If you want more information, please see our Meet a Member feature under Join FMCA on the main menu of the FMCA page. I promise you more information than you could possibly want to know. Even my friend Pipewrenchgrip said he read MOST of it!!! I have been very active on the FMCA Community the last few days. We are away from our motor home doing babysitting for my daughter and her husband. Grandson Ryan and granddaughter Kaitlyn are pretty good most of the time so I have time on my hands while they are busy. We are in Foristell, Missouri (Go Tigers!) where the temperatures are 50 degrees right now. Our motor home sits in Edinburg, Texas where the temperature is 100 degrees today! Glad we left the air conditioner set or we'd find the interior melted when we got back. Speaking of Tigers, was that a great game last night or what?? I guess that depends on your perspective. From the Missouri bench it was fantastic. Sorry Memphis fans. I'm speaking Elite Eight in the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament. We'll fly Southwest Airlines back to Harlingen (about an hour East of Edinburg) tomorrow and be in our cozy home by evening. Pipewrenchgrip, Bill and Laura, will have dinner for us tomorrow evening. Sure hope I can convince them to tune the NCAA for the Mizzou game. They have been watching our rig while we are gone. This is a duty we've traded off during the winter for the last seven years. Harlingen, Edinburg, McAllen are all in extreme southern Texas in an area known as the Rio Gande Valley. You have to look at a map or drive there to really appreciate how far South these cities are. Our latitude is about equal to the southern tip of Florida. We are much further South than Yuma or San Diego. In fact, Amarillo Texas is closer to Fargo, North Dakota than it is to Brownsville, Texas! Mild winters and hot summers rule. We usually arrive about the end of October and depart for cooler climes in mid April. Our community is a close knit "family" and springtime brings the sorrow of parting. Being one of the last winter visitors to leave means saying good bye to everyone one at a time. Most of them will return but there are a few every year who we won't see for some time. We have a directory that lists all who want to be listed and use it to plan visits when we are near our friends. Enough for today, got to leave something to say in the future. Look for more information once or twice a week.

Roodriver, You should copy this to your personal statement, I had to look all over for it! Just checking to make sure my memory was good! I've put you on my list - friends that is!

Well, OK! I have thought about doing one but worry that I won't be able to keep up with it and keep it interesting. I do a weekly e-mail summary for our kids and mothers while on the road. I should be able to modify that and make it work as a framework. I'll give it a try and see how it goes. Thanks for the encouragement (always the teacher, eh?).

Roodriver, Since you love history and the roadside history stops you will love the trip through the great northwest! There are informative stops throughout the area. Plenty of Blackfoot history in Montana and Idaho. Most have room for the RV to pull out. We finally began to expedite our travel by reading the signs from the RV when we pulled up to them. Otherwise we were going to get caught by the snow! TButler

Roodriver, Regarding your query about the road North out of Yellowstone: We drove that road coming in from the North several years ago (2004 to be exact). At the time they were resurfacing it, chip seal. We had chips all over our toad and I never drove faster than 15 MPH. What a mess. That project should be done by now. Yes, the scenery is great! It is a two lane road, not too much truck traffic. One of the little surprises is a visitors center for the landslide that occurred during an earthquake that struck the area in the 1960's. The whole hillside collapsed and buried a number of campers and others. If you are interested in geology, this is a must see. You park on the parking lot (plenty of room for RV's) next to boulders larger than your RV. These came down from the mountainside on the other side of the valley. It could scare one out of the mountains if you thought about it too long! I remember reading the Readers Digest articles about this event when I was in high school. There is a nice section along the lake formed by the landslide when it blocked the stream in the valley. There are fishing spots along the drive if you are so inclined. We spent the night boondocking at a rest stop near one of the fishing spots. There wasn't much traffic on the road through the night.

Wayne, Aren't those quick disconnects great? I gave up screwing on hoses shortly after we began full timing. All my hoses are set up with quick disconnects. I use a hose splitter (Y) off the main faucet with the quarter turn on-off to control my water. One side is for fresh water and the other side has a vacuum breaker to prevent back flow and is used for tank flushing and/or washing vehicles, etc. I found a really good Y last year. Goodyear makes a nice plastic and rubber Y with large valve handles. It is more expensive than the brass ones but seems to be very durable. The old brass Y's haven't been the most durable or highest quality in my experience. The Goodyear Y and hose vacuum breakers are available at Lowe's or Home Depot. I also use brass angled shut off valves to change the direction of the water spout. I don't know who designs some of these connections but I have seen some really weird and unhandy connections for both water and sewer. I keep an adjustable pliers in my utility compartment for the difficult connection that must be screwed on/off. I also keep one in my handy tool box under the second step inside our coach entry. I can open the door to the coach, lift the step and grab the tool that I need. I only keep the most used tools in that compartment. The real tool boxes are in a basement compartment on a slide tray. Perhaps we should have a forum for tools. But enough about that...

Check out my recent posting under Class A Motorhomes. A Monaco press release indicates they have found a buyer. They might be back in business in the not too distant future. Who knows how long it will take to get everybody back on the job - or even if everybody will be back. Anyway there is hope.

Just a few ideas that we use to reduce our expenses while on the road. 1) When we are traveling from place to place doing sightseeing and exploring we simply want a place to park. For these stops we'll try to get the lowest cost campground closest to where our explorations will be. We save the fancier campgrounds for longer stays (not very frequent). When we stay longer in an area we look for a discount for a week or a month and take advantage of that break. 2) We have found some campground discount plans fit our travel style, others we just don't juse very often. We make the ones we have pay for themselves or we drop them. 3) We watch fuel prices carefully. Most truck stop chains now have on-line prices posted so you can check to see if the fuel you are buying is the best price you can get. With a 127 gallon capacity tank, we have great flexibility in where we purchase fuel. As we start a trip we look at the fuel prices across the area where we will travel. We'll try to fill up at the cheapest spot and if we need fuel where prices are higher we'll purchase only what we need to get to cheaper fuel. Translated that means that we generally fill up as we travel from the mid-west to the west or east and purchase only what we need as we travel toward the mid-west. There are exceptions to this rule and that is where the internet comes into play. 4) Always cross the border into Canada with a full tank of fuel. If it fits your travel and you have a chance and can stand the customs hassle to cross the border somewhere to get US fuel it will generally save you money. 5) Some grocery stores and Wal-Mart stores have a fuel station. You can get a fuel discount purchasing groceries at these stores or using their credit card. 6) We use several credit cards that offer cash back on fuel. One card offers 5% cash back. At $4.00 a gallon that is 20 cents a gallon discount! That can be used with the above mentioned grocery store discount to further increase savings. The best I see on the credit card market now is 2% but that would still be an 8 cent per gallon discount. Stores in Canada are more generous. Watch out for pumps that are impossible to access with your RV. 7) We eat in most of the time and pack picnic lunches when we are out and about during the day. This makes the occasional dining out more special. It is also easier to control our diet when we prepare our own meals. Nothing packs the weight on me like restaurant meals. 8) We have about 10 grocery chain discount cards. We fill out any application and end it with a do not mail message at the bottom to reduce costs for mail forwarding. The discounts with these cards are substantial with some chains and again, the fuel discounts are sometimes linked to these cards. 9) To reduce our costs for forwarding mail from our mail handler we actively reduce our mail volume by signing up for the no-mail list at dmachoice.org Stop unwanted credit card offers at optoutprescreen.com When we get advertising or catalogs we will either send back a postage paid return form requesting to be removed from the mailing list or call the 800 number and request our name be removed from the mailing list. Sign up to receive all your billings and statements on-line. You can also pay almost all bills on-line. We schedule all our regular payments to be paid automatically. Persist and you can get rid of most of this mail. 10) When it is convenient we will boondock. We follow FMCA's standards when we park. We have learned to look for quiet places to stop whenever possible but have spent many nights at interstate rest stops. There are lots of stores other than Wal-Mart that allow overnight parking. Stop and ask. If they have a big parking lot they might agree. We even got permission to park at a small strip mall in California about closing time one night on the condition that we would be gone before opening time.

I prefer charcoal and am using a small grill from Camping World. They don't have my specific model on the website but the Charcoal Tabletop Grill is very close to what we have. Priced at under $25, mine is going on year number 4. It is small and stores easily. Most campgrounds won't allow table top grills so I end up using it on the ground most of the time. The grill surface is just right for most BBQing for two people.

I'm new at this and have hit a roadblock. I would really like to add a photo of our motorhome to our signature but can't figure out how. If I go to insert image it asks for a URL. I don't have a web site to reference here. Can anyone help me with the process?