Wurstfest

We have been busy learning our new roles within Performance Trailer Braking. Michael’s had his phone glued to his ear (seems like) chatting with people interested in purchasing a system, answering questions or explaining how the disc brakes are a huge improvement over standard electric brakes.

While he’s been doing that I’ve been working more on the administrative tasks – invoicing customers, updating our data base, reaching out to rally organizers to find out what needs to be done to attend their rally as a vendor, etc.

While we’ve been busy…it’s been a good busy. We both feel like we have a purpose…rather than just wandering aimlessly through life. We might change our minds come spring/summer when business really picks up but hopefully by then we’ll both be more comfortable in our roles.

Michael prefers his BIG truck over this little one

Even with all of the newness we made sure to find time for our weekly movie date on Tuesday. We had an appointment to take the truck to Jordan Ford to have some work done. We were given a rental car (truck) so while we were already in San Antonio we took in Blade Runner 2049. In our old age we’d forgotten we’d already seen the movie! Geesh. However, rewatching it was kind of a good thing because it clarified a few things and helped me better understand what was going on. Guess we’re gonna have to start a list for movie’s we’ve been too so we don’t do any more repeats. LOL

Remember when we were driving back to Texas from Oklahoma and we stopped at the Czech Stop in West and grabbed some kolaches? We picked up jalapeno and cheese just like we always get from the Donut Palace, which we love. These were made differently: smaller, with a slice of sausage, some cheese and a bunch of sliced jalapenos…and boy, were they HOT! The ones we’re used to are a whole sausage with diced jalapenos and cheese INSIDE the sausage…they have a little kick but nothing like these. We’ll be sticking to those at Donut Palace going forward. LOL

That’s our new gray tank in that box.

On Wednesday of this week, Kenny and his son Brandon from GoRV came out to replace one of our gray tanks. Last year about this time they patched a crack in the same tank and it was no longer holding so it was time to just completely replace the tank.

It took the two guys about an hour and a half to remove the old tank and install the new and when that was done they moved on to replacing our leaky ice maker which took roughly 30 minutes or so.

Before they left, they checked out or thermostat as it’s been acting temperamental for a while and Michael has had to reset it more and more often to get it to behave. They’ve ordered a new thermostat for us and will replace it when it comes in.

All of these items fall under the extended warranty we purchased with our coach and we are very thankful that we went ahead and added it on to the purchase as it has paid for itself and then some.

After dropping the truck off at Jordan Ford on Tuesday we got a call on Thursday that it was ready to go…2 new shoes (tires), oil change done, ‘shimmy’ fixed and parts to fix our navigation system issues are on order.

We picked up the truck late in the afternoon on Thursday and from there we headed to the New Braunfels Wurstfest. New Braunfels has a big German heritage so why wouldn’t they celebrate ‘wurst’ and Beer!?

When we first arrived we wandered around and checked out the various vendors selling their wares – Wurstfest hats, shirts, koozies, buttons, you name it. Then there were beer steins, German candies, Christmas ornaments and other goodies. I thought about buy a ‘pickle’ ornament for our Christmas tree but decided against it as it would have weighed it down too much.

We also checked out all of the food stands…sausage, brats, potato soup, funnel cakes, potato pancakes, pork chops on a stick, deep-fried Oreos, sauerkraut, potato salad…there was a LOT of variety and most everything seemed to come on a stick! Michael and I each had a sausage on a stick and Michael also tried a brat in a bun…plus we split a funnel cake because we were told we had to! Our friend, Victoria’s, granddaughter was working the funnel cake booth. We promised we’d visit with her…and we did.

Hans & Helen

We met our old safety guy, Hans, and his wife, Helen, who traveled all the way from Louisiana just to attend Wurstfest! We met Hans on our very first gate back in January 2014 and followed him around from job to job for quite a while but haven’t seen him for over a year now…and this was our first time meeting Helen.

We met in the Wursthalle where there was a German ‘Oompah’ band playing. We visited, enjoyed the music and watching people dance. Hans and Helen even did a little dancing of their own. We’re hoping that maybe we’ll be able to hook back up with them this spring when we’re in Louisiana for a rally…but somewhere a little more quiet as it was very hard to hear what was being said.

Whoopsie!

I forgot to mention that as Michael and I were walking from our parking spot a few blocks away from the fest grounds we came across a low bridge (11 foot, 8 inches) and I said, “Well we can’t bring the coach here.” I know sooner got it out of my mouth and a bus came along. He was driving pretty fast but slowed down pretty quickly when he saw the bridge and low clearance sign. He had a LONG line of cars behind him and this was a very narrow roadway with nowhere for him to turn around. He stopped where he was, let his passengers off the bus (all fest-goers) and waited for help…all with that LONG line of cars still sitting behind him. LOL Not nice to laugh but it sure brought back memories of our run in with a bridge. You can chuckle along and read about it by clicking HERE!

It’s been chilly here in the Texas Hill Country. Only had a high in the 40s on Wednesday (fireplace was blazing ALL day long!) and Thursday only brought highs in the 50s. It doesn’t help much that it’s been overcast as well. We even got some light rain Wednesday evening…didn’t really amount too much but we haven’t seen rain in a while so it was welcomed.