Taking the old coach away so we could pull the new coach out and hit the road.
Tuesday 11/13
After a week living in the T&S parking lot…we finally hit the road! While everyone (Tim, Tex, Ashley, John, Albert, etc) were wonderful to us we were both anxious to hit the road and set up in a park somewhere and really get to ‘know’ our new home. If you’re ever looking to purchase a Heartland RV or a used SOB (some other brand) we’d highly recommend that you check out T&S. They’ll treat you right!
We had planned to stay at Lackland Air Force base (southwest side of San Antonio) for a couple of weeks as they don’t take reservations and we didn’t know how long we’d be at T&S. I called several times to see if they had any room and never got an answer to my phone calls the morning that we left. I called a friend who stays there quite often and had been there recently and found that there had been no room at the ‘Inn’ when they tried to stay there the week prior. Hmmmm…we decided to deviate from the original plan and find something else.
I called a couple of local parks and found prices ranging from $660 to $893.47 (for 16 nights!)…holy smokes! Michael remembered that there was an SKP park in Hondo (about 45 miles west of San Antonio) and suggested I try there. We’re SKP members but have never stayed at an SKP park so were not sure how things worked.
I called the park and got a hold of a very helpful young lady who informed me that they did, in fact, have room for us for 16 nights and could fit our 44.5 foot coach! (we grew from 40.6 feet!) Annnnddd…the price would be $55 for the first week (1st timer special!) and $110 for the second week (plus electric). Who could say no to that!?
Fueling up at Buc-cees
We had a nice, uneventful drive. The coach did not fall apart of explode…thank goodness! (yes, I’m still nervous about this whole thing!) We made a stop about 1/2 way through our 240 mile trip. at Buc-cees…our first since being back in Texas. It was time for a potty break and to get some lunch. Michael had his usual brisket sandwich and I had a made to order turkey club…both were very good and we ate them on the road as it was getting late in the day.
San Antonio rush hour traffic wasn’t bad at all but the setting sun was terrible! There were points where we could barely see the road! Sunglasses and visors did little to help.
Alamo Area SKP Park – site 93
We pulled into the SKP park (Lone Star Corral) about 5:30 pm. The office was closed (which I’d known) but we were met by one of the camphosts who was expecting us. He helped us get our packet and then led us to our site and helped us get backed in. From what we could see (it was getting dark) it’s a pretty darn nice park. The sites seem to be ‘owned’ and then rented out when the owners aren’t in residence. Everything is nicely manicured and many of the ‘sites’ have ‘out buildings’ of some sort. We’ll learn more once we get the lay of the land.
After getting backed in and leveled (wow, was that easy!) Michael hooked up the sewer hose (we needed to dump!) and the electric while I went inside to start letting slides out (five of them!) One of the first things I noticed was that the pantry door was open. I kinda figured that the entire contents of the pantry shelves was going to be on the floor since we hadn’t yet fashioned a barrier to keep it on the shelves while we were on the road. I had taken somethings off the shelves and set them on the floor to alleviate a little bit of a mess.
Not too bad…I expected MUCH worse!
What I found was that everything that I had set on the floor had shifted enough to open the door and it all spilled out into the kitchen. Surprisingly, the only things that actually fell off the shelves were 4 boxes of storage bags of various sizes. Everything else was still on the shelves! Score! Now once we get something in place for travel days we’ll be golden!
After getting all of the slides out and looking over the rest of the house we found that very little had moved during travel. Michael was a ‘happy camper’ when all he had to do to get the satellite dish set up was to push a button! We invested in a roof-mounted dish that allows for the push of a button and it goes to work. It stands itself up and then searches for the satellites and locks in on them. Voila! No more messing with a tripod and meter to get TV. While most places he didn’t have much trouble getting it set up some places (Ft. Sam being #1) were a real pain in the hiney!
After getting settled in we both sat down in our respective ‘offices’ and did some work that had accumulated over the day. We were done in about 45 minutes and were able to relax in our new theater seat (still miss the old one!) and watch some TV before calling it a day.
We are here at the SKP park until 11/29, when we’ll move to Ft. Sam until 12/29. It’s time for our annual doctors appointments…which begin right away!