Rain, Rain, Go Away!

The HitchHiker is loaded, the house is all closed down except for one final walk through and closing the large hurricane shutter over the sliding glass doors. When we walked into the house, we discovered the power was out... a bit of a problem, because that large shutter is electric powered. It wasn’t just our place, a transformer had blown, so the whole neighborhood was out.

We called our friend, Bev, to ask if she would run the shutter down when the power came back on (yep), locked the house, and started to hook up. The fun part: the blown transformer is about a block from our place, and there is a firetruck and a bunch of gawkers blocking most of the road.

We had plenty of maneuvering to do to get the 5th wheel off the site, down the street, turned around, then backed up to our driveway so we could hook up the motorcycle trailer. And all the while trying to dodge the oblivious old farts who are drawn to a firetruck like lawyers chasing an ambulance.

We got out of the park and started heading north. Mother Nature didn’t cut us any slack - big rains predicted for north of us and a quartering headwind. About half way to Rockport, we stopped to fuel and add air to all the tires... we were getting just under 9 mpg.

By the time we got to the Corpus Christi area, it started to rain. We later found out that they had 12 inches of rain in the last 24 hours! It wasn’t pretty - the fields were flooded, the ditches were full of water... we weren’t looking forward to the situation at the campground, since they are all grass sites.

When we got to the campground, the rain had let up quite a bit. I tried to get checked in quickly, because we knew there was another big cell bearing down on us... that request was met with blank stares and I was told that one of the guys would “get us parked.”

Another fiasco... while we waited for “the guys”, the rain started pounding again. I had three guys all trying to give me different directions. I finally said to them, “You guys go get out of the rain; we have this.”

“No, it’s our job to help you, one of them said.

With all their “help” (each one signaling something different), it took extra time and we had to set up in the worst downpour this coach has been in... and it went through the tail end of two hurricanes last year. We were up to our ankles in water in the site. And then we still had to park the motorcycle trailer in another especially soggy area.

What a giant pain in the ass. By the time we were able to get in the 5th wheel, we were both soaked to the skin, even though we both had rain coats on.

We waded over to Brent and Dixie’s coach for a nice evening of conversation and spaghetti. They really like this place. Joan made me promise that we would never stay here again, even if we come up to visit sometime in the future... an easy promise to make. Just down the road a ways is a park with cement pads in the sites.

What's that old saying I've repeated? Oh yeah: Never judge a day by the weather...