Thanks to friends Carrie and Kathy who have been collecting all our mail, sorting through it, bundling it up, and then sending it to San Antonio each week care of our friend, Jason. I met Jason for lunch today, and he brought me a month’s worth of mail all at once. I love getting mail, and I love getting LOTS of mail even better! There were the usual bills, of course, but also some magazines and some important work-related stuff from school.
After a lunch of wings with Jason, I drove down the road a mile or so to Crestview RV in Selma, Texas, and asked to tour the few Class B and C motorhomes they had on the lot. They mostly deal in towables, so all they could show me is a couple of used Super Bs and a used C. I’ve not really walked through a B before, and since Lex and I are already starting to think about our next RV (nevermind that this one is nowhere near paid for), I wanted to get a feel for one.
The Super B (or B+) is really more of a small Class C. The only real differences are the lack of a cabover bed and the shorter body. The Class Cs of course have more room and are surprisingly cheaper given their relative size. But because Cs are so big, I don’t think they’d resolve our desire for something much smaller and more manueverable. I want to be able to drive and park the rig myself so that Lex can get a break, and I also want something we could legitimately park in a driveway.
That means we’re really looking at a regular Class B (also known as conversion vans or camper vans). New ones are ridiculously expensive, so I’m hoping we’ll find a nice, reasonable used one when we are ready to make that transition to living most of the year in a small site-built home and traveling 2-3 months out of the year in a much more compact RV than the one we currently have.
At any rate, I may try to find a dealership in the area that sells regular Class Bs just so I can get a feel for them. I need to know if they’d be a viable option for a long jaunt like the one we’re taking this summer.
Before I left the dealership, I ordered three combi-cams from their parts department. I’d like to make my basement storage more secure, and the keys that go to RV storage compartment locks are basically universal, so if you go into any RV parts store and buy a replacement lock with key, you have access to 90% of the rigs out there. I don’t know what genius thought that one up, but I don’t care for it. The combi-cam isn’t foolproof (a really determined thief could just bust the door with a hammer), but it’s a step up.
After the RV dealer, I headed back into San Antonio and went to visit my friend Drea who I haven’t seen since our friend, Crystal’s, funeral. Drea was home sick today, so I didn’t stay long, but it was good to sit and chat a while and just catch up. She now lives on the same street with our friends Mari and Steph, so I meandered down the block to visit them after leaving Drea’s.
Only Steph was home, but we got in a good visit and even went to the grocery store together. The supermarket was the same one I used for years when I lived in the adjacent neighborhood which is sort of the “gay ghetto” of San Antonio. As a result, we called that particular H.E.B. grocery store the “Gaycheebee.” Appropriately, kd lang was playing over the speakers in the store while we were shopping. Go figure!
Groceries secured, I went back to the campsite, unloaded, then grabbed the dogs and took them to the little doggie park here at the RV park. They ran around for a while, but it was hot outside, and they were soon panting and looking pitiful. I brought them back in and gave them dinner before cooking up some dinner for us. We’ve not been eating at home enough on this trip, so I’m hoping we’ll get better about that in this next couple of weeks.
Today, I also planned a get together for this Sunday with several of our friends at Steph and Mari’s house. It’s going to be a potluck-type thing, very low key, but I’ve been dying to just spend time, all of us together, again. I spoke to my friend, Roberto, today, too, and we’ve planned an overnight tent camping trip to Hill Country State Natural Area later this week. He’s a hardcore hiker and camper who is all about packing it in and packing it out, digging his own latrines, etc. I’m, at best, a car camper who likes to be within a short jaunt of the toilets and who likes to be able to unload her gear right from her car onto her site. We’re compromising with a primitive campsite (no power or water) that is a walk-in. It’s a short walk from the parking area to the site, however, and the chemical toilets are not far away. I can live with that. My main concern is my ankle. It’s still swelling a lot when I spend any time at all on it, and I don’t want to end up doing any damage by trying to hike any real distance. I’m looking forward to the trip, even if it is miserably hot in South Texas right now (business as usual this time of year).
While I’m here, there are so many people I still want to visit: old coworkers, friends from high school, relatives in Austin. I’m just hoping I can make time for everyone. As I get older and as some of my family get older, too, the fact that each time I see someone may be the last time is made more apparent. I hate to pass anyone by if I can avoid it. I don’t want to “overprogram” myself, though, so tomorrow I plan to go NOWHERE. Instead, I’m just doing laundry, cleaning house, and clearing my desk tomorrow. That should keep me busy the whole day until Lex gets off work, and then if there’s anything she wants to go do in the evening, we will.
Oh, I almost forgot that my friend Jason has arranged for us to go tubing in a couple of weeks when we move the RV up to Bandera. Lex has never been tubing in her life and wants to go. This will be a prime opportunity since Jason has private river access to the Medina River. I haven’t been tubing in at least 15 years, so this will be a lot of fun for me, too.
Lex reports that the wifi here at the park is super slow, so she’s going to be relying on her Virgin Mobile broadband modem while we’re here at this park. At least we have 3G in this area. That’s something, anyway. She’s missing the blazing network at Hillshade, though. If it had been a little closer to San Antonio, we’d probably have just stayed there the whole four weeks we will be in the area.
