Our last day at the Dallas-Arlington KOA. We've had a great time here. In retrospect I would have trimmed a day off of our stay, but you never know for sure when doing the planning. I would rather be a day long than a day short. I was a little skeptical staying at a KOA in the middle of town, but I have nothing but good things to say about this place and I will make sure and post a positive review when I am done here. This also worked out really good for attending the Texas Rangers game.
It was nice to visit the Texas Ranger's baseball stadium and catching a home game was a real bonus. One more off our list. The Fort Worth Stock Yards was very interesting. It was nice to have dinner with Doreen's cousin Jeremy Kinder and get caught up on how his wife and kids are doing. We had fun on our bourbon quest, and so glad we were able to score a bottle of Eagle Rare, which we will always share with our friends along the way - paying it forward. It was really nice to run into Jim and Jan Roberts from Des Moines. Anytime we are able to reconnect with someone who we know, especially those with whom we served in the military is really special. We are both doing it a little bit differently, but we are both enjoying the retirement we worked so hard for.
The day before we leave a campground we routinely make a trip to the local grocery store to replenish provisions, if needed, seek out the least expensive fuel and reload the big ol' brown truck, and prepare the inside and outside of our coach for departure in the morning. I also regularly flush and empty our sewer tanks and then stow the discharge hoses. I also reload about a 1/3 tank of fresh water and then stow the fresh water hose. Then we operate from the onboard fresh water tank for the last evening using the automatic pump system until we leave the next morning. That system works so good you hardly notice any difference.
Another thing we do the day or evening before is to review the route for the next day and work out any questions between the pilot (me) and the navigator (Doreen). We use a trucker's Garmin Dezlcam GPS which is a dash-mounted GPS that has a dash camera built in. It knows our height, width, length, weight and hazmat on board (propane) and routes us around problems such as low clearances. We only ever use GPS coordinates not addresses. We have been led astray way too many times with addresses because of the way a GPS interprets an address. Using GPS coordinates is really simple and it works with any mapping software such as Google Maps, our Garmin GPS, or even adding the coordinates to calendar events as the location. I like to get on this laptop and then add waypoints when needed to get us on the correct route. An example of this would be when we are staying at a military campground, like the one we are headed to tomorrow, and we must go in a specific gate.
So tomorrow morning we will rise about 0630 hrs and plan to bug out no later than 0830 hrs, waiting for "rush hour" traffic to subside a bit. We have a detailed departure checklist we use to make sure nothing is forgotten. One of those things is to clean the floors thoroughly. We want a clean vinyl floor before we roll in the slides, otherwise there is a chance the slideouts could damage the vinyl as we pull them in. So I usually dry-Swiffer the entire floor and then go over it again with a wet Swiffer. These new coaches do not have carpet. We just supplement with a few throw rugs which we can take out and shake.
Once the inside of the coach is ready to go, we lock up the door and focus on the outside. With the preparatory work we do the day before, the departure checklist for the outside stuff is pretty simple. Within 20 minutes we can be hooked up and ready to roll. I do a final 360 degree walk around before I get in the truck. Then we roll!
So, next report from Fort Sam Houston Army Base tomorrow. Thanks for following along!
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