We should have stayed in Bandera! Traveling in the winter no matter where you go apparently can be dicey. I’m sure everyone is aware of the cold fronts currently affecting the U.S. and Canada. You would think being down south would get us away from all that &^%%^$ !
Well…..nope.
Here is what we had to drive through to get to Fort Stockton.
We hit not just freezing weather, but mist that was freezing on our windshield. We also didn’t have the proper windshield wiper fluid for sub zero temps, because frankly, why would we?
Stopping at every gas station and rest stop we limped to Fort Stockton, each time stopping to wait until the defroster cleared the windshield. What a process and what a pain in the ass. Now one might ask why didn’t you purchase windshield washer fluid……..well the gas stations were all sold out, that’s why.
We finally got into somewhat warmer weather during the day, but not at night. In Fort Stockton it dropped below zero to minus 4 and then with the wind chill who knows! And of course we were staying at Hilltop RV Park. HillTOP. Yup. Right at the top of a very tall hill. Well mountain really. And yes, the next morning we discovered we had not just frozen pipes, but a burst pipe. So now….no water.
Off to Las Cruces New Mexico where we had already planned an overnight stay. We drove the 4 hours without incident as the storm had moved on. We arrived at our RV park called Hacienda late afternoon and noticed an RV dealer just down the road. Barb called just before they were closing for the day and we were lucky to get an early morning appointment for the following day. Given our lack of water and the cooler temperatures, we spent the time in the hot tub and then took hot showers in the RV’s clubhouse. Went back to the RV for supper and had a good sleep knowing we were getting into the repair shop in the morning. How fortunate to be so close to a dealer.
We spent most of the morning at Holiday World RV Dealer. They had hot coffee and a decent area for us to sit in and wait. Luckily we only cracked a few connectors so the water was only in our outside water closet and not in the RV itself. This is great news as the water pipes run under the master bed and then split under the floor going into the washroom and the kitchen. So, if the freezing had gone deeper into the unit the repairs would have been much more complicated, definitely way more expensive, and probably necessitating a hotel stay. So, all in all, not a massive issue. It was about $600 USD, mainly because the connectors are in a very small tight area up against the wall of the water closet, making for an extremely challenging small area to work in which made the labour long. Good news. We are doing all the right things, we just hit some really bad weather and from now on we will also travel with winter windshield fluid. There’s much controversy on whether small heaters can be used in the RV water closet or not. Our best bet would have been to put our small down filled jackets around the pipes to keep the windchill away. Ah good old hindsight!
Now off to Tucson Arizona where we are expecting warmer weather!