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Southeast (Gulf Coast), Texas, United States

Monday, November 14, 2016

Fall Travels - Allegro Club Rally & Red Bay

We are on our first trip since I began updating this blog.  After Iron Horse RV in San Antonio, TX damaged the rear PS of the Bus (See previous post), I made an appointment with Bruce Deaton’s “Custom Paint Shop” in Red Bay, just outside the Tiffin factory, to make the repairs.  We were able to leave last Thursday morning and attend a part of our Bluebonnet Allegro RV Club rally during this past weekend as a part of this trip.

We arrived at the rally about 11:00am at the Travelers World RV Park in downtown San Antonio, TX, and got set up.

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After visiting with some of the others in attendance, we all loaded up and headed down to the Riverwalk area for a dinner cruise on one of the river barges.  It was catered by the Casa Rio Mexican Restaurant.  I was surprised as it was good food and the cruise was extended and very enjoyable.  Here are some pictures:

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When we returned to the RV park, we started our “pretty-much” regular poker game!   We had six players that night, but I did fair very well that night.  My money bag came home much lighter than it went to the game!! 

On Friday, we toured San Antonio with Ronnie and Kathy Woods, RV friends of ours……. including the old Pearl Brewery, now dubbed “The Pearl”, and mostly it turned out to be a variety of apartments and lofts converted from the old manufacturing structures.  There are a few shops and restaurants, but a lot less than we expected. Here are a couple of photos at the old brewery, with one having Kathy checking out the hanging dried meats at one of the restaurants……

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We then went downtown to the Market Area, we I picked up some gifts for our granddaughter, Rachel, who lives in Little Rock with her Mom and Dad.  One of them is the puppet held by Patsy below.  We plan to see her for a few days prior to Thanksgiving…… she may even spend a couple of nights in the Bus.  There is also a picture of Kathy, Patsy and Ronnie looking at something on the wall!IMG_1488IMG_1495IMG_1499IMG_1496

We then went to Pappadeau’s Cajun seafood restaurant for a great meal. 

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Prior to returning to the RV Park, we stopped and let the wives shop at the stores at the “Quarry Shopping Center’'. At the RV park, we got together for another poker game,  This time, it started out like the night before, but then my luck changed…… and I managed to end the night a nickel behind!  CHEATING is highly under-rated!!!!!

We decided to leave for Red Bay on Saturday at Check-Out time which is 11:00am, and that gave us time to visit the Farmer’s Market at “THE PEARL”.  The market is open from 11:00 to 1:00.  I had breakfast there, a sausage kolache, and it was excellent. Patsy and I also picked up some breads and a tin of Monkey Bread, which I had never had before, and it looked like a big cinnamon roll.with icing.  It tasted great as we broke it up and heated it up in the microwave as we drove down the highway. This was one of the better Farmers Markets that I have visited…….. at least in my opinion!!  There were a lot of vegetables and fruits, eggs and fresh meats (frozen), and baked goods and freshly made breakfast choices……. breakfast tacos, Asian equivalents of tacos, and kolaches.  It did not have the normal ‘flea market junk’ that we have seen in other farmers markets.

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As we drove back to the RV park, I captured a picture of two of the most notable attractions in San Antonio…… the Alamodome stadium on the left and the Tower of the Americas from the World Fair on the right that was held in San Antonio in the ‘60’s.

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We got on the road about 11:00am, and drove until midnight and we spent the night on a Walmart parking lot in Amite City, LA after driving a little over 500 miles. 

We had planned to be there at 10:00pm, but we had a flat on the Honda CRV that we were towing behind the Bus.  My tire pressure monitor system (TPMS) failed me, and did not signal a flat tire on the right front of the CRV.  I have no idea whether the tire blew out or just lost air slowly, but I do know that it went completely flat and I towed it that way for a while.  IMG_1636IMG_1620

You can note that the complete valve stem, which had my pressure sensor screwed on to, was gone!!

Although I had a spare tire and a good bottle jack, I could not change the tire because the car was sitting too low to the ground.  I called my road service, Coach-Net, and they sent out a mechanic to change it.  It did not cost me anything for the tire change, but did waste an hour while waiting.  While waiting, I managed to put all of the rubber trim back in place, and it looks good enough until we get home in two weeks.

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Sunday travel went better, and we arrived in Red Bay AL at about 4:00pm, after driving nearly 1000 miles. 

More on the Red Bay visit, and the results of the tire blow-out in the next post,

1 comment:

Mike Mills said...

Good post! Glad you've gotten productive again. It would have added immeasurably to the interest level if you had included a photo of, well, me. Also, I still haven't recovered from the fact that no one called me about the Friday night poker game. I guess everyone was afraid of a ringer like me. You needn't have worried, though. I was prepared to purposely lose to keep you from getting your feelings hurt. Safe travels, old pal.