Hurricanes- an RVer's Nightmare!

September 15th, 2014 - Day 107

Well, the big news (when we finally had a little television service), was of a hurricane named Odile that was heading straight for Tucson, creating serious flood threats for the hundreds of miles we were needing to travel through! This was the first we heard of this storm!  It’s great to be away from television, but sometimes it is really important to “tune-in”!

The problem was that we had planned a particular route that allowed us to check on a piece of property Norm has owned for many years in a retirement community near the Mexican border called  Rio Rico - located about 50 miles south of Tucson.  Right smack in the path of the hurricane!

What to do? (This decision was an easy one ).  RUN!  By examining where and when it was going to hit, it appeared that if we could drive 8-10 hours each of the next two to three days, we should get ahead of this mega-storm! Ugh, this was not going to be fun!

 For the sake of speed, we decided to drive the dreaded I-10. What a culture shock!  Billboards, semi-tractor trailers, and oh, so many speeding cars! We were suddenly thrust back to reality, and neither of us was ready to go there!  Many of our RV friends choose to travel these multi-lane roadways exclusively, but up to now we had enjoyed the solitude of the back country roads where often a day would pass with seeing only a couple of cars.  Now this!  Ugh!

We drove through Phoenix and Tuscon without incident, thanks to Norm’s expert handling of this large motorhome and towed car. 

Thank goodness for my computer and the internet.  I busied myself by creating a blog site for the sale of the RV, working on this blog, answering emails, etc.

The drive was mostly flat with not much to see, then all of a sudden this appeared to rise out of the ground!

The next few days will be all about driving.  During these three years of RV vacationing, we had managed to limit ourselves to no more than 5, perhaps 6 hours of driving during one day.   We had two days ( if you could believe the weatherman ) to get to central Texas and avoid the predicted flood zone.

To complicate things, our friend, who had just driven this route the week before, warned us that campgrounds with vacancies were nearly impossible to find.  Due to the sudden increase in oil production, workers with campers where securing every site in the western part of the state.  Hey, did I just hear a challenge? 

It took a few calls, and one place with room was absolutely horrible, but I did manage to get a reservation at Low-Hi RV Ranch in Deming, NM.  Now we just had to get there.

A warning sign posted at rest area.  I bet dogs are kept on
a leash here!

After nearly 10 hours of driving, Norm and I felt proud of ourselves for having driven a whopping 469 miles!

We would never make good "truckers".

September 16^th, 2015 - Day 108

It had rained the night before, and as we started to pull forward, water poured into the RV from above the windshield! I’m not talking about a little water- it was as if someone had taken a five gallon bucket and dumped it on the dashboard!  Oh, crap!  It was the first rain we had experienced since before Salt Lake City, so obviously our new windshield was leaking! Realizing the amount of rain we could run into, we felt our incredibly good luck may have run out.

I immediately got on the phone and called the insurance company to find a place to get this fixed!  After several frustrating hours, and many phone transfers later, we discovered that there is no one in the state of Texas who was willing to check this out and fix it. This news gave us all the more reason to avoid the hurricane- and hope for no rain at all!

We dragged out the huge beach towels and lined the dash to keep damage to the RV to a minimum. We needed this repaired, and the sooner the better!  The fact that we intend to sell this RV as soon as we get back, made it all the more imperative. We don’t need any damage now, that’s for sure. We managed to keep this RV in PERFECT condition up to now (well, yesterday). 

A - Sedona, Arizona     B - Deming, NM  C - Senora, Texas  

 We drove and drove, only stopping for gas and a quick bite to eat ( I can use the restroom while Norm drives, and I am convinced Norm is part camel.)

I spent, while comfy in my passenger seat, way too much time trying to figure how far poor Norman could drive, and which campground along our route may have a spare campsite.  A good night’s sleep would be really important to Norm since he was doing so much driving.  I could have, and probably should have helped behind the wheel, but hey! I hadn’t so far, so why risk an accident at this point?  Right?  Beside, Norm loves to drive.  And I love not to! For the last 25,000 miles of RV’ing, our finely tuned system has worked real well for us.

We finally found a place off the beaten path called Caverns of Senora, in Senora, Texas. Sounds great, doesn’t it?  In fact, when we called, we were assured we would have the place practically to ourselves!  There was a cave system there that I knew Norm would love to check out, so it seemed like the perfect place!

 We arrived a little past dinner time, marveling at this beautiful, out-of-the-way campground and were greeted by the campground host.  He told us the only a few sites had "somewhat reliable" electricity and that they were in a particular area and that we could pick anyone we would like! Fabulous!   Well, we drove around the corner, and low and behold, there were 3 other huge rigs, haphazardly parked, taking up nearly all the powered sites!

Campsites don't get much closer than this!

Picture this; a huge campground, with acres of sites, and 4 huge rigs parked a couple of feet away from each other! We were really tired, but after we disconnected the car and with some fancy maneuvering, Norm expertly squeezed between a couple of RV’s where we spent the night. Turns out all the other sites had no power at all, thus no interest.  The host was very vague as to whether there would be a cave tour the next morning, so we decided it would be best to leave early and get further down the road and away from the predicted flood zone. 

I found another blog post on this same campground with similar, if not more a more amusing story.http://authormichaelhicks.com/an-unexpected-turn-of-events-at-the-caverns-of-sonora-texas/

Internet photo of Senora Caverns!  Said to be internationally know as
on the the best show caverns on the planet.  Then where is everyone,
and why are they not giving tours?  I sure wish we could have seen it.

I was on the phone today with our friends, the Cormiers, hoping to catch up with them.  They were having some trouble with their RV, and were delayed in Austin, so perhaps it would work out.  How terrific to end the vacation with folks we started it with more than 3 months before!