Friday, 15 July 2016
Advanced RV Resort — Houston (Pearland), Texas
Temps: Hi 99F (37C) / Lo 77F (25C) … Feels like 110F (43C)
When I wrote this post at Coach Care earlier today, I didn’t anticipate I’d be editing it before uploading it to the blog. I don’t discuss politics in public media, but I could not post this entry without at least making mention of the coup attempt that has sent Turkey into turmoil. We have been in touch with family … all are safe (no one is in İstanbul or Ankara where the majority of events are taking place). It’s a sad, sad, sad world we’re living in … and we’re heartbroken about the goings on in the country where Mui and I grew up.
Written Earlier in the Day … It Was a Happier Time For Us
Yes, it is hot, hot, hot! HOT!!
Luckily, we don’t have much to do outdoors while we are in Houston for the next seven days. Our focus will be on finalizing last minute details for our trip to Europe. At the moment, we are settled in the Coach Care customer service lounge waiting on the Phaeton to pass its annual physical.
Houston Skyline
We left Port Aransas bright and early yesterday morning. The 237-mile (381 km) trip was uneventful. First on our agenda was a stop at Beasley Tire to get our tires torqued — a gratis check-up recommended by Beasley when they installed the Phaeton’s new shoes last fall. All was good, and it took all of 15 minutes, if that, for the guys to give us the all clear. With their consent, we stayed another ½-hour in the parking lot to have lunch before heading to the nearby Pilot truck stop to ‘feed the beast’ with a couple of gallons of diesel.
Is that a wrench, or is that a wrench!
It was 3:00p when we pulled into Coach Care for our overnight stay. Crystal showed us where to park near the service bays. Snuggled between a few RVs and busses in the service queue, we spent a quiet night in the parking lot, a 50A hookup powering our two A/C units to keep us cool.
[The official high temp for the day was 98F (37C) … with a feels like temp of 112F (44F). But that must have been in the shade. At 3:30p, the Phaeton’s external temperature gauge read 108F (42C) in the sun … which, with the 49% humidity, converts to 143F (62C). Those are numbers that I just can’t wrap my head around!!!]
We spend a quiet and comfortable night in the Coach Care parking lot.
This morning we vacated the Phaeton at 7:30a and turned over the keys to the technicians. Unlike at the Tiffin facility in Red Bay, rig owners are not welcome in the service bays at Coach Care. So we made ourselves comfortable in the customer lounge … early birds get the comfy recliners.
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Tagged for Service | Flying High |
From past experience I knew to bring a couple of jackets with me … the A/C thermostat is not adjustable and it is downright freezing in the lounge. After the steamy temps outside, I appreciated the A/C … at first. I lasted about two hours before I gave in … I put on a jacket and started making occasional forays outside to warm up my bones. By lunch time, I was wearing jacket #2 as well.
What can I say, Texans love to crank up the A/C.
The day passed uneventfully. Justin, the service manager, stopped by to give us the preliminary ‘damage’ estimate for the items on Mui’s maintenance checklist shortly after we arrived, and updated us periodically thereafter. We whiled the time away with emails and reading and the like … and I even got a head start on processing photos and writing a good portion of this blog post. Lunch was self-catered … there are a couple of tables in the lounge, which we had to ourselves except for one other customer who spent more time outside with his dog than he did in the lounge.
as cold as the lounge is, we probably didn’t need to pack our lunch in the portable cooler.
Later … Driving to the Campground
We’re on our way to Advanced RV Resort … our go-to-campground in Houston — well, Pearland actually, but close enough. Anyway, the Phaeton has passed its annual physical with flying colors. We’re good for another year.
