Pulling Pickles

Walmart diesel exhaust fluid (Super Tech)…why is it half price?

Newer diesel trucks require something called DEF or Diesel Exhaust Fluid in addition to fuel.

The name brand DEF costs about 12 bucks at Walmart and 20 bucks or more at gas stations.

There is a generic brand called Super Tech that costs about half – so $6 for the same 2.5 gallons.

I finally figured out why it cost half the price…

It’s because half of it ends up down the side of your truck or on the ground instead of in your tank.

The nozzle for this thing is awful. In no way would it seal and thus, the liquid spills everywhere.

I even tried duck tape and gorilla tape but still spilled everywhere.

Thankfully I had funnel for the toy hauler’s gas tank which did the trick but became a two person job.

So if you buy Super Tech DEF, be sure you have your own funnel.

Maybe it is half off for a reason…

Kristi wanted to pull the camper – west Texas

If you haven’t noticed, Texas is a big state.

You really notice the size when driving from Houston to El Paso.

Somewhere between “Road Runner” Texas and “tumbleweed” Texas, Kristi mentioned that she wanted to learn how to pull the camper.

Be my guest. I was pretty tired of driving at that point.

I think Kristi had a whole new respect once she felt this:

Gusty west Texas

Spring is typically a nice time of year in most places, right?

The chirping of birds.

The blooming of plants.

The moderate temperatures.

Apparently this is not true in west Texas.

Storms come in almost weekly and wind gusts from Mexico, known as the jet stream, come in blowing between 20 and 40 mph. We never knew this.

We are now “woke” as the cool kids say.

As such, you see little dust tornadoes everywhere and feel the occasional gust, especially when you are pulling a trailer.

No bueno.

It wasn’t bad weather, just had to take it easy though the second half of Texas as you couldn’t “see” the wind coming.

What’s up with that Texas? Remember that post about Texas weather?

Stay woke.

Camping West Texas

Since you probably read the blog for photos of the family and kids (and sadly not my rants – tear), here are a couple of good photos from our west Texas stop.

They were actually getting along. So I had to take a photo to prove it to mom.

“What? Ford makes tractors?” Mind blown!

Hide your gardens when Harper comes to visit. Your flowers will be plucked. At least she is picking flowers and not her nose. I’m glad that phase is over.

More soon.

Change of Plans: Marathon not a Sprint

After being on the road for almost a month now, Kristi and I started reassessing where we were planning on going next.

Our plan previously to head to New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Colorado.

Travel pace

However, we have learned that the itinerary might be a little too ambitious. It could be done, but should it be?

One primary goal of this adventure was to “reset.”

At home we have habits, responsibilities, kid activities and chores.

On the road we have the same responsibilities but on a much smaller scale.

As such, we like the “travel for 2-3 days, rest for a week or two approach.”

Some people don’t want to say more than a few days or a week at any given place. Not us. 1-2 weeks feels about right.

Less than a week feels a little too rushed.

By week 2, we have settled in and could say longer or are ready for the next adventure. Either way, we are happy.

Spring break

Another thing that happened that made us rethink our plans was spring break.

So apparently, the desert, like Florida beaches, gets booked up pretty quick during late March, early April – not just the camping spots but also the activities.

For instance, Carlsbad Caverns, one of our “must do” national parks is selling out so quick that they now require you reserved online.

The next two weeks is sold out.

New plans: New Mexico

This leads me to our new plans.

We were going to stop every couple days in New Mexico for some sightseeing, but instead, we are going to travel for 2 days to “get there,” and use the park as home base for about a week while we check out the sights in the area.

We won’t be able to see everything from that spot but we should get a good portion of activities.

Arizona

Then we’ll travel on for a couple more days to reach Arizona. Again, we’ll park it for a couple of weeks.

We have a long list of to-dos in Arizona that we are looking forward to.

Lost Las Vegas

Next, we were planning on heading to Las Vegas for 2 weeks to swim and maybe visit some national parks in Utah (Zion) and Grand Canyon.

But we decided we wanted to go to Colorado more…

So instead of trying to hit Nevada, Utah and Colorado in 3 weeks time, we decided to start heading back east and north one state to Colorado.

Colorful Colorado

With Colorado as home-base, we should theoretically be able to visit a couple of parks in Utah (Moab) and check off some “must do” items in Colorado itself.

From there we’ll likely sweep back through another part of New Mexico, the Texas to hang out for a week or more before we travel 3 consecutive days home from east Texas.

That’s the plan for now.

Texas Craft Beer Post

One of the simple joys in life is local craft beer. I read that somewhere online which must make it true.

Anyway, if I can’t visit the breweries, I like to pick out a mix and match 6 pack or something similar to test out the local flavors.

Since one of my favorite breweries is in Texas (Spoetzl – AKA Shiner) I ended up doing both a tour of the brewery (6 pack) a mix and match (another 6 pack).

My buddy Josh introduced me to Shiner Bock years ago as the crown jewel of Texas.

Anyway, here are the findings of my ice cold, refreshing yet extremely important “research”…

Delicious and refreshing with a hint of agave. Think Corona on a hot day at the beach but better.

Too hoppy for me. If you like IPAs, worth a sip.

If you like German beers (I do), this one is smooth (and only 95 calories if you are watching your dad-bod). Double score.

I work with a lot of attorneys and love blueberries so this one was a match made in heaven.

Like a birthday party in my mouth. Just kidding. A little sweet to have more than one of these. But would be appropriate as a birthday cake replacement.

I love orange. I love cinnamon. I don’t love sours. I got this one out of sheer curiosity. But I couldn’t finish it. I might find a couple to bring back to friends who enjoy sours and get their take.

Tasty and light for a bock but got a little sweet towards the end.

Now I’m not a huge fan of grapefruit but they make it work. And it’s only 95 calories (probably due to the grapefruit) so we’ll call it a “healthy choice.”

Like a “shiner bock light” is the best description I have.

Given that it is our last couple of nights in Texas I figured I’d try our last couple of new Texas beers.

Yes that says “margarita” and “lager” – reminds me of a bud light lime except slightly more sour.

Tastes like great, great grandpa’s beer yet reminds me of the movie “Strange Brew”

If years of schooling and multiple degrees have taught me anything, it’s that it isn’t scientific unless you can prove your results by replicating them.

As such, maybe on the way back trough Texas we’ll try again.

Texas Weather: Florida’s drunk cousin?

Since we left we’ve spent a bit of time in Texas. One thing I’ve learned about the weather here is that it is similar to Florida’s weather but like Florida’s drunk cousin.

At any given moment on a calm day the wind can pick up to 20-25 miles per hour.

Or start hailing.

Or whatever it pleases…

After all, they do things a bit different ‘round here.

Snow and power outages

Two weeks before we arrive, much of the state of Texas was without power and in below freezing weather for days.

When we arrived, we noticed a lot of palm trees dead from the freeze.

Everyone who was here is still talking about the winter from hell.

Austin Umbrellas

A couple of years ago I was in Austin for a conference. From my hotel room, I noticed that it had started to rain.

I really wanted to grab a bite to eat. I had an umbrella. Being a Floridian, I thought a little rain would be no problem but when I walked outside and around the corner from the shelter of the building, I realized that this rain was different.

The umbrella wasn’t helping since the rain was coming in sideways.

Like straight sideways – hitting my face from under the safety of an umbrella.

It was pretty impressive as the wind was so powerful and consistent that I had to lean into the wind to walk.

This rain and wind was different than what I am used to.

Driving with Texas crosswinds

Fast forward to the past two weeks.

Driving through Texas with 12-15 mph crosswinds winds with a trailer felt like swaying side to side on a cruise ship in rough waters.

It was so bad that the first night I still felt the swaying while I was laying in bed.

Dust tornado

Since we’ve been here I’ve seen 5 or 6 dust tornados like this one. Some smaller. Some larger.

“Hailnado”

Then while in Texas we had two hail storms with tornado warnings.

Otherwise the weather was beautiful. Low humidity. 75 degrees.

Maybe the devil went down to Texas, not Georgia.

Fun with plywood

We are finally moving on to a new destination.

As we look through the pictures of friends and memories made, we realize that one common occurrence each day was a piece of found plywood.

At first it was a fort.

Then the fort got a cannon.

Then it became part of a raft that they tried to push down the street (but broke apart in transit).

Then they hoisted it into a nearby tree for a tree fort, but couldn’t get it entirely up there.

The moral of the story is to always bring a piece of plywood or similar when camping with kids.

Lazy weekend

With Kristi’s bike being broken, we had to go into town a bit more than we had expected last week.

We are an hour or so away from town so every time we went out, it would take several hours and we wouldn’t get back to camp until late.

Also daylight savings time happened during this time.

So we cancelled most of our plans and decided to slow down this weekend before we hit the road again next week.

We might try to visit another tourist trap or museum this week but if not, no big deal.

Instead we are just trying to enjoy the weather. It’s been between 45 and 70 degrees and sunny most days.

Instead we just did some bike riding, deer feeding, fishing, shell finding, rock skipping, painting, play-grounding (if that is a word), and otherwise stuck pretty close by.

Here are some random photos

We even found some local Texas BBQ nearby. Weekends only. Sells until sold out.

Well, it looks like we are out of carrots again. A grocery stop is in order.

Road school history lesson gone wrong

While in San Antonio, we decided to give the kids a history lesson on the Alamo and the Mexican American war.

Makes sense, right?

After all, we did get to actually tour the Alamo.

A couple of days later we rented the movie on the Alamo (which is supposedly historically accurate and not too gruesome).

We’ll the kids and the their friends found a metal pipe and a piece of plywood, and decided to build their own Alamo in the woods.

The Kids replica of the Alamo, cannon and all.

The cannon (pipe) fired by filling it with ash and blowing on one side.

Pretty cool, actually!

All was well until we heard the kids running around screaming, “kill the Mexicans! Kill the Mexicans!”

Obviously, the kids have no idea that what they are saying is offensive. They don’t have a racist bone in their body.

The Texans were just portrayed as the hero’s in the movie and the Mexicans were the enemy.

And they were just pretending to defend their Alamo.

However, we did have to tell them to tone it down, and had to explain to the neighbors about our seemingly harmless history lesson so they didn’t think we were racist.

Here is one example where a road school history lesson went sideways.

I can’t make this stuff up.

Week 2 – Bike fixes, More deer, school, etc.

Just as the family was getting used to our daily bike rides, Kristi hit her derailer on a stick when we were on a trail ride and snapped that thing in half. It even twisted her chain so her rear wheel wouldn’t move.

In fact, the derailer (usually hangs below the cassette on the back wheel) was above the cassette.