South Padre Island

Thursday April 2…midnight

We made it to the suspension and alignment shop at about 8:00am. They got to work right away, and we sat in the motorhome while they worked.

We took Whiskey for a long walk in the area, and when we returned, the manager said he didn’t realize we were in the motorhome, and that we weren’t allowed to be because of insurance regulations. I thought that was dumb, but whatever. So we sat in their waiting room until they finished around 1:15pm. Then, we tried to pay with American Express, but the card wouldn’t go through. We phoned Amex, and they said there was no problem, but they had no record of us even trying to pay. So then, we had to wait for the office girl to get back from lunch so she could sort out whatever problem they were having. Turned out they had just changed merchants and the paperwork hadn’t gone through yet. So they thought they were able to accept Amex, but it turned out they weren’t. We had to use our Mastercard, and then that wouldn’t go through either! Because it was a large purchase and we don’t use the card very often, we had to phone them and explain why we were making a purchase in Texas. What a pain. We didn’t get out of there until almost 3:00pm.

We stopped at Walmart and stocked up on a few more things.

Then, we headed for South Padre Island where our friends Bill and Bonnie were waiting for us. It was about an 80 mile (130 kms) drive, and we didn’t arrive there until about quarter to six.

Sherman handles much better. It was a bit difficult to get a good idea on just how much better because we had a really strong cross wind today so I had to fight the steering wheel quite a bit to keep us going straight anyhow. But the handling definitely feels much tighter with the new ball joints and springs.

We are free camping right at the end of the highway just north of the town of South Padre Island. The highway simply stops here, and then there is just sand. We were sitting playing cards with Bonnie and Bill when we heard a vehicle drive up and then try to turn around. He had gone off the shoulder of the highway, and into the sand to turn around. He got stuck bad! We went out and Bill used his pickup truck to pull the guy out. It was a young couple from Dallas with his uncle and his young son. We invited them in for a beer, and now Bill and Bonnie have somewhere to stay in Dallas when they pass through there in a couple of weeks.

Total nights sleeping in a motorhome…522

April Fuel $126.55 CAN

April Grocery $55.09 CAN

April Overnight costs $ 31.50 CAN