We have all been here before... We have all been here before.....

It's like deja-vu all over again. 

It's November, and here we are at the Escapees Rainbow's End RV Park in Livingston, TX. We came here to vote, and we were only planning to stay for two days, and then move to the Lake Livingston State Park for two days.

Pylons in Still Water 1

That was the plan, and it worked out pretty well. We got to Rainbow's End, voted, and went to the state park. With our Texas State Park Resident Card, we were able to stay at a reduced price. Sorry, but I (Paul) didn't take any pictures. As nice a park as it was, there was just nothing to shoot. You can only have so many pictures of trees and water. Instead, I've posted some pictures we took at various times during the last few years. You can click on each image to see it in a larger format, and please, remember that you can see some of my other work here. Clicky <-

At The Cliffs Insane Terrain Off-Road Park, Marseilles, IL

On Wednesday it began to rain, and it rained pretty hard all night, turning everything to mud. Not the ordinary kind of mud, mind you, but the My Cousin Vinnie kind of mud. Now I had thought that the mud at The Cliffs Insane Terrain Off-Road Park in Marseilles Illinois was the thickest, heaviest, slipperiest,  sticks to everything and is impossible to get off mud that there is,  but this stuff was worse! I was wearing hiking boots and could not stomp, wipe or wash the stuff off of them. I had to let them dry before I could chip the stuff off, and then take the stiffest brush I could find to clean off the rest. It took me an hour to clean those boots.

Girl in a Purple Dress
(I shot a shot of a shot being taken at a shoot)

On Friday morning, we were packing up the jack pads and leveling blocks, when we noticed that the HOW's exhaust didn't smell right. It had a kind of alcohol/ chemically smell to it. I shut off the rig, and we continued working. Once we were done, I restarted the HOW and right off the bat it didn't sound right. It usually starts with a big VAROOM and a fast idle before settling down to its normal speed. This time, when it started, it went from Off, to a low idle, and the Check Engine light came on. Additionally, the exhaust sounded throaty and had a lower pitch than it usually does. When I pulled away, the engine had very little power; the poor HOW could barely pull itself up an incline. I had to floor it and let it rev to around 4500 RPM just to go 40 MPH. We stopped at a small store and unhooked the toad to lighten the load on the engine. We called a local RV and Auto repair place, the only one anywhere close, and found out that they couldn't get us in for two weeks! A few people recommended a nearby garage that worked on cars and trucks. While Penny called the garage, I checked for all the obvious problems: blocked air intake, leaking or low fluids, loose wires... I found nuttin'.

Penny shot this Roadside Joint in rural Mississippi

We limped over to the garage and the guys there read the engine codes. The codes told us we had no power to any of the spark plug coils on Bank 2. That means cylinders 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 were not firing. We had half an engine. The mechanic did some trouble shooting and was able to confirm that this was indeed the problem. Unfortunately he couldn't fix it. Penny called back to the RV Shop to see if they might be able to squeeze us in as an emergency, but they had already closed. She called Rainbow's End to get us somewhere to stay until we could figure out what to do.

On Monday we were able to make an appointment to bring it in to the shop a week from that Wednesday. Fortunately, here at Rainbow's End we have everything we need for an extended stay: water, electric, sewer, laundry and most important to this blog, Internet, (no TV, but that's what DVD's are for.) A lot of the places we stay at are too far out in the boonies to get any kind of TV or cellular coverage, so no phone, no Internet; incommunicado. 

There is a church here we like, First Baptist of Livingston, and that's HUGE. At the second service, the music is upbeat and singable, the attenders are fully engaged in worship, and the pastor is actually feeding Christ's sheep. Not the kind of church we find in most places we go.

A Step of Faith

Now faith is the assurance that what we hope for will come

about and the certainty that what we cannot see exists.                                          Hebrews 11:1 NIV

So here we sit, wasting away again outside of Livingston, searchin' for our lost...  whatever we lost...

Stay tuned.