Thursday and Friday February 3 & 4, 2011-Mission West RV Resort

This will show you a little of the deep freeze conditions that we experienced at Mission West. This was not the coldest temperatures that we've experienced since our full-timing adventures began, but it was the most miserable time. The power went out at the park on Thursday evening about 5:45 and was not restored until around 6:30 on Friday evening, over 24 hours without any electricity.

While out walking around on Friday morning, this is the thermometer at the laundry room at the park. My own thermometer showed 25 as did another of the resident's. It was plenty cold!


My truck had a lot of ice on it when I went out. We had a light rain that immediately froze when it hit the ground. We had almost a half inch of ice on the porch rails, the step covers all froze and the top mat on the porch was crunchy when I stepped out on it. I went in and out several times during the morning, and on one of the times down the steps, my feet slipped out from under me and I slid down the stairs on my behind. Luckily I wasn't hurt but it would have been very easy to break a leg or arm if I had fallen harder. That big 'ol fat behind cushioned my fall...

One of the neighbor's trucks with icicles all over the front. Most of the other residents are "snowbirds" and used to this kind of weather or much worse, so they were only upset that this kind of cold weather came this far south. I told one of them that we should ask for our money back, since we had expected warm and windy weather, not icy and cold.

This is the John Deere man's shed behind his house. He said he had run a small heater inside all night, which caused the runoff and icicles. He is from Iowa, and very accustomed to this kind of weather. It's still cold!

This is the field across the street from us, covered with ice.

We didn't leave home until late Friday morning when we took Ray and Lin to Gonzales Burgers in Donna. The trip over to Donna was interesting because the highway was closed down due to ice on the overpasses, but as we got closer, someone had moved the barricades, so we followed the traffic flow onto the freeway. We did fine, except that there was still ice on the crest of the overpasses. We didn't have any problems making our way to the restaurant and when we got there, there was a much smaller crowd than usual. We enjoyed our burgers and went back home without incident. By the time we got back onto the freeway, most of the ice had melted on the overpasses. It was funny to watch large chunks of ice fall from the overhead wires and trees. I'm glad that none of them hit us as it would likely have left dents on the roof or hood when it hit.

We came back home to no power. We didn't know whether it had been caused by a rolling blackout, a problem with the power company and since the outage was confined to this park, it could have been something here in the park. When the power went out on Thursday, the office was closed and no one came down to inform the residents what was going on. I stopped by the office when we left Friday morning to inquire and was told that they didn't know anything except the power company was working on the problem. I said something to the lady working in the office about the handling of this outage and that it would have been nice if someone had been there to tell us what was going on, but she didn't like my criticism. I must have hit a nerve because when we returned, we learned that others had said the same thing and they had closed the office. True, since there was no power, there was little they could do, but I suspect they were tired of hearing guest complain.

Judy had not been feeling well for the past couple of days and had not been eating well, so when they asked us to go out to eat with them, we agreed to go. We went to Tio Chuy's mexican restaurant near the park. It was very good and we had an enjoyable time with them. When we got back to the park, we found that the power had finally been restored. HALLELUJAH!

The propane delivery guy was working overtime today and was still in the park at 7 o'clock. I thought I had missed him this morning and had taken my empty bottle to their store in the afternoon. The store was very busy with about 7 trucks ahead of me. When I pulled in, traffic backed up onto the roadway. At least someone was profiting from this cold spell. I guess it could have been worse, we could have been in Michigan or Wisconsin, shoveling many feet of snow...

So long.