Improved tow bar pins

One of the essential components of towing our truck behind our motorhome is the air-powered brake controller, which presses on the brake pedal in the truck when the brake is applied in the coach, using its air braking system. The brake controller is secured to the truck via a D-pin, seen on the right of this picture:

Brake controller

When hooking up for a recent travel day, I noticed that the pin was missing; it must have not been secured and dropped out somewhere. I made do with a zip tie for that trip, and ordered a replacement from the manufacturer. While there, I saw that they had improved pins for the tow bar, too, so I also ordered that:

Tow bar pins and brake controller pins

So now I have a spare brake controller pin, in case I lose it again. And the new tow bar pins are much easier to use. Here’s one of the pins that came with the tow bar; it just has a metal ring that has the locking linchpin attached; it can be difficult to pull out the tow bar pin when disconnecting, if the truck is at an angle:

Old tow bar pin

In use:

Truck connection

Compare to the new tow bar pin; it has the same tethered linchpin, but the big red handle makes it much easier to pull out:

New tow bar pin

In use:

New tow bar pin

A huge improvement, highly recommended.

Moving to thrice-weekly posts

Jenn and I have been homebodies over winter, what with having colds, and not feeling like exploring much. So I’m running low on blog posts.

Therefore, I’ve decided to switch from an everyday posting schedule to three times a week, on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

Don’t look so shocked:

Paladin

I may do extra posts occasionally, and of course may increase the frequency again if I start to accumulate too many posts, but for now this seems a good pace.

Columbus, Texas

The Thousand Trails campground was near a small town called Columbus in Texas. We drove though it to get some Whataburger drive-though, our first experience of that fast food chain.

Colorado River bridge:

Colorado River bridge

Downtown Columbus:

Columbus

Whataburger:

Whataburger

Not bad; we tried the Dr Pepper shake, which was interesting. The fries and burger were decent, but we’ve had better:

Whataburger

On another day, we went back to Whataburger for a second time, going inside this time:

Whataburger

After dinner we went across the road to the H-E-B grocery store, right next to the Walmart:

Walmart and H-E-B

A fairly small store, and not as nice as others we’ve been in:

H-E-B

“If you hit this you’ll hit bridge”; a 14’ 6” bridge, which we went under on our way to the Thousand Trails (our coach is 12’ 7”):

If you hit this you'll hit bridge

Thousand Trails Colorado River RV Campground

We stayed at Thousand Trails Colorado River RV Campground in Columbus, Texas. (Campground Reviews listing.)

A fairly large Thousand Trails campground, with a nice new area.

Dates:

Check in: 2023-01-11
Check out: 2023-01-22
11 nights
We were originally going to stay a week, but we extended it to simplify our travels

Weather:

Mostly sunny, some fog, a little drizzle
High temps ranging between 60-80°F, lows around 36-63°F
Some wind, up to 28 MPH gusts

Noise:

No road noise, occasional train noise
Occasional neighbor noise

Site:

#E81, pull-through, gravel
Didn’t need to disconnect toad; parked next to coach
Fairly level
Medium site: about 65 feet long by about 43 feet wide
Picnic table
Fire pit
Grass

Utilities:

50 amp power, conveniently located
50 PSI water, fairly conveniently located
Good sewer connection, not very conveniently located (2 10-foot pipes needed)

Internet (in usage priority order):

T-Mobile: 94-106 Mbps down, 2 Mbps up, 25 ms ping
AT&T: 78-102 Mbps down, 18-23 Mbps up, 32 ms ping
Verizon: 80 Mbps down, 22 Mbps up, 50 ms ping
Starlink: not used
Campground Wi-Fi: not used

Amenities:

Garbage dumpster
Pool
Various planned activities
Package delivery to office for $5 each

Our review on Campground Reviews:

New sites are worth it

We’ve stayed at several Thousand Trails campgrounds and they usually look like they need some TLC and updating. But not this one. They’ve built a nice new area with 50A pull-through sites and paved roads, which was very appreciated and worth the $3 premium fee. Our site in this area had a nice view of the fishing pond and a good walk to the river. We camped at Colorado River RV Campground in a Motorhome.

An interactive map of the RV park; our site was to the right of the big pond:

Campground map:

Map

Being a Thousand Trials campground, we had to drive around looking for available sites, trying to find one we liked the look of. We really lucked out with our site, with a view of a pond, and a large grassy area in front:

Our site

We had a view of a pond (partially blocked by the next site). And nice sunsets:

Sunset

Another sunset:

Another sunset

The pond from closer:

Pond

Colorado River:

Colorado River

I rode my bike around the campground:

Colorado River

Other sites

An outdoor movie area:

Movie area

Other sites

Pecan trees:

Trees

Other sites

Mini golf:

Mini golf

Cabins:

Cabins

Other sites

Games

Pond and bird

Swimming pool:

Swimming pool

Closed sites, probably reserved for seasonal guests:

Closed sites

Someone had some sort of ladder thing:

Ladder thing

Pond:

Pond

Bathrooms:

Bathrooms

Pond

Other sites

Pond

Birds

Jenn riding:

Jenn riding

Some videos of riding around the campground:

Morning fog:

Fog

Stars:

Stars

The day before we left, the neighbor left, giving us a better view of the pond for a few hours, until someone else arrived:

Pond and empty site

Sunset:

Sunset

Sunset and the pond out our window (and the new neighbor):

Sunset and pond out window

Thousand Trails campgrounds are often run down and cramped, and this one did have older sites like that, but the section we were in was very new and nice. It’s good to see them investing in improvements.

We’d definitely stay here again.

Video

Video: Lockhart, Texas to Columbus, Texas motorhome travel timelapse

A timelapse of driving our RV, a Tiffin Allegro Bus motorhome, 87 miles from Lockhart, Texas to Columbus, Texas.

Travel from Lockhart to Columbus, Texas

We drove our coach 87 miles, about two hours of driving, from Lockhart, Texas to Columbus, Texas.

The map route, heading south then east:

Map route

Our coach and truck when heading out of the state park, pausing to take out the trash:

Coach

Leaving the state park, the day use area:

Leaving state park

Some of the trees are a little low; our antennas twanged on them:

Leaving state park

Closed swimming pool:

Closed pools

Park visitor center:

Visitor center

Road works:

Road works

We took a suburban detour in Luling, Texas due to a closed road:

Detour

This rail crossing was a little concerning in a long coach:

Rail crossing

Onramp to I-10:

Onramp

Flatonia:

Flatonia

Schulenburg, halfway to everywhere… i.e. middle of nowhere?

Schulenburg, halfway to everywhere

Our exit was exit 695, but there wasn’t an offramp when coming from the west, so we needed to go past to exit 696:

Columbus exit

… then double-back:

Onramp

… to exit 695. With a totally reassuring evacuation sign:

Exit and evacuation

Texas crossroads:

Texas crossroads

We needed to turn left across the highway:

Turn across highway

Thousand Trails entrance:

Thousand Trails entrance

A bridge:

Bridge

Check in:

Check in

Our coach:

Coach

We stopped behind a Tiffin Phaeton; always nice to see another Tiffin:

Tiffin Phaeton

Checking in at the welcome center:

Welcome center

Heading to the entrance gate:

Heading to the entrance gate

At Thousand Trails parks, one can choose any available site (if not reserved for seasonal people). We went straight to section E, the newest section with nice 50-amp pull-through sites:

Section E

Micro-Air EasyTouchRV smart thermostats

Our motorhome was produced in 2017, during a time when Tiffin was slowly updating the technology. So it has a mixture of analog switches for some things (like cockpit shades), smart network-based controls using the Spyder multiplex wiring system, and non-integrated controls like the power management and heating/cooling.

Our coach has three rooftop AC units, plus AquaHot hydronic heating. More modern coaches integrate these into the Spyder touch panels, but in this vintage they are independently controlled via three thermostats like this one in the bedroom:

Old thermostat

(Note that that Spyder touch panel at the bottom isn’t original; I upgraded it from a much inferior panel that came with the coach.)

While these thermostats were fine, they weren’t as convenient as they could be. (Shock, having to get off our butts to adjust them!)

I’ve been wanting to upgrade them, like I did with the Spyder panel, and I recently got around to that. I purchased one Micro-Air EasyTouchRV thermostat panel, the model compatible with our ACs (352C):

EasyTouchRV

Here’s the old thermostat:

Old thermostat

I pulled off the cover to unmount it via the two screws:

Removed cover

Pulling it away from the wall, I reached the three connectors for the wires:

Wires

The new panel comes with mount points that are screwed into the wall:

Mount points

Hooking up the new unit was simply a matter of unplugging the old one and plugging in the new one (being careful to not let the wires drop inside the wall; there wasn’t a lot of slack).

Here’s the new unit mounted:

New unit

Much nicer:

New unit

Not only does it have a nicer display, it can be controlled remotely via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth via an app:

App

When using both cool and heat, one can set it to Away mode to have upper and lower limits, to keep the temperature within that range:

App

The upper and lower limits on the display:

New unit

I was satisfied with that experience, so I ordered two more units for the other thermostats:

More new units

The front and middle AC units are controlled by thermostats in a cupboard above the passenger chair (they have remote room sensors towards the front and middle on the ceiling, so being enclosed in a cupboard doesn’t affect their performance):

Front and mid thermostats

A closer look at the old front and middle thermostats:

Front and mid thermostats

With the covers removed:

Front and mid thermostats

Like with the bedroom one, easy enough to swap the plugs:

Wires

The new unit:

New unit

Here’s a look at the mount points for the new unit; they come with a spacer that is broken off once screwed into place:

Mount points

The mount points before breaking the connector:

Mount points

The wood is thick enough to hold the screw, but I still used the cap on the other side, to avoid wires rubbing on the protruding screw:

Cap

The new units installed:

New units

So much nicer! Highly recommended.

Austin, Texas

We were still recovering from our colds while at Lockhart, so not feeling too adventurous, but since we were 45 minutes south of Austin, we felt we should at least do a quick driving tour there.

All the roads into Austin seem to be toll roads:

Toll pay by mail

We stopped at a MOD Pizza for lunch; a favorite chain of ours for years:

MOD pizza

Then we drove by downtown Austin:

Austin

We looped around the capitol building:

Austin

No doubt Austin has lots of interesting things to see and do, but we weren’t up for it on that occasion. So of course we weren’t overly impressed by the city. It did remind us of Portland, which shares the “keeping it weird” theme, but we weren’t overly impressed by there either. We’re just not big city folks anymore; we prefer small towns.

Lockhart, Texas

While staying at Lockhart State Park we visited the city of Lockhart a few times.

The first visit was to the Lockhart Post Office, to pick up a General Delivery package:

Lockhart Post Office

This was actually the first time we’ve used General Delivery — that is where you just address a package to [Your Name], General Delivery, [City, State ZIP], then you can pick it up at the post office counter. A useful service when staying at somewhere like a state park that doesn’t accept packages for campers.

The Lockhart fire station:

Lockhart fire station

The Lockhart courthouse is a fascinating and distinctive building:

Lockhart courthouse

Lockhart claims to be the Bar-B-Que Capital of Texas:

The Bar-B-Que Capital of Texas

A castle-like museum:

Castle-like museum

There certainly are a lot of BBQ restaurants in town. The oldest is the Original Black’s Barbecue, operating since 1932; Texas’ oldest BBQ joint owned by the same family:

The Original Black's Barbecue

We got some BBQ to go; it was pretty good:

The Original Black's Barbecue

Another couple of pictures of the courthouse:

Lockhart courthouse

Downtown buildings:

Downtown

The museum again:

Museum

A hat shop:

Hat shop

Another BBQ is Terry Black’s BBQ; yes, from the same family as the original one, but they had a schism. After working at the family restaurant for a few years, they set off on their own in Austin, then recently opened this restaurant in Lockhart:

Terry Black's BBQ

Also very tasty:

Terry Black's BBQ

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention my first experience of a H-E-B grocery store; very popular in Texas, and we can see why; lots of good house brand stuff, we could find everything we wanted, and super-friendly people:

H-E-B groceries

Super-friendly people really describes Texas as a whole, actually.

Lockhart State Park

We stayed at Lockhart State Park in Lockhart, Texas. (Campground Reviews listing.)

A nice state park with a golf course view.

Dates:

Check in: 2023-01-02
Check out: 2023-01-11
9 nights

Weather:

Mostly sunny, some drizzle
High temps ranging between 61-82°F, lows around 40-66°F
Some wind, up to 25 MPH gusts

Noise:

Distant road and train noise (only audible outside); some small plane noise
Negligible neighbor noise

Site:

#6, back-in, asphalt
Needed to disconnect toad; parked in front of coach
Not very level
Large site: about 90 feet long by about 50 feet wide
Picnic table on concrete patio with shelter
Smoker, fire pit
Grass

Utilities:

50 amp power, conveniently located
80 PSI water, conveniently located
Unthreaded sewer connection, conveniently located (1 10-foot pipe needed)

Internet (in usage priority order):

Starlink: 12-24 Mbps down, 2-7 Mbps up, 40 ms ping
AT&T: 7 Mbps down, 1 Mbps up, 25 ms ping
Verizon: 0.5 Mbps down, 0.5 Mbps up, 29 ms ping
T-Mobile: no service
Campground Wi-Fi: none

Amenities:

Garbage dumpster
Golf course

Our review on Campground Reviews:

Nice golf course view

This was a well-maintained campground in a nice state park with a 9-hole golf course. We were in the full-hookup loop with a terrific view over the course and really enjoyed a nice, quiet stay. Our site was a bit unlevel front-to-back, but we got it level with a couple of extra blocks under the front levelers. The site was huge, with a nice covered picnic table and shade trees at the front, but with a good clear view of the sky at the back for the Starlink. We camped at Lockhart State Park in a Motorhome.

An interactive map of the RV park; our site was on the south side of the circle near the center of the map:

Park map sign:

Park map sign

Info sign:

Info sign

Bathrooms:

Bathrooms

Our site:

Our site

Lockhart is the “BBQ capital of Texas”, so of course each site has a smoker:

Smoker

The utilities were conveniently positioned:

Utilities

Cellular service was limited, so we broke out the Starlink Dishy again; it had an unobstructed view of the sky:

Starlink Dishy

We also used our griddle, and ate several meals outside:

Our site

You may think “duh, don’t you always?” No, we don’t always use the griddle or eat outside, depending on the weather and other factors. We’re not camping, this is our life. We have a good kitchen and comfy dining table inside, sometimes that’s just easier. Similarly, almost all campsites come with a picnic table; this one has a nice shelter over it. But we hardly ever use them; our folding chairs and table are more comfortable.

A sunset between the trees:

Sunset