Day 74, 75 - Whitney, TX - TT

Tuesday (74) -  We stopped at the HEB gas station in Cleburne, TX, to fill up the car. $1.649/gal! A nice change from over $2/gal. Bridget is heading up to Fairbanks so I dropped her off at a hotel near DFW for her morning flight. We went to a poke bowl place near her hotel for lunch. Absolutely delicious!

On Saturday, I'll be moving the motorhome to an RV park in Athens, TX. After getting it set up, I head back to DFW for my trip back home. Bridget is flying back on the same day and she will drive back to the RV park. I fly up on Sunday morning as I have four appointments scheduled for Dec 14th. I'm flying up a week ahead of time due to the Alaska Covid requirements. An urgent care clinic in Cleburne, TX, had a listing in Google saying that they offered no referral Covid testing so I made an appointment for late morning on Thursday.

We also stopped at Batteries+Bulbs to pick up two chassis batteries for the RV. They are group 31 w/950 CCA each with studs instead of posts. I will be installing them tomorrow and returning the old batteries on Thursday when I drive back up for my Covid test.

Wednesday (75) - This morning, I swapped in the new chassis batteries. I'm not really sure why there are so many cables. But it's done. The new batteries are the same brand (Duracell) AGM batteries as the old ones and just as heavy. The dates on the old batteries was 06/18 so they were only 2½ years old. I suspect that they were run down to near dead too many times.

A test start followed. No engine block heater and it had dropped to 45°F this morning. While the grid heater was on, the old battery would drop to about 11.9V after about 20 seconds. With the new battery, it dropped to only 13.1V and the engine cranked very fast. I'd say that it really did need new starting batteries. BTW, very little smoke. Just a puff when it first starts then almost none while warming up. To me, this is normal behavior. The grid heater is working as it's supposed to. I suspect that the grid heater hasn't been working as long as we've owned it. Now, I'm not as concerned about being flagged as a "gross polluter".

I made a quick trip to the grocery store to look for Calgon. Unsuccessful finding the Calgon water softener liquid. The local grocery store, Brookshire's, takes Apple Pay, which is now my preferred method. I believe Safeway does as well but Walmart has refused as they would lose the ability to harvest customer information. To me, that sounds like a good reason to avoid Walmart.