Friday, February 19, 2021

Day 64, 65, 66, 67 - Harlingen, TX - TT

Tuesday (64) - It didn't get as cold last night probably because there wasn't the high wind. RVs don't have a lot of insulation and they could lose a lot of heat with wind. Right now, it's 36°F and getting warmer. I reconnected all of the utilities but the campground water pressure is only 20psi. There must still be be water leaks somewhere in the park. Yesterday, the maintenance guy mentioned that he had fixed over twenty broken pipes. 

Today seemed like a good day to be running the convection oven so I made some cornbread and cookies. This is the same cornbread recipe that I used before except I added some thawed, frozen corn and used the cast iron pan that I had brought back from home in December. It's been getting regular use especially to sear after sous vide.

At 3:30, it has warmed up to 43°F and the low temperature isn't supposed to be much below that. These temperatures are apparently causing a lot of problems in this area since most houses rely on their heat pumps (electric) for heat. And they don't really do that well when the temperature drops below ~40°F.

Wednesday (65) - It seems that people in Texas are panicking due to the cold temperatures. Bridget went to get gas in the car this morning and the first station she went to had run out of gas. Now, she's waiting in line at another station. We had dinner with Galen and Cindy last night and they mentioned that store shelves were emptied out of things like water.

The weather forecast is for the highs approaching 60°F today and into the 70s (°F) by the weekend. Hopefully, things improve dramatically up north by Monday as that's when we plan on heading to Georgetown, TX. Just a little bit north of Austin.  

Until now, I wasn't sure that the Anytone HT was working on analog frequencies. I had configured up about six VHF frequency pairs on the radio but had not heard any traffic. There was a local net at 7pm on one of the repeaters and there were dozens and dozens of people joining in. So, at least I now know that the radio works on analog VHF. Though the standard antenna may be a bit lacking. I ordered up a Nagoya 771 but due to the weather, who knows when it'll get shipped.

Thursday (66) - Due to infrastructure problems here in Texas, we may delay leaving the area. This is the Texas DOT map showing closures. The grey are snow reports. I just checked the weather in Georgetown and it's currently snowing. It is also snowing at Medina Lake TT which is where we are planning to be in a week. Much of this area is also having rolling power outages. What a mess…

I picked up an Amazon box this morning from the mail room and was told that most of the distribution centers were shut down due to power outages. She was surprised to see that my box was delivered. My package had sat in San Antonio for a couple of days according to the USPS tracking. Nothing exciting. Black tank chemical…

Friday (67) - Sunny and breezy is the condition today. We decided to postpone our trip to Georgetown and stick around here for three more days. We are headed for Medina Lake TT which is about an hour west of San Antonio. The hope is that everything will be getting back to normal by then. 

But the best part is they unlocked the gates to to pool area. I think people have complained about having them locked. Especially since it wasn’t that cold. The management may disagree about that considering how many broken water pipes they had to fix. 

A lot of the green that was here when we arrived is now “less green”. But it’s warm with just a gentle breeze so it’s hard to complain. 

Bridget ended up stopping at Walmart and asked about groceries. I wasn’t planning to look for groceries until next week. Others around the park mentioned that people were buying a months worth of food not even knowing when they were going to get power restored. I don’t really understand the panic buying. 


4 comments:

  1. Ah, panic buying....another symptom and result of the fear pushed by "the news". I am going o continue heading west for now given your report of conditions in Texas... hopefully the powers that be take note of the fragility of the Texas power grid.... apparently something similar happened in 2011 and recommendations were made and duly ignored apparently.

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    1. Like you mentioned, this isn’t the first time they’ve had problems.

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  2. Ah, the end is nigh. Zombie apocalypse? We also had a few local power grid failures and mostly for the same reason Texas is in the deep end right now... lack of maintenance and backup generators, broken pipes due to bad insulation etc.
    Take care and be safe out there.

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    1. Some parts of TX is on the national power grid and they had no power problems. But there’s still the problem of not preparing for cold weather and reliance on single sources of energy.

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