Winter Weather in Livingston, TX

Friday - At noon, it is only 49°F. I reconnected the water and filled the fresh water tank (through the water softener) to 85%. I'll disconnect it tonight as I really don't want to damage the water softener. 

Saturday - Today was pretty cold with a low this morning of just below freezing. Tonight’s low is forecast to be in the mid-20s (°F) and it barely rose to 44°F with lots of sunshine. We are planning to head out on Monday as there is a warming trend in the forecast.

On Wednesday’s drive, I wanted to take a toll road to make sure our transponder worked plus I was curious what the toll would be for the motorhome towing the Jeep. We were charged the truck rate. The trip on 99 around Houston came out to $44. Pretty pricy. The good news is that the transponder works. Just in case we want to use it in the future. (I’m thinking of future east coast trips)

Livingston, TX

Wednesday - We left the SKP park around 10:30 heading east after several weeks of delays. Hopefully, we didn’t leave too early as another cold front is in the forecast. We arrived at the Escapee park in Livingston, TX, around 4:30pm. It was a nice, relaxing drive. It’s nice to be on the road again in the class A. 

Thursday - Clear and sunny and has warmed up to the mid-60s. Warm enough to sit outside. We walked over to the mail forwarding office to sign up for the scanning option. This is the location of our mail forwarding service. 

Due to inclement weather forecast to arrive this weekend along our route through Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and northern Florida, we decided to hang around here for several more days. Below freezing temperatures, with heavy fog along the I-10 corridor is something I’d rather not deal with. By Monday, the warming trend is forecast to begin. 

One of the other VEs lives here in Livingston at the Escapee park and stopped by to visit. 

Winter’s Here

Sunday - It looks like winter has arrived in TX. The forecast was for much lower temperatures but I still wouldn’t venture out on the roads. The only ice was on the metal steps at the RV door. The steps were pretty slippery. 

I went to Sunday morning coffee, as usual, but I was the only one there. But, since I was there, I went ahead and started this blog post with some coffee. 

The current plan, which is always subject to change, is to head out on Tuesday. If the road conditions aren’t halfway decent, I’m tempted to wait another day. Texas DOT has this obsession with flyovers at just about every major highway intersection, and bridges are the first thing to freeze, and, according to the weather apps, Houston is getting freezing rain. 

Tonight’s forecast is for a low of 16°F. We’ll see if that’s accurate. 

Tuesday - The low temperature last night was 24°F, and tomorrow it's forecast to be around 31°F. So we are planning to head out tomorrow mid-morning. There hasn't been any precipitation, so I'm not anticipating any road issues. The current plan 

Out and About

Thursday - I needed a couple of things from town today, including some Stabil for the Ural. They had it at Tractor Supply as well as a light fixture for an incandescent bulb. I'll put the fixture under the trash can on the other lot to keep the water spigot above freezing. It seemed like a good reason for a ride, even if it is only about 15 miles or so. And it had crept above 50°F. I had made Spam musubi a couple of days ago, and one of them made a great breakfast. While I was getting ready to leave Walmart, a younger guy on a Sportster came by for a chat. He was wondering why he saw so few riders out on such a nice day. I mentioned the "rule" about only riding when the temperature is above your age. He hadn't heard that one before. 

By the way, incandescent bulbs are hard to find. I found a 2-pack a couple of years ago, and I was glad that I still had the second bulb. LED bulbs have taken over. After the morning test session, I'll set up the light on the other site. Until the lot sells, it's still our responsibility, so the shed is still insured, and I need to take precautions against the water spigot freezing. The low temperature on Sunday early morning is expected to drop into the teens.  

Saturday - More cold weather prep today. I put Stabil in the class C gas tank and ran both the engine and generator to try and get it mixed into the fuel and into the carb and efi. Plus, I charged up the lithium batteries and the generator AGM battery. It was only down around 5% but very little solar with all the overcast conditions. Between the engine and generator charging, it went pretty fast. 

Later - At 5:30pm, the temperature had dropped to 35°F. And, it looks like precipitation is in the forecast. Today, I drained the tanks, disconnected the fresh water, and added some anti-gel to the fuel tank. I then ran the engine for about 15 min to kind of mix things up in the tank, then ran the generator for about ten minutes. To get some of that fuel into that fuel system. 

The UPS keeps beeping. I think it doesn’t like the old Magnum modified sine wave, i.e. square wave, inverter. I changed the settings to tolerate the worst AC input. Hopefully that helps.

The forecasted low is below freezing tonight and for the next several days. A lot of people are really worried about the temperature as the freezing rain could cause power outages. We have the 7.5KW generator and an almost full tank of diesel so not expecting any issues.