Elepent

The lack of boondocking love in Dallas didn’t hurt our feelings too badly; we had planned to head out of town before too long anyway.  And we did just that, hooking up the AEV and heading south to Austin.  Though it’s a short-ish hop–only 195 miles or so–the cultural landscape undergoes a light-year’s worth of change.  Where Dallas is very Texan Big Business, Austin leans more toward the cultural-mecca end of the spectrum.  The money in Austin isn’t as big (though it’s definitely there: regular spotting of Ferraris and Lamborghinis on the road attest to this), and the focus is on entertainment and lifestyle rather than being the biggest and brightest.

Austin’s unique for its social makeup, in which seasoned hippies rub elbows with college-age hipsters, new-money industrialists, hardworking laborers and an army of musicians.  Oh, yes, Nashville calls itself the Music City, but Austin’s got a great deal more to interest us tune-wise, because its music scene’s a lot more diverse.  We arrived in town just in time for the annual South by Southwest music festival, which we’ll talk about later.

While you’re downtown getting a feel for the college-y Sixth Street bar district, or its more mature counterpart over on Fourth, be sure to arrive before dusk to check out the bats.  The South Congress bridge, over what looks like a river but is actually called Lady Bird Lake or Town Lake, depending on which end of it you’re at, is the summer home of the largest urban colony of Mexican freetailed bats in North America.  Over 1.5 million of these tiny midnight fliers roost under the bridge, and at sunset they head out to take care of business.  The daily exodus is something to see, as the masses of bats take to the air in a steady flow lasting forty minutes or more.  Don’t be afraid; a large crowd gathers nightly to see them take off, and the bats don’t pose any threat to humans.   These little guys eat insects–up to 10,000 to 20,000 pounds a night, which helps to keep the mosquito population down–and aren’t interested in getting tangled in your hair.

This diverse town also offers many places to eat, of course.  It would take years to visit them all, but we can recommend Banzai and Ichiban for sushi and excellent Japanese fare, the tree-themed Woodland for a fantastic breakfast or elegant supper, Curra’s Grill for outstanding Tex-Mex and local favorite Threadgill’s for homestyle American cuisine.  If you want it, you can probably find it.  Looking for Thai?  Try Thai Passion, downtown.  How about Romanian?  Austin’s got you covered; head up to the tiny, family-owned Drakula.  Austin’s also home to the Alamo Drafthouse, a premier dinner-and-a-movie joint.

It seems as though even the “regular” businesses in Austin are somehow cooler.  Why bother with Blockbuster when you’ve got I Luv Video, whose shelves are stocked with just about every obscure and cult DVD you could ask for?  Where most video stores are hard-pressed to offer a full selection of anything but the newest releases, I Luv Video has sections devoted to specific directors’ entire catalogs.  There’s a row containing nothing but classic silent films.  The knowledgeable staff is also well-versed in cinematic trivia, and stickers with commentary on the films at hand are common throughout the store.  Thumbnail reviews by the staff are also found at Book People.  This massive independent bookstore is a great place for browsing.

Speaking of browsing, the South Congress Street antique shopping district is also worth a weekend walk.  You’re guaranteed to find something you didn’t know you needed at Uncommon Objects, to see an awesome rat rod or a flotilla of Vespa scooters parked or on the road, and don’t forget to hit the carnival goodness that is the Big Top candy shop.

RV camping is a bit spendy in downtown Austin (unless you’re coming from California).  The Pecan Grove RV park is a quaint, retro-style park that’s literally right in the heart of downtown, within walking or biking distance to most of the stuff we just talked about as well as the lovely Zilker Park and Barton Creek Springs.  We stayed at Pecan Grove for a few days, then moved farther out of town to save money.  If you’re willing to trek ten or fifteen miles out of town, the prices are more reasonable.  We pulled into the Highway 71 RV Park expecting to stay for a week or two, and wound up settling in for quite a while.  Highway 71 has a decent mix of vacationers and long-term residents, extremely clean facilities, free wi-fi and a friendly staff.   If you stay near the man-made pond, the resident ducks will come to your door begging for handouts and heedless of the fact that bread isn’t particularly good for them (we gave them cat food).

More on Austin shortly…

The Incorrigible spent a lot of its stay in northern Texas at Fun Time RV or Camping World in Denton, having new stuff installed.  Home improvement is fun, after all!

Most of the fixes were in the name of making our rolling home more livable, of course.  Up front, we had noticed a water leak in the ceiling that we traced to the seal on the front rooftop AC unit.  Repairing it is simple enough; you just lift up the 75-100 pound air conditioner, put a new seal in, and drop it back into place.  Riiiight.  We decided that if we had to be removing the AC unit anyway, we might as well replace it.  The fifteen year-old air conditioner was nearing the end of its life in any case, and as we’re hoping to improve the Incorrigible’s energy efficiency over a more energy-friendly newer air conditioner is a step in the right direction.

We chose a Carrier AirV heat pump.  Heat pumps are handy, as they combine heating and cooling capability into a single unit.  In cool weather (60 to 40 degrees F) the heat pump blows enough warm air that our furnace doesn’t have to kick on at all, thereby saving our LP.  The installation went without a hitch, and we’ve noticed a drop in our electric bill since we started using the Carrier as well.

While the folks at Fun Time RV were working on the roof, we had them remove the flap-style plastic front roof vent and replace it with a MaxxFan.
Since we already have one ceiling vent fan, a second one will make air circulation much more efficient–one blows in, the other blows out, and the process keeps things from getting too stale inside.  It’ll help keep the Incorrigible cool on hot spring days without running the air conditioning, too.   This cool (no pun intended) device combines the fan and rain cover into a single unit.  The fan is located behind the vent, and the whole unit folds flat.  Side protection and the reverse-slant vent mean that the MaxxFan can be left open in the rain without fear of water blowing inside and it can be left open or closed when driving unlike some flimsy vents which will break if left open on the highway.

Slickest of all, the MaxxFan is power-operated.  Instead of turning a manual crank, all we need to do is press a button and the MaxxFan rises quickly open, the fan spinning up automatically.  Yes, we’ve been playing with it constantly.  An infrared remote control unit means we don’t even have to get up to turn it on or off.

Our first few days with the MaxxFan were interesting.  The unit worked perfectly…but perhaps a little bit too well.  At unexpected times, when turned off, the MaxxFan would suddenly open itself, or turn the fan on.  A telltale beep told us that the unit was receiving a signal from the remote, even though our remote had not been activated.  We guessed that the MaxxFan was picking up stray signals, and called MaxxAir for guidance. They confirmed that something was indeed sending it a stray signal, and suggested we put a piece of electrical tape over the sensor.  This stopped it from opening at will, but rendered the remote useless, of course.  The MaxxFan representative said he’d call us back in a few days with more guidance, but that was over a month ago now, so we may be giving him another ring soon…

We also upgraded our water filtration.  The Everpure water filtration system put a stop to our under-sink leaks once and for all.  Not only does this large-canister microfiltration system strain the nasty stuff out of our water with a filter that can last up to a year depending on water condition, but it allowed us to bypass the perennially-leaking joint under the sink that was going to be a complete bastard to replace.

Last but not least, the Incorrigible got a new set of shoes.  We bid farewell to the sad, bulging, dry-rotted rubber that was on the coach when we bought it and installed a set of new Goodyear RV tires.  Up front, we chose Goodyear’s Unisteel G949 RS tire.  The GS949 features an easy-rolling tread pattern that’s designed to evacuate water and prevent hydroplaning.  “Penetration protectors” in the tread reduce the danger of punctures and unexpected flat tires.  The four G933 tires we installed at the rear have a very aggressive tread with squared-off, reinforced shoulders.  At a glance, they look like mud tires.  The Incorrigible, like many older RVs, lacks traction control, and we’ve come close to getting stuck on a couple of slick RV park dirt roads.  We’re hoping that the heavily lugged tread of the G933s will boost our traction without negatively affecting our fuel economy.

We’re not done with this rig by a long shot, of course.  Next steps:  fix the window leaks, find some hubcaps for those greasy-ass wheels, and perhaps we’ll start on another round of interior-decoration upgrades, as well.

We returned from Chicago to find that the Incorrigible’s house batteries were dead.  The refrigerator had defrosted, probably a day or so into our trip, so the leftovers and perishables had to be tossed.  This was disappointing, as we lost a pork roast and some delicious-looking steaks that we’d frozen for a rainy day.

This image has nothing to do with this post, it's just cute. Guess who got which?

What was more frustrating was that we couldn’t seem to get the batteries re-charged.  Things were all right as long as the generator was running, but once it was shut down, the batteries drained again.  This is where we’re glad for the Incorrigible’s redundant electrical systems.  There are three batteries; one for the engine, and two that power the house lights and other ancillaries.  In the event that the engine battery goes dead, there’s a switch that’ll allow the house batteries to jump-start the engine.  Conversely, if the house batteries die, starting the engine will provide enough juice to fire up the generator, which then charges the house batteries.  So we weren’t stranded or left without power at any point, merely confused.  I checked the batteries, which seemed to be in good condition and not in need of water.  Curious…

The mystery was solved later in the day; somehow, the lights in the RV’s understorage bays got turned on just before we left.  The switch is located on a pedestal next to the exit door, so it’s not unthinkable that one of us might’ve bumped it on the way out.  With the lights underneath burning, it was only a matter of time before the batteries died.  Once the lights were turned off, all was well again.

We took some time in Dallas to perform necessary upgrades to the Incorrigible, as well.  We installed new tires, replaced the front air conditioner and seal, installed a new water filtration system and upgraded an air vent.   If you want the technical details on those things, they’ll be in an upcoming post shortly, so we can keep this one short-ish.