A Little Escape from life's Dramas

For over two months I’ve been trying to write about a little trip we took to Cedar Hill State Park in October.  It was close to home and only two days long but since it was our first RV “trip” in 12 months it felt special and momentous. 

I don’t want to let the memories keep getting buried by some dramas that have been hitting us since. Trying to chronicle all of them in this post, is unrealistic and will delay it even longer. Maybe I'll write about them some other time.  

In part, the trip was meant to be preparation for a longer one we were planning for mid-November (which ended up not happening after all, but I digress). We wanted to see if anything needed repairing before the longer trip. Also since we had not gone anywhere in the RV for so long, we wanted to refresh our memories on how to do various things. And there were a couple of chores we needed to do to the RV: it was overdue for its annual state safety inspection and its fresh water system was due for its yearly disinfecting with bleach. 

The trip was a “success” on all points. We got the chores done and still had time to enjoy ourselves. We were glad to discover that we did remember, with the help of lots of checklists, how to do all the various jobs involved in operating the RV and hooking and unhooking the tow car.  We were not so glad however, that we also discovered a couple of things that needed repairing. 

Just before we left home for the trip we added a 1/2 cup of bleach to our fresh water tank. Next stop: Ten Minute Oil Change for the state inspection. When that was finished and before heading to the state park we did the next step to disinfect the fresh water system by turning on each faucet until we smelled bleach coming out to make sure it was spread through all the fresh water pipes. 

On the way to the park we discovered our first mechanical problem. The truck AC started making a loud buzzing sound. (Yes it can get warm enough for AC even in October in Dallas!) John hurriedly shut it off.  We've had it repaired several times since we bought the RV but it keeps breaking down. So it was definitely disappointing. But we made a mental note to deal with it after the new year since, we thought, it won't really be needed until Spring '21. (Wrong--we definitely wished we had it on a recent trip over Christmas.)  

We arrived at the park early, a rare and welcome occurrence for us. Since no one was in the site the night before, they let us check in and set up. The girl said that is often the case during the week. (Good to remember.)

We were in site 215. It had full hook ups (with sewer) which we wanted for flushing the bleach out of the fresh water system. It was long enough for the Honda to park in front of the RV and looked fairly level in the pictures on-line. Though after leveling the RV with the jacks the front tires ended up being a little off the ground. (John said the site was 2 degrees off.)

 

The site has a nice secluded picnic area

The weather was clear and sunny outside with cool breezes in the shade. It was hot inside the RV though and I didn't want to waste any of the lovely fall weather cooped up inside, so I took my lunch out to to our pretty picnic area where it was cool and shady. 

After lunch we went for a little walk around our camping loop and then hung out and rested and got settled until the pipes had their requisite three and a half hours of bleach treatment. 

The next step in the process was to run the faucets until the sixty gallons of water (with the bleach added) had all run out and the fresh water tank was empty. John dumped the waste water tanks and then we refilled the fresh water tank. We ran the faucets again to flush out all the bleach residue. I think we ended up emptying the fresh water tank at least once more. And that was our second big chore done.

After that John went for a longer walk and I hung out and had a shower--(I know TMI, sorry ;-).

After dinner we drove to a picnic area at the other end of the park to watch the sunset.

The next morning we woke up early so we were able to fit in a visit to historical Penn Farm Agricultural History Center before John was scheduled to go help a coworker move. I wrote in my journal, "one of the 'advantages' of being close to home--we can still keep up with other obligations." It didn't really feel like an advantage at the time though, but I decided to think of it that way since it meant we didn't have to wait until we had a completely free week to get away.

Penn Farm Agricultural History Center is part of Cedar Hill State Park. The land was owned and farmed by the Penn family from the mid-1800s through the mid-1900s. The site has buildings and equipment constructed and used by the Penn family. I took lots of pictures. This is just a few of them.

 

It was a beautiful morning just after sunrise when we arrived. 

I think the building in the background is the original barn.

I wanted to say here is an old "John Deere" with my John dear ;-).
But I can't see a brand name on the tractor...

I wonder if the neighbors ever thought, "why don't they get rid of that old rusty junk?" But now we are glad they didn't!

The original "Old" Penn farmhouse, built in 1859.
 

A "New" Penn farmhouse was built in 1876. There is a reconstruction of it in another part of the exhibit.  It is currently used as the park administrative offices. 

There isn't anything in the "old" one, we looked. It's ok to be a looky-lu here!

These flowers were next to the gate of the Old house

It was great to be there so early. We had the place to ourselves. And the morning sun cast a lovely golden glow on the trees. 

 

All too soon we had to return to our campsite so John could head over to his friend's house. After he left I had a nice time alone journaling and having my "quiet time."

When John finished helping with his friend's move he ran some errands and went home to get something--another benefit of camping nearby. 

After he returned we went for a hike and picnic on the 3 mile, "short" DORBA trail. (DORBA stands for Dallas Off Road Bicycle Association) The trail is called "challenging" on the trail map. But I thought it was more like "moderate." The primary challenge was when we had to quickly jump out of the way when mountain bikers came around blind corners without ringing their bell in time to warn us.  

It was a fun hike but I was glad it wasn't longer. I was definitely tired by the end of it.

We had a picnic lunch on a bench under a large shade tree about half way along the trail.

We had a distant view of Joe Pool Lake on part of the trail

And the delightful surprise of seeing some Monarch butterflies along the way.

The next day, Friday, was our last day. We were hoping to get a walk in before leaving but it rained all morning. So instead we spent the time decluttering and organizing, which I thoroughly enjoyed and John patiently endured.

Thanks for coming along on this little trip down memory lane. I hope that reading it has been a nice escape for you, like writing it has been for me.

p.s. I just realized I didn't mention the second mechanical problem we discovered. Maybe I'll write about it next. Or maybe not. We'll see.