Day 114, Monday, November 26, 2018 - Matagorda Bay Nature Park, TX, Day 2

Monday, November 26, 2018 - Matagorda Bay Nature Park, TX, Day 2 - 0 Miles, 6,681.5 Miles for the Trip

A couple more arrivals during the day - a Scamp 19 and an Escape 19 here in the park, and an Escape and two Casitas in the parking lot at the end of the road. I suspect they are the same group that labeled themselves as "protesters" two years ago and avoided paying the $5.00 per day per person entry fee by camping in the parking lot until the last couple of days of the rally.

I did check the cell service here at the park. AT&T provides a 3G, 1.6Mb download & .7 Mb upload with a -107dBm signal. Yesterday Verizon was providing 1X service (no data), but today there is a -98dBm 4G LTE signal that is providing 10.2 Mb download and 6.2 Mb upload. While there is a park WiFi, and it works for reading mail & web pages, it wouldn't let me upload my page to my ISP or Google, all I get is test errors when trying to check the speed. In any case, no problems with cell data here at the park.

A very windy night. I started to hear a intermittent "clunk" when the wind got strong (gusts up to 30 MPH) during yesterday afternoon, but couldn't tell where it was coming from. Before dark I got out my ladder & check to make sure the solar panel bolts were still tight - they were. I couldn't find the problem, so ignored it, mostly because the wind died down. It started back up around 11:00, and the clunking was driving me crazy. It was very intermittent, so when I moved around the trailer trying to locate it, it would stop, then start again when I got back in the bed. I finally decided it had to be the cap for the sewer connection - the only think I could think of that was loose, but couldn't blow away. It has a hanging strap to keep it from getting lost. So, at 11:30 I'm outside with a flashlight using a bungee cord to tie it down. Evidently it was the problem; the noise went away.

Back to today. I decided to wait until after my 3:00 eye drops to do a load of laundry. They have home type front loading Kenmore washers & dryers - you pay $4.00 at the visitor center per load. They worked fine, but I made the mistake of choosing the "Heavy" cycle, which runs an hour and 45 minutes. By the time I got the clothes out of the dryer, it was 6:45.

I did my usual shower during the drying cycle - quite cool in the bathroom, but they had an overhead quartz infrared heating strip on a timer. Only problem is the knob was loose on the shaft so you couldn't turn on the timer. No problem as long as you have a handy Leatherman! There is a large drying room with bench (where the heating strip is focused) for the three shower stalls, each shower with a very small drying area, three clothes hooks, and a 6" shelf. High pressure, low volume permanent showerhead. The water temperature kept going from hot enough to lukewarm, feeling like you were running out of hot water, but then getting hot again. Maybe an on demand water heater? In any case, it worked out OK. Fairly soft water, but no where near as bad as that at City of Rocks State Park in New Mexico where you spend twice the time rinsing that you do washing.

I also ate dinner during the dryer run. I microwaved the last of my frozen containers of left over chicken stew.

Until Tomorrow -