Winter in Texas Day Four – Trouble at Ann’s house

Everything’s bigger in Texas!

New Years Eve morning 2018 we rolled out of Cajun Palms, heading to “Cousin Ann’s house” in Montgomery, Texas. Montgomery is a suburb north of Houston, some 250 miles from Cajun Palms.
After a nice drive including a couple hours on a rural 2 lane, we were in front of Ann’s house.

We’d been here before, with our 40′ Monaco, and I’d gotten that coach in her long skinny driveway and parked by the side of the garage for a great couple week stay.

This time, in a 45 foot coach, I’m not so lucky. The driveway crosses a ditch, and flares only slightly to the street. On the near side is a big brick mailbox. To get away from the mailbox, I drove to the end of the street and did a 3 point turn in the cul-de-sac, then tried to swing wide, miss the mailbox, and make the turn into the driveway. I got the wrong angle and the rear tires tracked in too tight. Carol managed to get my attention before the right rear dropped into the ditch, and I backed out. I figured I’d back off the road to get a little more room to make the turn. This is when everything went terribly wrong. It had been a very rainy month, and the ground was very wet. When I tried to go forward, I had no traction at all!

I found I could go backwards a little, but any attempt to go forward, the tires spun in the wet mud. Rather than dig in further, I just called coachnet and waited. Coachnet is our Emergency Road Service company, they specialize in these big coaches. After an hour this little bitty tow truck showed up. I greeted him with “you’re kidding right?” It seems Coachnet was trying to get out cheap. He hooked this little chain to my front suspension, and tried to move the coach by driving his truck forward. It wouldn’t budge. No movement at all. He took his toys and went home. I didn’t even get a picture, but it was an Isuzu flatbed, the kind you would pick up a car with. Not even close. I called Coachnet back, told them the story, and an hour later a properly giant truck backed down the street to the coach. This thing was huge! Somewhat other worldly looking too. It was dark now, and he had some huge lights on the back of this truck. Big thanks to Milstead Automotive for their quick response, fabulous equipment, and great operator. In a matter of minutes, he pegged the truck down with it’s rear legs, set a pulley to keep the chain below the front of the RV, hooked a fabric strap to the RV’s frame, and just winched my baby out of the mud. It was so easy!

It seemed spending the night on the side of the road was a smart thing, so I put the slides out on the curb side, started the generator, and called it good. We went inside and enjoyed a nice dinner by Ann and Carol. I went out and turned in early, and they stayed in the house and talked half the night. Cousins had lots of catching up to do.