Our Verizon MiFi Jetpack has been giving me trouble connecting to the laptop.  Still not sure what the problem is… I assumed during our overnight stop in Junction, TX that it was just a coverage issue, but the problem continues here in Fort Hood.  I called Verizon support and the tech had me remove the battery to access the SIM card which I cleaned and re-inserted.  Voila… it worked, at least for a little while, but once I shut it down and tried it later the problem was back.  I’m beginning to think it’s the laptop WiFi that is the issue.  I would normally use a workaround and turn our AT&T iPhone hotspot on, but it’s painfully slow here at the Fort Hood RV park.  Anyway, after numerous restarts and troubleshooting attempts, I’m somehow miraculously back online for the moment, so I thought I’d update the blog a little bit and at least cover our overnight stay in Junction, TX on our way to Fort Hood, where we are now.  I’ll cover our stay at Fort Hood in my next post (internet connectivity permitting) 🙂

We left the Oasis RV Park in Van Horn, TX on the morning of the 30th and ended up in Junction, TX by evening after a long 320 mile drive.  We stayed on I-10 even though our Garmin RV GPS and google maps kept trying to make us take other roads (north of I-10) because I had plugged in Fort Hood as our end destination.  The routing software wanted us to take a more direct route but our research showed very few RV park options on the northerly routes so we stuck to the main highway.

We used one of our campground apps, in this case AllStays® and found Schreiner Park.  This city park ended up being a beautiful boondocking location and best of all, it was free 🙂

We pulled into a wide open area next to the basketball courts.  The city pool is just behind us and across the road in the picture below.

We could have parked right next to the river but there was lots of activity and a good number of locals wandering around from the nearby tent sites.  We decided on a little more privacy and stayed where we first pulled in.

We had a nice enjoyable evening walking around the park and next to the river.

From the top of the dam we could look down and see a snake trying to swallow a dead fish.  We watched the snake for a long while as it went from one end of the fish to the other in its attempt.  We’ll never know if it was successful because we finally got bored and went back to the Coach for the evening.

In Urban Escape Vehicle news… we noticed some oil (hydraulic fluid) on the ground behind the front right tire just below where the HWH hydraulic-leveling and slide-out system resides.

I narrowed down the leak to the hydraulic manifold that is hidden behind the circuit board enclosure (below).

I had Stilla operate the jacks and found that one of the brass plugs on top of the manifold (lower right corner of the picture below) was squirting out hydraulic fluid as the system was operating.  It would only leak when operating a slideout or while the jacks were going down.  After determining where the leak was coming from, I was able to get a socket on the plug and tighten it down but I had to wait until we got to Fort Hood in order to purchase and replenish the lost fluid.

I’ve been told this brass plug has an o-ring that probably went bad.  I’ll have to replace it eventually, but for now the leak is stopped.

On the 1st of July, we continued on to Fort Hood and ended up at the West Fort Hood RV Park and Travel Camp.  We paid for 5 nights at a very reasonable $14 per day.

Check back for a new update on our Fort Hood stay over the 4th of July weekend.  I got to link up with a number of old Army buddies that are in the area and we visited a couple museums…  I’ll post again soon as long as the WiFi connection is still working 🙂