Lone Star Birds Austin Rally

[mbulriss]

The Lone Star Birds had another successful rally this past weekend in
Austin Texas on the shores of Lake Travis, hosted by Chet & Christine
Geist. Eleven coaches were represented, with Steve & Pat Gureasko
again being the long distance winners. Newcomers were the Cunninghams
of Mathis Texas, having purchased John Benham's FC. Eric Johnson and
I had separately taken the scenic route (back roads) up from San
Antonio and decided that was definitely not going to be the way back!
RR12 and Barton Springs Road (I think it was) had some seat puckering
spots for both of us, mine courtesy of oncoming rock haulers, and Eric
was glad not to have had a wide body (coach that is) on those roads.

It was a nice balmy weekend with a new local record for Saturday at
102. In spite of that, the Texas Minvan's ACs kept the inside at 70
where we had it set. Mainly we stayed in cool spaces - inside!

As per the usual for LSB gatherings, we always eat well! Friday
evening was Italian soup night, courtesy of Chet & Christine Geist and
Sue Bulriss. Saturday morning was the traditional potluck breakfast
followed by a craft session for the girls making jeweled 'dessert
servers' (AKA spatulas for us guys). The men helped mainly by paying
for the craft supplies and staying out of the way on the shady side of
the deck outside the clubhouse, where we learned that Ellis Brannam
now has 7(!!) buses, having just acquired a 60 Flxible. Makes the
many of us that have had two Birds at once seem like we were not
really trying! Actually that's one event I do not care to win or ever
participate in again. After an exhausting ;^) jaw-boning session on
the deck, we had leftover Italian soup for lunch. At lunch, John
Benham and I learned that Eric and Mary Ann Johnson are not really
from France, contrary to their Mother Ship profile on VintageBirds.
We still don't get it....

After an afternoon on our own, somehow it seemed like a good idea for
the men to stand around BBQ grills in the blazing sun during the
record setting Saturday afternoon temperature! Hmmm, thank goodness
for liquid refreshments. Sunday morning we consumed made-to-order
breakfast tacos (large and tasty).

After good byes, most folks eventually wandered off for home. Luckily
for me, Michael Kane (a current 2 Bird owner, with one for sale)
stayed over until Monday, so he helped me rip apart my 50A power plug
when the cord burned my hand when disconnecting it from the pedestal
before departure. Seems the neutral cable in my plug decided to
wiggle loose some time before. Sure melted the pedestal outlet to my
plug! Yes, I told the park about it!

Soooo, I took the IH-35 route home past Camping World and got one of
those heavy duty yellow plugs with the hand grip built into the back.
After arriving back at the shop, I cut the cable back and wired up my
new plug. Then I went to plug it into my 50-30 dog bone. NO GO!
What the heck? Maybe that's why there were so many heavy duty dog
bones that matched the new yellow 50A plug end!? Marketing at it's
finest! The ground plug on the new plug absolutely would not go into
my old dog bone - it was just slightly too big. I finally gave up and
put the Bird in the barn and used 110 extension cords to individually
plug in the battery charger and the refrigerator. Today, I visited
three RV parts houses where two of them verified it was not my
imagination. Two of them could not get the heavy duty yellow 50A plug
ends (which they also had) to fit into any of the regular black 50-30
dog bones they had. None of the three had the corresponding yellow
dog bones. One of the first two admitted they had seen the problem
before (but obviously still didn't carry compatible dog bones! duh).
The third parts house also had the heavy duty yellow 50A plugs and no
matching dog bones. They did however find a heavy duty black dog bone
that the yellow plug went into, so it saved me a 40 mile (one-way)
trip back to Camping World for a matching yellow-ended one. You might
want to remember this if you change your old plug end out to the new
heavy duty yellow one with the built-in handle.

By the way, on the way home we also stopped by a Cabelas on IH-35
since we had not been in one before. The prices were high, but the
stuffed animal displays were well worth the stop if you have not been
in one either.

All in all, it was another nice weekend with the Lone Star Birds.
Please join us for one if you can.

Mike Bulriss
1991 WB40 "Texas Minivan"
San Antonio, TX where it finally rained today!