My adventure, like many adventures, began with the Internet.  I looked, queried and searched from one end of the Internet to the other for the magic answer to the malady of the leaking camper toilet – discovered late night in a campsite away from home when bare feet met an unpleasant moistness coming from under the bathroom door.  Ewwww!  The Internet yielded little information other than a leaking toilet was a common problem that could be solved by a trip to the local RV repair shop and $150.  If the toilet in my home were leaking I would not call a plumber, so I reasoned there was no need to part with my hard earned cash for the sake of a dry floor…there had to be a cost effective solution!

My first break in solving the mystery came when I found a parts list for Thetford toilets, the Thetford Aqua Magic V – king of RV toilets.  If there was a parts list, someone figured a non-technical RV enthusiast like me could actually fix the leaking toilet…there was hope!  I called the local RV supplier to gain intel on the possible cause of my leak.  When I mentioned my problem over the phone, it was clear they knew the cause…and for a mere $150 they could fix it.  I pressed for more answers – initially they avoided my questions, refocusing on their professional repair staff, but I persisted.  The long interrogation, the dance of dances between between the RV shop and I did little to solve my problem, until I heard over the phone, “bring your camper by before 5 and we’ll have the water module fixed by tomorrow.” They revealed their cards, it was the water module that needed to be replaced.  “How much is the water module from your parts department?” I asked.  There was a long uncomfortable silence on the other end of the phone. “$27.89 plus tax.”

Replacement parts in hand, purchased from the crestfallen RV dealer, I rushed home to begin the repair.  To my surprise, I found clear easy to understand instructions in the package written in English by someone living in an English speaking country.  I could see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Step 1 - Turn off the water, turn off the water pump, hold the flush handle on the toilet to empty the bowl and release the water line pressure.

Simple enough! I knew this was going to be a breeze!

Step 2 – Unbolt the loo from the floor. Wait? Where are the bolts, I thought? Cleverly, Thetford concealed the bolts on the base of the toilet on either side under plastic covers.

Step 3 – Disconnect the water hose at the back of the toilet.  It sure was hard to get to, but once I figured out how to wiggle my hand back there it was easy to disconnect the water supply.

Step 4 – Get the toilet out of the bathroom – everyone knows a phone booth is bigger than an RV bathroom, so do yourself a favor and find someplace with some actual room to work. (you do know what a phone booth is, right?)  Cover the opening down into the black water tank with a towel.  That way, you’ll at least convince yourself that the bad odors are “trapped” and won’t waft up into the camper.

Step 5 – Find the water module on the back of the toilet…it’s right there, at the top where the water line connects to the toilet…that’s the annoying thing that has been leaking that you never could see because it was cleverly hidden from view and made impossibly difficult to reach.  Remove the water module from the toilet: pull the hose off on the side, then unscrew the water module, and finally depress the plastic clip that holds the water module on the toilet.  As the water module pulls away from the toilet, unhook the metal rod that connects to the flush handle.  The metal rod stays assembled to the broken water module and separates from the working toilet.

Step 6 – Reverse the steps you just completed…wait! hang on! one thing first, apply at least 2 full wraps of Teflon tape to the threads of the replacement water module.  Ok, once you’ve got that covered reverse the steps – place the replacement water module on the toilet connecting the flush rod, snapping in the plastic tab, reconnecting the flush hose, and screwing the water module to the toilet.  You’re almost done.

Step 7 - Put the toilet back in the camper, right? nope.  One thing you have to take care of first is replacing the compression seal between the commode and the black water tank.  The parts bag came with a new seal and you must remove the old one and seat the new seal so nothing leaks.  I keep gloves in my camper for emptying the black water and gray water tanks – this is a perfect opportunity to use them.  While you’re looking at the base flange (that’s the black metal ring that is secured to the floor and is what your toilet is bolted to) check out the bolts for corrosion.  In the photo you can see I have a little corrosion, but nothing that is severe or would require replacement.  If your connections to the floor are corroded, change them out now.  I do not recommend waiting until the toilet breaks away from the floor unexpectedly at 2 in the morning when you’re half asleep.  That’s generally a bad time to plan replacement of the flange and the corroded hardware.

Step 8 – Bolt the toilet back to the floor, connect the water supply line, turn on the water, check for leaks.  You have done it!

So was the adventure worth the effort?

Parts from the RV dealer = $27.89 plus tax
Cost of my time 15 min x $200/hr. = $50
Seeing the long face of the RV dealer when he knew I was going to do the job myself = Priceless!

Yep…definitely a worthwhile do-it-yourself project!

Instructions provided above are done so as a general guide and do not replace the instructions of the toilet manufacturer or RV manufacturer.  Always consult qualified help if you’re ever in doubt.

It looks like Sarah of the Wandering Off blog is sitting out this week, so if you have a Texas Photo you want to share, feel free to let us know this time!

Go South – if you’re a full-time or semi full-time RVer you can just go way south for the winter. California, South Texas, Southern Florida are definitely places where it is usually warm enough to be camping this time of year. Many of us are still tied down with those pesky day jobs though, so when the first freeze is coming, the RV is winterized, the cover is put on, and it takes a long winter nap.

Travel locally – this is something we have been trying to do more of this winter. There are always those things you never go see in your own town or region. Go see them now. Make a day trip of it. You’re out, seeing new things and sleeping in your bed at home at night. This is also a good time to visit relatives. We have some in weekend visit range. In the summer we are so busy exploring new places we don’t usually make a stop there. And, while pulling the trailer, the going is slower. So, now we can hop in the car, zoom to their house and spend a nice weekend visiting and seeing their local sights.

Lace up your boots – go hiking in your local state or city park, or try out geocaching. Geocaching can actually be a little bit easier this time of year (if there’s no snow) because there are fewer leaves to hide the cache when you do get close. If you’re in Texas, try out the Texas Geocache Challenge.We all seem to need a little more fitness this time of year anyway.

Fix it – if you have gear that needs to be repaired, spend some weekends now doing it, so you are ready that first weekend it feels like camping weather again. If you don’t know how to fix it, look for instructional videos on You Tube or check your local library for books on the topic. Also, if you have been wanted to add a small bookshelf, change the door handle or do some other type of upgrade to your RV now might be a good time to do it too.

Plan – if you can never go to the campground or state park you want to because it is always booked, get online or call and make some reservations now. Put it on your cell phone calendar or other calendar with an alert to remind you a week before so you don’t forget. Having that reminder a week before will also give you time to cancel the reservation without penalty in most cases. If you’re planning a longer vacation somewhere, start looking for resources. Send for the state travel information guide, see what books are available at the library and start checking the used bookstore. By planning now you should have plenty of time to gather the information you need. Some people get out the seed catalogs – we can get out the travel guides!

Zilker Park is an oasis in downtown Austin – filled with green spaces for sports, picnics, lounging and playing with the dog. It’s a great open space for the city. Inside the park is the Botanical Garden – 31 acres of planned gardens with themes ranging from Asian to a prehistoric dinosaur garden. There is also a butterfly garden, rose garden and several others to enjoy. The garden is free all year, but there is a $3 parking fee from March through early September. It is absolutely worth a visit if you are in Austin!

A water feature in the Asian-inspired garden.

A rose - not perfect, but it was December after all.

A bamboo forest connects one garden area to another.

So, what is geocaching you ask?  Geocaching combines elements of hiking, orienteering, a scavenger hunt, and handheld technology (what’s not to like?) in a cross country search for a hidden “cache” located at or near GPS coordinates you find at geocaching.com.  Caches can be anything from a plastic film container (you do remember what film is, right?) up to an ammo can.  Inside the cache you might find trinkets from previous visitors, a log book, or even a travel bug.  A travel bug?!? No we’re not talking about stomach discomfort from something you ate.  A travel bug is a coin, a toy, or some other object that is tagged with a serial number.  When people find a travel bug in a cache they are free to take the travel bug a move it to another cache, hence they “travel”.  Geocaching is an international sport, so it’s possible for a travel bug to be picked up and travel the globe.  The Kousin’s Kitty is one travel bug that Chris and I picked up and moved between caches.  Since we had the Kitty it’s moved to Central America and all around Europe.

Geocaching is something you can do pretty much anywhere.  Caches are located in urban areas, in rural areas and all places in between.  We have looked for geocaches near our home, along hiking trails, behind a retail shopping center in a drainage ditch, and next to a fast food drive through.  In Texas geocaches are permitted in State Parks so it is easy for Chris and I to add geocaching to our camping adventures.  Finding geocaches is a great way to be active but it also takes you to places you would have never gone – off the hiking trail, out of the campsite, and down roads you would not normally travel.  The discoveries that await you, not just the discovery of a geocache, are fantastic!  We’ve taken more than a few of our most popular and unique photographs while looking for a geocache.
Getting started with geocaching is not difficult.  There are two things that you will need: 1) a free user account on geocaching.com; and, 2) a handheld GPS unit to help you find the caches.  If you have a navigation system for your car or a portable GPS that you use for driving along the highway, you probably will not be successful at geocaching.  Geocaching involves navigating to GPS coordinates and often walking off road quite a distance to find a cache.  Navigation systems typically will not support this type of use.  Instead, opt for a handheld GPS unit designed for use by hikers.  These battery powered devices can range from the simple with text information displayed on an LCD screen, to units with color screens and maps.  We like the Garmin GPS 60Cx for our geocaching.  If you have an iPhone or other smartphone, you can also geocache using the onboard GPS receiver and geocaching software.  We like the iPhone geocaching app for its ability to identify geocaches near our campsite, but we switch to our Garmin handheld GPS as we start our hike to locate the cache.  The handheld GPS unit has far better sensitivity than the iPhone and does not consume the battery like the geocaching app does.

If you enjoy hiking or camping, give geocaching a try.  You will add variety to your hiking or travel adventure and you will discover some interesting and amazing places.  Who knows, maybe you will even pick up a world traveling travel bug like we did.  See you on the trail!

The steakhouse is located in one of Winchester’s former grocery stores. The town post office still operates inside the same building. The tin ceiling, brick walls, wood floors and mirrored bar came with the building. The salad bar sits in a little hut next to a giant pot of beans. The menu is pretty basic and definitely affordable. It’s all pretty utilitarian stuff – red plastic cups, melamine dishes and cheap silverware but maybe it’s the lighting or the decor but it just feels cozy and down home but a little elegant too. Not so elegant you can’t wear your jeans and sweatshirts of course but it’s the kind of place that would work for an anniversary dinner or a place to go after you burned the roast at home.

The food is pretty basic too. No frills, no random green leafy stuff to make the plate look pretty. But that ribeye was melt-in-your mouth delicious. Seasoned with just the right amount of salt and other spices to bring out the flavor, juicy and tender. The dinner roll? Homemade. So delicious. The fries were fine, nothing too outstanding there.

The burger was the same thing. Juicy, well seasoned, nicely grilled. On a homemade bun. Murphy’s offers up good, homemade food at reasonable prices. My steak, which had the salad bar included was $9.99. The half-pound hamburger, with fries and beans was $5.99 (plus .39 cents for cheese). Murphy’s is definitely worth the trip to Winchester. They are open Tuesday-Saturday for both lunch and dinner.

Juan in a Million is definitely a jeans and t-shirt restaurant with its casual atmosphere.  The inexpensive menu and wide variety of tacos is the perfect draw for the nearby student population from the University of Texas and Austin’s young urban dwellers alike.  Large portions of warm delicious food make Juan’s a popular choice for Mexican food in Austin.

The best known menu choice at Juan’s is the Don Juan taco – an overstuffed breakfast taco with egg, cheese, potato and bacon.  This taco is monster sized busting out of its shell.  Accompanied with an order of extra tortillas, you could easily make three or four servings out of a single Don Juan.  The taco is a delicious blend of creamy potato, salty bacon, and smooth scrambled eggs.  There are several great layers to the Don Juan but the taco lacks any complex flavors like smoky chipotle in adobo or ancho chilies.  Our impression of the dish, especially given the close proximity to the University of Texas (a top 10 party school according to the Princeton Review), is the Don Juan is targeted as the perfect hangover food – warm, comforting, smooth delicious textures, and filling.

Our outing to Juan in a Million included a sampling of several other tacos.  Here is our take on each of the tacos we sampled:

• Barbacoa – tender and well cooked beef, but the barbacoa taco is single dimensional in flavor.
• Machacan – Scrambled egg combined with dried beef, onion and tomato.  This is like a western omelet in a tortilla.  This taco has good contrast between the brightness of the tomato and the richness of the egg and the beef.  The dried beef, however, is tough which interrupts the symphony of flavors as you chew your way through each mouthful.
• Carne Guisada – Tender beef tips served in a rich gravy and wrapped in a tortilla.  The carne guisada has a hint of sweet bell pepper and onion, but like the barbacoa taco is pretty one dimensional in its flavors.  More seasoning and depth in the flavors would have made this taco a stand out.
• Chicken – Served with lettuce, tomato, and shredded cheese the chicken taco maintained great balance between the grilled chicken and other ingredients.  The chicken was well seasoned, the lettuce was crisp, and tomatoes offered bright freshness. This was a great taco.
• Chorizo and potato – Chorizo can be a great Mexican ingredient adding fantastic flavor from the pork and spices in the sausage.  This taco, however, did not meet the mark as the chorizo was overcooked, lacked spiciness or seasoning.  Combined with the starchy potato, the taco left us thinking of sand and gravel.  This taco was our least favorite of all that we tried.

Overall Juan in a Million was a good stop for a hearty low cost TexMex lunch.  We enjoyed the relaxed atmosphere, energetic staff and the owners welcome.  On future trips to Austin, we will definitely think about returning to Juan in a Million for tacos, but we will continue looking for our perfect TexMex destination.  Juan in a Million was pretty good, but not great.  The Taco Travelers give Juan in a Million three tacos out of five.

At just about 1,000 acres, Buescher State Park is certainly not the largest park in the Texas State Park system.  Amenity rich Bastrop State Park, six times as large as Buescher, is just a few miles away on well traveled Highway 71.  Unless you happen to get off the main highway onto the back roads, you might miss Buescher all together.  The good news is once you make your way into this delightful state park, you will be richly rewarded with a beautiful and diverse forest of oaks, mesquite, and skyward reaching loblolly pines.

Hiking is one of the main attractions in Buescher State Park.  A long 7.7 mile hiking loop makes its way from the trailhead near the Cozy Circle Camping Area into the oak and pine forest parallel to Park Road 1C.  Along the trail you will experience gently rolling hills, babbling streams, a hidden pond, and if you’re lucky a deer or two.  One of the things that make this hike more interesting than others we have done in Pedernales State Park or Bonham State Park is the great contrast between the tree species along the trail.  Most trails we have hiked along in Texas feature mesquite and scrub oak with some occasional cedar trees.  In East Texas the tall pines dominate the landscape, but in Buescher all of these forest elements come together and the result is stunning.
This is just what we were looking for in a hike – stimulating terrain, solitude for reflection and beautiful scenery.  The hike was invigorating but not too demanding with a couple of long gradual climbs near the start of the trail.  The hike also held our interest with something different in the terrain or the forest at nearly every turn.  A scenic overlook at the top of the climb, mossy rocks in a gentle stream, and beautiful fall colors captured our interest along the hike.  Our favorite moment was the discovery of a still mirrored surface pond in the midst of the silent forest.

This was the longest hike we have done to date – a very rewarding journey.  It’s always great when we get the opportunity to hike into the forest more than a mile or two where the solitude of the woods surrounds us.  Buescher State Park is a great place to explore and enjoy peaceful surrounds.  If you’re in Central Texas, bring your hiking boots and take a long peaceful stroll in the Lost Pines of Texas.

The Guadalajara Grill is located in a strip mall along Texas Highway 71.  This easy to find restaurant was relatively full on a weekend night, so we had high expectations that our meal would be great.  The menu at the Guadalajara Grill is extensive.  Several pages of tacos, enchiladas, chili rellenos, combination plates, home style dishes like caldo de res and carne guisada.  The large menu made our dining choices difficult.  We asked our server for recommendations but felt somewhat patronized as the waiter offered tepid suggestions, rather than the best the restaurant had to offer.

For dinner Chris tried the enchiladas verde.  At the Guadalajara Grill this dish was served with a twist.  The verde sauce, which is normally served as a tomatillo sauce, is served here as a cilantro based sauce.  The change of sauce lowers the temperature and also brings out a brighter flavor enhanced with citrus and hints of lemon.  The sauce was smooth and balanced – a delightful mild accompaniment to the enchiladas.

I ate the chipotle tacos.  These tacos were loaded with rich and complex flavors including the smoky chipotle sauce, grilled chicken, and fresh pico de gallo.  The depth of flavors in these tacos was a great counterpoint to the freshness of the ingredients in the tacos.  I especially enjoyed the spiciness of the tacos at just the right temperature – spicy but not overpowering.  Cooling guacamole on the plate also provided just the right relief for those moments when there was a little bit too much spice.

One other curiosity on the menu was a fried avocado stuffed with chicken and rice.  We couldn’t pass up trying this oddity in the name of science.  The dish was prepared using a whole skinned avocado with a small hole cut in the bottom.  A mixture of chicken and rice was stuffed into the the avocado, the the whole ensemble was battered and fried.  The result was a golden brown orb that looked like an ostrich egg.  The contrasting colors of the golden brown crust, the green avocado and chicken in tomato sauce when sliced open appeared warm and inviting.  The flavors, however, were flat as the chicken and the breading on the outside of the avocado were not well seasoned.

Overall, our experience at the Guadalajara Grill was a good one.  The restaurant offers reputable Mexican food at a decent price – this is a place Chris and I would definitely return to on another visit to Bastrop.  A shorter more refined menu, crisper service, and more seasoned food would make the Guadalajara Grill a truly great TexMex stop.  For today’s visit, the Taco Travelers give the Guadalajara Grill three tacos out of five.