Our trip from Lake Conroe to Lake Texoma should have taken around 5 hours. Instead it took 10. As we headed north on I45 the pickup began to shake, rattle, and roll. Rolling part was just fine but the shaking and rattling caused us a bit of concern. My hope was that a wheel was unbalanced but I kind of knew something more was going on.

When we came to Corsicana we decided to stop of the local Walmart and have them check the tires. The stop didn’t work out very well. For one thing the Walmart was clear across town. For another I went one exit too far. That shouldn’t be a big deal, after all Corsicana isn’t that big of a town. After a couple of misfires on direction we got onto the right road, the main street through town. To our dismay, the street was all torn up, under construction. We had to take a detour and what a detour it was. It took us at least 5 miles around the half mile of construction. Finally we arrived at Walmart. I had to unhook the camper so they could put the truck into the bay. After a few minutes one of the guys said, “Here’s your problem.” One of the front tires was separating. It was nothing like round anymore. After checking they told me that they didn’t have that size of tire. They were nice enough to not charge me anything. Meanwhile, I called all over town, but no luck.

Finally, I decided to take another detour, this to the Discount Tire Store in Waxahachie. It was around 20 miles out of my way, but the nearest place with my size of tires. After re-hitching the camper I headed northwest. When I arrived, they showed me where I could unhitch the camper. Forty-five minutes later and several hundred dollars poorer I re-hitched the camper for the third time of the day and we headed north.

By now we were well inside the Dallas rush hour. I took the loop around Dallas hoping to miss some of the traffic. That worked okay till we hit Highway 75. It was a parking lot. Here I was with my big camper trying to work my way through traffic. At one point the motor temperature began to climb to the point I feared I would have to pull over (but where?). Thankfully, just as the temperature would reach the danger zone we would get to move at around 40 miles per hour for a mile or so. The temp would drop and then, as we inched along, it would start inching higher. However, we survived and made it to the campground 5 hours behind schedule but happily with enough daylight left for us to find a nice campsite and get settled in before dark. The heating problem will be addressed another day.

For now, we’re glad to be at Lake Texoma Thousand Trails. Photos and a campground review to follow.