My RV shouldn't see snow

For somebody who doesn't like snow, I haven't done a good job of avoiding it lately.

Snow is pretty, but I've had enough snow in my life. I would be happy if I never saw snow again.

Here is a picture of my motorhome on the beach in Galveston, TX, back in February.

The picture below is one I took while standing in front of my motorhome at a campground in Banner Elk, NC, the previous year.

The snow on the mountains was pretty, but I'm going to try to do a better job of keeping my butt out of the snow from now on.

I wasn't prepared for snow in Texas

What was worse than being caught in the snow in Galveston earlier this year was that I was not prepared. I knew the snow was coming, but since there were no trees to fall on the power lines like there are in North Carolina, I assumed that there wouldn't be any power outages. WRONG.

It wasn't just the snow that caused the problems. The temperature went down into the teens. We had four days with no electricity. I ran low on gasoline for my generator, I almost ran out of propane to cook and keep warm, and I almost ran out of freshwater.

With no electricity in the area, the gas stations couldn't pump gas, propane tanks couldn't be refilled, and when the temperature went down into the teens, the water in the campground was shut off. It didn't come back on even when the temperature warmed up.

Houses in the area had it worse than us RVers. The natural gas for houses in the area was shut off, and most of them didn't have generators.

I was getting close to being in big trouble if the power had been off much longer. Looking back, I should have been better prepared. I could have easily had an extra gas can, an extra propane tank, and I could have had my freshwater tank full.

One thing I'm going to do is to configure my generator so I can draw gasoline from the motorhome gasoline tank. The generator that came with the motorhome worked that way, but I had just changed it out and was using a Harbor Freight 3,500-watt generator. It was quiet, more efficient, and more reliable, but I had to keep pouring gas into it.

Bottom line: The next time, I will be a lot better prepared. I was a Boy Scout. In fact, I was an Eagle Scout, so I should have known the Boy Scout motto, "Be Prepared." I will be the next time.