Texas to New Orleans, fun with the RV

Well, we finally arrived in New Orleans last night from Dallas, after a long long day of driving. We wrapped Episode 2 on Wednesday night in Dallas, finishing up with a night out at the swanky W Hotel. Had to say goodbye to Mary, who isn’t directing Ep3, and Noessa who left us to do some prep work for Ep4, which she is Field Producer for.

Dallas was more interesting than I expected. I know what you’re thinking; isn’t it all ladies with giant hair, thick accents, and lots of oil money? I suppose they exist somewhere in Dallas, but as with most places, the stereotypes don’t really slap you in the face the moment you arrive.

Our first stop was an amazing biker bar / shop / dealership called Strokers. I’ll have some photos soon, because words really can’t describe– its an entire community in and of itself, you have to see it to believe it. So cool.

Unfortunately most of my time in Dallas revolved around fixing the many problems that have arisen or we’ve created (however unintentionally!!) with our may vehicles. I spent the drive from Clarendon, TX (and our amazing ranch.. see below) trying to convince our RV rental company that we needed– NEEDED — a new RV in Dallas. Finally I had to pull out the big guns and have our Supervising Producer Allison instill the fear of God into them. Remember the drama with the so-called propane leak in Santa Fe, Joseph passing out, etc.? Well the nasty smell which we all thought was propane kept up the whole way from Santa Fe to Gallup, Amarillo, and Clarendon. It got so bad that the rest of the caravan (all 5 vehicles!) could smell it behind the RV on the road. Thinking we had an imminent explosion on our hands, we of course cleared out all passengers and left Micah, our sacrificial lamb, to drive it by himself. Needless to say, there isn’t a whole lot going on between Gallup, NM and Amarillo, TX, and to make matters worse it was Sunday… NOBODY was open. We were also trying to get to Amarillo in time for Joseph to attempt eating the 72 Oz. steak at the Big Texan restaurant.

So, we stopped for lunch and finally decided that Micah and I would stay with the RV and see if we could find somewhere along the road to dump the propane and then meet everyone in Amarillo later. We all spent a good half hour (at least) trying to get all the gear off the RV and into the mini-vans before the caravan finally left us. Micah and I ended up sitting at a truck stop for an hour or so calling all the closed propane providers, trying to find an RV service station, and even having the local fire department come out to see if they could do anything… Which they couldn’t.

Fast forward to morning in Amarillo, where I woke early and took the RV over to a local propane station where a very nice man looked at the tank, confirmed yet again that there was no leak and there should not be any smells after we shut the valve. He suggested it must be something with the exhaust or possibly the catalytic converter, which can smell very similar to propane if not functioning properly. He insisted it wouldn’t be harmful, but of course nobody was willing to brave riding in the RV before getting it serviced (or hopefully exchanged) in Dallas.

And that was how I ended up at a Ford dealership in Dallas Tuesday night, trying to convince the mechanic to look at our RV immediately, which he finally did. After all this, it turned out that the exhaust pipe was cut a little too short. No immense propane leak, no faulty catalytic converter, just a short pipe. Sigh.

We also managed to put a big crack in the windshield of one of the minivans, which I got to spend a couple hours switching out at the Dallas airport. By the time Wednesday night rolled around, I was really ready to experience some Dallas-style nightlife with cast & crew.

-Lyzz