A Fiery Start to Our Day

Frankly, our day rarely starts out with the ability to capture a fiery sunrise.  We had just entered Central Time Zone before our stay last night at the Balmorhea Saddleback Mountain RV Park.  With the time being 7 am, and the first hint of light starting on the horizon, I started the coffee pot, and nearly climbed back in bed.  Ten minutes later as I sat at the foot of the bed, Marcia says, "Time to get up!", and so we did.  The park was fairly quiet considering it is so close to the Interstate, and also that trucks park behind the Valero Gas Station where a few had refrigerator trailers which kick on and off all night long.  But it really did not bother either of us...we noticed the noise when we needed to use the facilities, and especially when super bladder doggie needed to go out at 2:30 am.  (quick scan for snakes and I let her out)

We were about half way to Fort Stockton when we noticed a black smokey cloud trail headed from the south to the north over the highway.  Five minutes later as we made a few minor turns with the road, and we see this.  Hmmmm....what is going on up there?

YIKES!  Now that is a Fiery Start to ones day!  The driver was off to the side with some trucker who had stopped short of his burning rig.  Knowing that Diesel does not explode, I felt it was better to go through, on the far left side, instead of stopping and taking space where fire trucks will need to do their work from.  Still a bit scary for a few seconds...  Credit to Marcia for getting this shot of the burning truck. A good 5 minutes later we see the first of what was 7 fire trucks headed west on I-10 from Fort Stockton.  Nothing about it in the news as I write this, and who knows if the trailer ended going up in smoke too???  If so, that toy that made it off the ship coming over from China just went up in smoke!

We pulled into Fort Stockton 15 minutes later, and there was not a fire truck in sight...sure hope nothing catches on fire around here.  Fill up with gas at $3.059 per gallon, the cheapest we have paid in a LONG LONG time!  There was no where to park for breakfast, so we continued to the first picnic rest area (no toilets, although there were signs all over the lawn and walls of picnic facilities that it was being used as such.)  After a quick breakfast, we headed on and about 25 minutes later we came to a real rest area.  It was there that Indy enjoyed the little red leaves from that beautiful tree.

Another 30 minutes or so and we pull into another rest area and what do we see????  GRASS!  Real green grass that is soft to the footsies of poor deprived Indy who has not seen real grass for days!

From there on it was much the same, mixed with a bit of a rain shower here and there, and temps that never climbed above the low 70's, mostly in the higher 60's.  Stopped at the Cracker Barrel in Kerrville, which is where we are now.  We both had a chicken meal, and we are tucked in the back parking lot for the night, no other RV's in sight.  Tomorrow is the big challenge...driving through San Antonio AND Houston all in the same day, and on a Monday.  Wish us luck (although we have done it before...)