Arkansas and Decision Time

 

We left Delhart Texas and headed South to I-40 at Amarillo, and then east on I-40.  Marcia caught this wonderful picture of the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ Ministries in Groom Texas with the rays of the sun shinning down on the cross.

 

With so much of the World in turmoil, everything seemingly falling down, we were certainly glad to see the cross before seeing the Leaning Tower of Texas also in Groom.

After seeing so much green, so much beauty over the past week, it is hard to find the enthusiasm to take pictures of dull Texas and Oklahoma...so we drove on and on, about 400 miles, till we got near Seminole Oklahoma where we stopped at the Catfish Round-Up RV Park, hooked into electricity, water and sewer, and stayed inside the motorhome trying to keep cool in the 100 degree, 55% humidity weather.   YUCK double YUCK!!

With just over 150 miles to go on Tuesday, we passed by pretty Eufaula Lake.

And eventually the Arkansas River.

Into Arkansas itself.

And finally parked at the Springhill Campground in Barling, just on the outskirts of Fort Smith.  I drove over to Walmart to drop off the batteries, and almost did not make it back with the car.  After all that work I did on it, it acted up today even worse than when we left Florida.  It was decision time...time to cut our losses and head straight home.  It was a sad call to my good friend and loyal employee for so long whose house we were going to driveway camp on for two nights and visit all the Libraries and my former Rotary Club...our visit in Pine Bluff is not going to happen.  I am afraid that if I unhook the HHR, I might not get it started again to hook it back up.  (It died 7 times just driving it to the dumpster here in the park after I got back from Walmart, where I almost did not get it going at Walmart after I turned the batteries in.) Here at the Springhill Campground I positioned the HHR so that I can back the motorhome up to the HHR to hook up, so we will be good to go in the morning.  From there, we are headed across I-40, then across I-22 to Tupelo where we have reservation with a pull through.  The next day we will make it to northwest Florida for the night, and then home on Friday...IF we don't encounter other problems.  We are not crossing our fingers, but we are holding onto the Giant Cross we passed by in Texas on Monday morning.

Thankfully, Marcia's cousin Jim picked us up in his huge older SUV, we managed to get Marcia up and out of it without any damage, and he took us to a BBQ restaurant nearby.  It was great to visit with him for nearly 3 hours, and Indy did not destroy the place while we were gone, but all the window covers were certainly amiss that she could get her little paws on.  Happy happy happy girl when we got back...now she is on the floor within eye-sight of us both...between us and the door! 

Texas for the Long Haul

 

The Organ Mountains Desert Peaks National Monument is the mountains to the east of Las Cruces.  Obama designated the monument on May 21, 2014, with half of the monument designated wilderness, closed to development or motorized use.  We had a pretty good night's sleep at the rest area, and were on the road by 7:45.

Within a half of an hour we were entering Texas...were everything is so much bigger that it takes two signs to welcome you into their state.

Being a Saturday morning, the traffic is light.  The smog coming out of Mexico is not...but it never is.

It was a nice day to travel.  Light clouds, temps in the 60's and low 70's.

We stopped for breakfast and a doggie break at the first rest area out of El Paso, and later at another rest area east of Van Horn, after a quick pass through at the Boarder Patrol check point.  We have stayed in Van Horn many times, but this time I decided on Saddleback Mountain RV in Balmorhea.  

The Saddleback Restaurant and Circle Bar Saloon (both the same establishment) are part of the RV Park.  

This is the 'office' to the RV Park which is really a 'self check-in' procedure.  Pick your spot, go to the office, put $20 (check or cash) in the envelope, write date and site on envelope and drop in the lock box.

There are 40+ sites, and reservations are not needed.  Above is a picture of the back half of the park, not as well landscaped as the front half of the park.

 We are in the front part of the park near the back.

I sat outside with Indy for a good hour, and from my vantage point I got the following pictures to show some of the landscape here.

         

This last one puts it all together so you can see how it all fits together within the various sites.  Our motorhome is there in the middle of the picture, hidden by trees and bushes just a bit.  Each site is lined by rocks, and they seem to be very level.  Each site has electric, water and sewer all for $20.  They do have weekly and monthly rates.

Tomorrow we plan to hit a Cracker Barrel, the next day will be a much longer day since we plan to drive through San Antonio and Houston, but plan to stay at a Passport America park for two days before continuing our drive home to Florida.  That puts us in Texas for four nights and five days (although the first and fifth day are just partial days).

From Sunset to Albuquerque

After the fourth storm went through last night, that only had four of five hail stones hitting the motorhome, we ate our dinner and then there was this wonderful sunset.  We had one of our better nights sleep since leaving Florida, temps were in the low 60's, perhaps high 50's.  It was very quiet...almost too quiet.  We put one of our favorite DVD movies on (Secondhand Lions) to watch on the bedroom TV, and I was out within 10 minutes

We hit the road by 8 am, got through Amarillo without a problem, and we get back to the Texas Scenery. 

Not too long and we see a very large feedlot.  With yesterday's rain, and a good morning breeze, the fragrant odor was very tolerable.  Of course, a good rancher would say, "It is just the smell of money" ... they say the same thing about the smelly paper mills scattered around the south, including outside Pine Bluff Arkansas where I lived in the area for 22 years.

And then there is the Windmill Farm...hundreds of windmills.  I must say that I was impressed at how many of the windmills we have seen this trip actually were spinning.

In my last posting I talked about the many Picnic Areas that you find along the Texas Highways.  In other states, such as Arkansas, they just call them Truck Parking Areas.  Nothing fancy at all.

But at least most of them in Texas do have picnic tables.  No bathrooms though.

We finally hit "Mile Zero" and enter into New Mexico.  Had we stayed on I-10 and entered and exited Texas, it would have been a 880 trip. The route we took was just 600 miles.  No matter how you do it, Texas is one long trip UNLESS you enter and exit on I-40, then it is only 180 miles or so.

The scenery changes very quickly now that we are in New Mexico.  It makes the drive more enjoyable, and includes more picture taking.  Since entering Texas, we have gone up over 3,000 feet.  By the time we start heading down the hill into Albuquerque, we are at the 6,600 foot level.  We then drop to the 5,300 foot level as we come into Albuquerque.

We tried to find a park up in the higher altitude...but they were all full.  A few times we have stopped at the Enchanted Trails RV Park & Trading Post, just west of Albuquerque.  They had plenty of openings...but perhaps it looks that way because they are spacing the RVs out due to the COVID scare. I hooked up the electric, and nothing came on.  I knew I was having connection problems with the female portion that plugs into the motorhome, and thank goodness Camping World was right next door.  $65 later I have an adapter.  As I pay he asks me for my phone.  I give it to him, and then immediately said, "No, I don't want to renew."  I was really hoping to get to Arny's and order a new cord with the proper adapters, which would have only cost $45 through Amazon.  I will now convert the old cord to an RV Extension Cord, which will run another $15 or so.  Thank goodness I already had a 50' extension to go with the new overly expensive adapter that I just bought, so we were in business within 30 minutes of figuring out the problem.

NOTE: Since I have written a few posts about Enchanted Trails RV Park & Trading Post, I am not doing that today.  You can read about previous posts, and see the many vintage RVs and old cars if you wish by clicking here.

 

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Through Texas in under 30 Hours!

West New Mexico Rest Area along I-10

At 881 miles. this stretch of I-10 from Louisiana to New Mexico (or from New Mexico to Louisiana) is by far the longest stretch of Interstate in any one state.  I-5 running up and down California is next at 796.5 miles.  I have gone all the way up and down I-5…but NOT in a single trip.  This is the umpteenth time I have done I-10, and this is the fastest that I remember, and the best driving conditions with just a little fog between Fort Stockton and San Antonio, little wind, no rain, no snow, no ice…but traffic in Houston, San Antonio and some in El Paso, especially where they were doing road construction.  However, the traffic only slow us up by maybe 20 minutes in each of these cities…not bad considering. 

Wish I could say the same about ‘weather’ in New Mexico…but alas…as soon as we crossed into New Mexico, within 3-4 miles, it started to rain, and the wind was blowing from the west as we traveled north to Las Cruces.  The rain stopped just long enough to get gas, then hit with a force as we traveled west along I-10.  Our goal was to get to either the yellow or the red balloon on the map…we actually got to the black arrow which is a NICE welcome center / rest area on the south side of the highway but with easy access from either west or east traffic.  SCORE!   It is also on the other side of the Interstate from the busy train tracks.  SCORE!!  And it is too small for big trucks to come in and stay…besides, there are 2 or 3 truck stops that are in the town.  SCORE!!!  Along with super good Verizon signal, so tomorrow we will stay until church is over, then head on to Phoenix where we are meeting our friend Laurie whose mother passed last year.  A week ago we told her we would make it for breakfast on Monday…but this trip has gone so quick, we are meeting Sunday night at a Cracker Barrel, and I already got permission to stay the night there.   

Family in Sacramento….we SHOULD be pulling in on Tuesday afternoon….looking forward to seeing you all, and, of course, seeing Bubba.

Had a decent nights sleep with one quiet generator going ALL night.  (Why do they park right in the middle knowing they are going to have generator going?  I understand they might have a medical need for having a generator run...but for gosh sake, pick an end sight away from the rest of the folks!)  A few trucks did come in last night, but for the most part it was fairly quiet for a rest area. 

From Phoenix to ….

Top of the Hill RV Park, near Boerne, Texas

We left Phoenix by 5:15 am, and it was still dark.  As we got south of Phoenix, the sun was coming up, and we were surprised at the inversion layer…much like we saw over Phoenix.  Stopped at a Walmart in Casa Grande to get eggs and spinach for our morning omelets, and to feed Skruffy at 7:30.  As a diabetic dog, she eats 12 hours apart.  In California that is 7 am and 7 pm.  In Florida we are shooting for 9 am and 9 pm…so we adjusted her to 7:30 when we got to Arizona (which is 6:30 California time), and 8:30 now that we are in Central time, and when we get to Eastern Time, it will be easy to got 9 and 9.

I “wonder” if any of my faithful blog readers remember this view from “their” new home?  

Southeaster Arizona had clear blue skies…and wonderful landscape.

Here is one way to “see” America…but you only get to see views from the rails…

New Mexico had nice blue skies too…

…until you get to town of another one of my blog followers.  But hey, I don’t think it is Las Cruces’ fault…I think much of the smog come up from the south where regulations are not nearly as strong as their are in the states.

And finally Texas…

…where 530 miles later, and a nights sleep in Van Horn, here we are.

So wait…what happened to 500+ miles of “scenery”?  Well, as we headed to Van Horn, it was getting dark.  This morning we left Van Horn at 5:45 am.  JUST as it was starting to have what would be a very pretty sunrise, we hit a fog/cloud bank.  For a bit I thought I was driving between San Francisco and Sacramento, the fog was that thick…well, almost that thick.  Then the temps dropped to as low as 27.  Ice built up on the mirrors, on the wipers, and the tire sensors went crazy with the cold weather.  Thankfully, the road was not slippery…but one never knows so speeds were kept to around 55 most of the way today.  What should have been a 6 1/2 hour trip, took well over 8.  Notice in the pictures above that the car is still hooked up, the slide is “in”, and we only have our electric plugged in.

   

   

So we have completed 1,700 of our 3,000 mile trip back home.  We will be here in Boerne (pronounced “Burney”) for two nights.  It is New Year’s Eve tonight, and we sure did not want to be out on the road very late…getting here after 2:00 was late enough.  It may or may not snow and/or have icy rain tonight, so I we decided to stay for two nights.  Tomorrow I will add water to our water tank, empty our holding tanks, and put everything back away except the electrical hookup.  We had the slide out for awhile today, but with possible ice, I did not want to have problems pulling it in tomorrow or Tuesday.  I also lowered the antenna to where I just get a clear picture…but low enough that I can drive if absolutely needed in case the ice is heavier than predicted. Tuesday we plan to have a late breakfast with my brother Jim and wife Carol in San Antonio, and then off we go…hoping that this is the worse of the weather…it is bound to be the coldest with temps hitting the low 20’s, perhaps the teens while we are here.  But we are staying warm with our DeLonghi radiant heater, and the motorhome’s propane heater periodically coming on and off.

Note:  Why the "...." in the title?  Because Marcia would not let me say Hell  😉