We’ve been traveling in west Texas for quite some time now so here’s some of my observations during those travels.
We stayed at the Lost Alaskan RV Park in Alpine, Texas, before and after our visit to the McDonald Observatory. Apparently, lots of other people do too. Among that RV park’s facility was this:
When we stopped for diesel, Dave used their window washing equipment to wash my side windows, too. They needed it after that little bit of rain with lots of dust storm we had.
We are not having the problems getting diesel I was afraid we might have. Most stations seem to have it now. Even the little two pump Fina station had one pump of unleaded and one of diesel.
We saw a herd of white cows. Dave said, “They’ve been bleached by the sun.”
The sign said this section of road is maintained by “The Raunchy Road Ranch.” Do you suppose Raunchy Road is where the bordellos used to be? Or still are?
Kids nowadays have no sense of tradition. I saw a cowboy wearing a baseball cap!
The road runner was doing just that until he saw us then he hesitated a moment. But he ran on before we had to wonder if we were going to hit him or not.
Coming down a hill we could see the road ahead of us made a 90 degree turn left then right. We could see no reason for it. There were no hills or fields to go around. And, if we were following a section line, wouldn’t it continue straight? We’ll never know the answer to that one.
I saw a sign that said, “Cowboy Mining Company.” I didn’t know you could mine for cowboys. I know some women who would like to do that.
We stopped at a Fina Station/mini mart/cafe in Terlingua/Study Butte for lunch. The people were very friendly. When I commented on that one guy told me, “Stop here and meet friendly strangers. Stay here and meet strange friends.” That was the same guy who responded to Dave’s big sneeze by saying, “Good one!”
There was an RV park right behind the Fina Station/mini mart/cafe. If we stayed there even I could walk to the store. But we were headed into Big Bend National Park and you already know how that turned out.
Well, most of how it turned out. I didn’t tell you about waving to the motorcycle riders only to realize it was our Escapees classmates, Mike & Julie. We stopped for a very short visit alongside the road.
And about the Burro Mesa Pouroff. In Minnesota that would be called a waterfall. Even if there was no water falling today. It only falls here during heavy rains.
We stayed the first night in Big Bend at Cottonwood campground down by the recently flooded Rio Grande River. In that campground you are not allowed to run generators. Since our batteries were fully charged and we had no internet signal we had no problem having no extra source of electricity.
The next night we stayed in the Chisos Basin campground where we could run our generator during approved hours but still had no internet signal so still didn’t need to run the generator. That campground was in the highlands so each campsite had a bear box to put your food in if you were tent camping.
It’s interesting that the computers appear to be the main reason we need supplemental power.
It was fun seeing so many people in the campgrounds doing what we grew up thinking of as “camping.” Tents and popup trailers everywhere. People cooking and eating outside. People hiking for the entertainment value of it. People actually camping, not traveling like us.
While traveling on down the road I found myself thinking about the people who cross from Mexico illegally and those who help them. I could suddenly hear some English teacher asking us to write a paper comparing and contrasting this with the Underground Railroad. I wonder what I would write? I wonder what you would write?
The sign said, “Longfellow Draw.” I knew he wrote. Did he draw? With a pencil? Or did that mean draw his gun? This is Texas, you know.
We stopped in Langtry, Texas, to visit the Judge Roy Bean Visitor Center. He was quite a character. Here’s a couple of photos from there.
We spent a night in Seminole Canyon State Park. $17 for full hookups and the park had wifi. I got caught up on my computer reading but not on my posting. We probably should have stayed there another night just to do that since we are so often without any internet signal lately.
We did some driving around in the Amistad National Recreation Area checking out potential campsites. Governor’s Landing had water but no other hookups and only about half the sites come close to being level but they are cheap and private and we’ll likely come back here sometime.
In Del Rio, Texas, we stopped at the first WalMart we’ve seen in a long time to restock our supplies. After having no cell phone service for about a week, I suddenly had five bars of my carrier, T-Mobile. So I checked my messages and returned a call from our daughter. We talked for almost an hour so we may be caught up with each other again.
Driving south from Del Rio on Hwy 277 we drove out of the desert for the first time in months. Creeks have water in them. Trees are tall. They sky started leaking; it became what the Irish call a “soft” day. I had the urge to go out and let my skin soak up water but we were in the middle of nowhere so I had to wait.
We headed to Eagle Pass, Texas, to a casino offering 20 free RV sites with hookups hoping it would be something like Firelake Grand Casino back in Oklahoma. The roads in were terrible! Narrow, bumpy, winding, with construction making one lane traffic in part of it and that lane wasn’t full width. To add insult to injury, the RV parking was horrible which was probably OK because it was also full. So we moved on.
My phone keeps ringing the tone that says I have a message. T-Mobile keeps calling to tell me how I can stay connected with them while traveling. They are being such a nuisance about me staying connected that I actually turned my phone off. Dave thought that was hilarious. After awhile, so did I.
So now we are in Carrizo Springs, Texas, at the Brush County RV Park and, once again, we have an intermittent internet connection. I am writing this as a text document that I will upload when we get a better connection. Boy, have I gotten spoiled.
TTYL,
Linda
