South of downtown are 5 Spanish missions, quite large facilities, and quite attractive. They immediately reminded me of the great Southern plantations: the Big House, the carefully laid-out fields, the numerous outbuildings, and of course, the large population of slave workers. I was impressed by what was accomplished with purely human labor in the South, and this is equally impressive. The natives in South Texas were extirpated by the Spanish,...
I'm in an Escapee park in Hondo, just west of SA. I had forgotten how pretty Hill Country is, so it's nice to be somewhere other than the Texas desert. The first order of business was Texas BBQ. It's been way too long. Next up is the real, authentic Tex-Mex, both of which I'll have access to for at least a couple of months. If I can find a good soul food place around here, I might not ever move. And I've got an HEB grocery store nearby. There's...
I made it across the desert and am into Hill Country. The RV park here is very nice, but their wifi sucks and my Verizon barely works. Tomorrow it's Hondo, to the Escapee park for a few days.
This is one of the nicest places to stay I've seen. Not fancy, but great parking spaces, extremely quiet, a welcome respite from the drive, and very interesting. The warm spring spouts up in a giant swimming pool (built in the 1930's), and is diverted through a series of cienegas and canals which support the desert pupfish and many other species. I had an excellent day wandering around, coming down from the drama of yesterday. But if you want to...
I'm still in west Texas but I can see the Davis mountains now. Still a long haul to Hill Country. Balmorhea is an old CCC park built around a warm, perpetual spring. It's a good spot in the desert for birds, and quite comfy. My plan is to use state parks a lot this trip, so I bought an annual pass for $70. That covers ten daily admission fees which I will easily use. But I was surprised to learn it also included 2 free nights camping, worth...
About an hour out of Van Horn I pulled off the check my trailer tires, and one blew out as soon as I pulled into the gravel turnout. I called Coachnet, and a guy showed up a bit later to put on my spare, which I don't really trust much. Only trivial damage to the trailer. Now I've got to get another new tire somewhere.
Ahhh...West Texas. Days of driving through nothing of interest. Shoddy towns with gas stations and maybe a weed-filled RV lot. I'm in an OK place tonight in Van Horn, which is a crappy town. I inspected my tires and axles every 50 miles or so, and no trouble found. I saw an oddity of some interest. As I approached Las Cruces I saw off in the distance a shape kinda like a blimp, only it was really big. As I approached the airport I could see it...
Tomorrow I'm off to Texas, after 3 1/2 weeks in Deming. I enjoyed staying at LOWs, and met a lot people during their rally that I'll see again . And then I sat out a storm front here in the SKP park with Ron and Linda for the last few days. All was quite nice but it's time for something different. The plan is to spend 3 or 4 days to get to San Antonio, spend a week there and head to Corpus. But weather has definitely been in play lately. Still,...
I'm heading to San Antonio, but I thought I'd spend a couple of days to see what the weather situation is where I'm going. So I'm dry-camped at the SKP park while I wait for a break. Ron and Linda came in for the weekend, so we have time to chat. I enjoyed my stay at the LOWs park. Always good to run into Trisha, and I met a lot of people whom I'll likely see later this winter either at the Slabs or at Quartzsite. Plus it's a nicer park than...