Since my last post leaving Red Bay with a long list of repairs completed, we have traveled across Tennessee , Louisiana, Texas and New Mexico. Well we are in Las Cruces which is near the Texas border but also almost halfway across the state. Unlike past trips we are moving with purpose, that is not deviating from a relatively direct course, but taking our time. At Carol’s request we have dropped our “normal” day from 6 hours to closer to 4. That means we can sleep in a bit and have time to gather our wits or just enjoy the parks we are in and not need to feel rushed.

Most of our stops have been familiar places or places I have heard about or read about in the past and couldn’t get in for one reason or another. Rocky Springs on the Natchez Trace Parkway is a place we have stopped several times. We always expect a quiet hide away in the woods and usually find noisy company, mostly Boy Scouts out for a camping trip. This time it was an older trailer with a noisy contractor generator that they kept running until it ran out of fuel at 4 AM. Rude! Next up was Betty’s in Abbeville LA. This is a very highly rated and popular spot with a limited number of campsites. Its popularity derives from Betty’s warm welcome, a patio for happy hour with an open mike approach for musicians and general camaraderie. We were the only rig in the place which had been torn up by two hurricanes and was just recovering. Gathering and playing music on the patio would be out in any case so what we had was a very warm welcome to a small campground on relatively level gravel.  I hope we can make it back in livelier times. Our first stop in Texas was Rainbows End SKP Park where we picked up our mail and just moved on to On the Beach RV Park in Port Aransas TX where we stayed for 3 nights. It is a small park with very tight sites right on the beach. Our site fronted on the dunes and it was a short walk on to the beach itself. If there had been any safe activities to participate in we might have stayed longer. We stayed there many years ago.

After that luxury we stopped overnight in Amistad San Pedro Camping area. It is part of the National Parks System and with our Senior Pass it cost us $3. There are no amenities, just a small shelter over a picnic table and plenty of sand to coat everything with dust. This was our second time stopping at this campground. Back to luxury at Lost Alaskan in Alpine Texas. Somehow the closest we have  come to staying here in the past was parking across the street to use their WiFi many years ago. We prefer to stay in Marfa, but Tumble In was booked solid. 

Driving US 90 is our preferred route across the south, especially  Texas. We can run at our preferred speed (62 mph) with limited traffic and lovely sights along the way. Eventually the route, which starts on the Atlantic coast in Florida, peters out and joins I 10 in Van Horne Texas. We pressed on across Texas to Las Cruces NM just a few miles in to New Mexico. There we stopped at Siesta RV where we have stayed many times, probably 10 or more. We love to visit our friends Stu and Leora as we are passing through. This time we had a brief visit and they gave us a box of Chanukah candles because we had run out. Most of us have too many boxes because we are always thinking we don’t have enough and just pick up another one, besides we might need extra should we have visitors who want to light their own. 

We roll again in the morning, December 15, knowing that the Electoral College has done its thing and we are one step closer to inaugurating a new President. The plan is to stop in Benson Arizona at Butterfield RV, a place we stayed on our first cross country trip in 2002 and have not returned to since.  We plan to visit Ellen and Lonnie who moved from Jojoba since we left last May. After 2 or 3 nights there, we will head into the desert for a night or two to put us close to Jojoba Hills SKP Resort so we can arrive by mid afternoon. There are no plans to move on from there . . .  yet!