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5/8
We’re off. Way off time-wise. Taking care of last minute house chores turned into an all-day crisis intervention. An insidious disease on our many rose bushes was discovered as we were loading the last minute stuff in the coach. And a few other incidents of that sort ate up the day & we finally left at 6 p.m. After driving 100 miles to east San Diego County, we spent our first night in the parking lot of Acorn Casino. Very chilly. Slept like babes.
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Dawn arrives as we prepare to leave the parking lot. The wind machines are busy creating the power for the parking lot lights. Beautiful morning.
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5/9
Driving through Imperial Valley on I-10 was uneventful. We were picking up some wind, but the sky was clear & the roadways had light traffic. Driving through Arizona was bit windier. It was a tailwind that kept getting stronger as the day progressed. Around Tucson there was some freeway road work that compressed the travel lanes with no emergency parking available. Up ahead there was slowdown of packed traffic with the flashing lights of a police car in the slow lane. Vehicles were moving to the fast lane to go around this slooow moving police car. Turns out a motorhome, traveling at idle speed, had a failure of its patio awning and it was flopping to fully open to almost fully closed at the whim of the wind. To see this great big hunk of canvas, attached to the coach by waving metal ‘arms’, being carelessly tossed this way & that was quite something. The police car was acting as its escort until they could get through the construction zone & get off the freeway. Passing this, we made our way to Benson, AZ and the comfortable, friendly, tidy Butterfield RV Resort. A true haven after a hot, windy day in the desert. 390 miles of travel today. The night was chilly. We slept like babes.
5/10
Filled up the gas tank @ $2.76 a gallon in Benson. Our destination today is Van Horn, TX, 382 miles away. We leave AZ for New Mexico. As we get through most of the New Mexico portion of our day the scenery gets a little softer with green shrubbery on the hills. As we approach Texas, we begin to see the border towns of Mexico, just a hiccup away from El Paso. At times, you can see the actual border fence. As you pass the first few off-ramps in El Paso, you can look south and the streets & modest hovels of the border settlements are just right there. The terrain takes on the harsher look of dry, arid land. El Paso has to be the looooongest city I’ve ever been through. You drive & drive & you’re still in El Paso. Once through it, you just keep looking for more of it as you are convinced it will never come to an end. We reached Van Horn TX after a day of fighting winds of 15 to 30 mph. Tucked into Eagle’s Nest RV Park. Recovering from bad management at the park, the trees & bushes freshly trimmed & watered, offered a shady haven after a very warm day. The temp cooled off at night & once again, we slept like babes. This in spite of the long trains passing all night just across the street.
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5/11
Continuing on I-10 from Van Horn, we picked up I-20 near Odessa to travel to Ranger Texas, our destination today. It is 320 miles away. We are now traveling in a north/east pattern. Uneventful day, except for the cursed wind. Coming at us from the side, Gary had to use his exceptional driving skills to keep us in our lane of traffic. Lots of oil wells & a couple of new drilling sites. A few head of cattle here & there. The further east we went, we noticed the much improved scenery of grasses, wildflowers and trees. Quite nice. We arrived at RL RV Park fairly early and were pleasantly surprised by a $20 daily fee. The owner/operator of the campground was a very congenial host. Restrooms appeared rather primitive, but there is a laundry available with no charge. Well-kept, level sites with surroundings of natural trees & wildlands. We had arrived in mid-afternoon so decided to go into Ranger for dinner. Drove around for a bit, had a nice dinner at the one restaurant that is still in business. The town appears to be on the verge of being a ghost town. Most shops downtown were unoccupied and about 50% of the businesses located along the road from the freeway to town proper were closed down. There is a distinctive train station & some interesting old buildings in the business district. All the roads are brick. The freight trains are rolling through town at regular intervals. Those would be the same trains passing across the street from the campground. We slept like babes.
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A common sight in Texas. Any large storage tank is used to commemorate a great moment in local high school sports. We’re at the 20 year mark for the last great football championship in Fort Hancock.
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Scattered over the plains of west Texas are the oil wells with their pumping equipment. Some work, some don’t. Some are big, some are very small. But, they are there. A constant reminder of how much we need them as we’re using a LOT of their product to power the ‘Roadhouse’.
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Drilling for something, that’s for sure.
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Not sure what it is, but the sign says it belongs to Gary.
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A lovely brick train station at Ranger, Texas. It now houses a business & a museum. The freight trains still pass by many times a day.
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As noted in my entry above, the town appears to be on the brink of ghost town status. This auto parts store is the ONLY business that is in business. The entire block of storefronts is empty.
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The bank, of course, is open for business.
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An abandoned gas station, complete with broken windows & weeds in the parking lot. Been empty a looong time.
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Not positive, but we don’t think anyone was living here. There were some regular homes that appeared cared for all around these two places. There were also more of these to be seen. We passed one that seemed to have it’s kitchen on the front porch. An old fridge on one side of the front door & an old stove on the other side. Quite odd.
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5/12
It’s a short day today. 115 miles to Gainesville. The wind & possible hailstorms have us tucking in at the Gainesville Mall Outlet Stores (70% unoccupied stores) campground. For $15 a night, you get a level, tandem site with grass, picnic table & full hookups. No restroom or other amenities, but how long are you going to want to stay here? Security advised us that we could pull our towed under the covered walkways of the mall in case of hail or, if we heard a tornado warning siren, we would find him in the mall restrooms & suggested that we could join him there. We took his advice seriously. Gary slept in his clothes, prepared to leap out of the coach on a moment’s notice & move his beloved truck to the mall walkways. Fortunately, this proved unnecessary. We did spend the evening taking pictures of lightening that lighted up the sky for an hour or so…a lot of it just above our heads. We could hear the freight trains charging past the mall. We slept like babes.
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Just a rusting barn on a farm along the highway.
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Our evening’s entertainment. After having the thunder storm dance on our heads, we leaned out of the coach to take these shots when the storm had passed.
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5/13
Leaving Gainesville in the aftermath of a cloudburst with more rain expected, we stopped to fill up the coach. Thank goodness we did. We had pulled under their canopy; Gary pumped about 17 gallons of gas & the heavens opened up. For the next few minutes, intense winds, rain & hail descended on us. In spite of being somewhat sheltered by the station building & the canopy, the hail & rain were being blown UNDER the coach at one point. Gary, caught outside under the canopy, was soaked to the skin in moments. The pump lost power & he heard a sharp ‘craaack’. Figuring the canopy was being damaged, he worried that the roof of the coach was gonna get hit hard. As we were pulling out of the station after this episode settled, we noticed a tree on the adjoining property had a very large branch that broke in the high winds. Anyway, as quickly as it started, it stopped. The pump came back on, we finished the fill-up and drove on down the road. Very pretty 105 miles to Paris. Lots of green & wildflowers. The Texas Bluebonnets are about done, but we did see a few. We started the day on Hwy 35 then onto 82 to Paris. Nice roads, not much traffic. Ken greeted us as we arrived. We backed into their long driveway, hooked up to their electricity and proceeded to while away the afternoon catching up. Sheri returned from work & we went to eat at a Mexican Restaurant. The waitress spoke little English & understood even less. It was disconcerting to order dinner & not be real sure what would be served. Returning to the coach, we prepared for bed and, in spite of no trains, no wind, no rain banging on the roof, we still slept like babes.
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The clouds are building as we get closer to Paris.
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A farmhouse, long passed its prime, is slowing falling down.
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By contrast, this home, just a couple miles away, is well-tended. Why anyone would build this right next to a main highway is beyond me. Pretty though.
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I have absolutely no idea why this plane is in the field. There is no landing strip, it is stripped, but why is it here? It does startle one a bit as you drive mile after mile seeing the same old thing and whammo, there is a very large plane in a fenced field.
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The city limits of Paris, Texas. At last.
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