Sunday, February 27, 2022

Long Day...

 

Well, it's the same 24 hours as the rest of the days, but we did a lot of driving today.  A cold start to the day, when we left Sonora shortly after 8:00... 30º... but... sunshine!  First sunshine that we've seen since we left home.

We were at Exit 404 in Sonora... so, 404 miles to go in Texas.  There isn't a lot of civilization in west Texas.  I entertain myself looking around at the terrain...


 Something about this formation appeals to me...


From San Antonio, it is I-10 all the way to the RV park in Arizona where we'll be staying.  You can't get lost.  Sorta.  I-10 is a major trucking artery, and once you get a bit deeper into west Texas, there are mountains...


Lots of RVs on the road today; mostly Class A motorhomes.  And, something we haven't seen yet on this trip: an occasional motorcycle.  By mid-afternoon, it had warmed up to about 60º - those motorcyclists we saw were all geared up.

Trucks and mountains...



And, a handsome sleeping cat on my lap...

His head on that hard ol' door-handle didn't look comfortable to me, but he did turn from time to time.  He seemed happy to be in the sunshine and not having to wear his sweater.  Me, too.

As we closed in on El Paso, Joan let me know that there is an accident on I-10 westbound that is causing a delay - may be 2 hours or more.  As we got closer, a Texas DOT truck was blocking the Interstate and the driver flagging people to get off the Interstate at that exit.  Detour.  No signage, no other emergency vehicles or personnel letting you know which way to go.  Joan had Apple Maps pulled up on Car Play and it routed us south of the Interstate... getting real close to Mexico.  A bit more zigging and zagging (to avoid a US/MX Port of Entry, and we drove through a couple small towns.  Then, the traffic backed up on these back roads....


With the height advantage of the motorhome, I could see the Interstate: a line of traffic miles long that wasn't moving.  I guess we were lucky that DOT guy guided us off the road when he did... he had passed us just a couple minutes or so before he stopped.  Anyone who was ahead of that exit was stuck in place; we didn't move fast, but we were (mostly) moving.  I figure we lost at least an hour with this detour.

Back on the Interstate in time for the El Paso traffic.  This being Sunday, it was relatively light, but the typical lane changing like a NASCAR race.  It is about 37 miles of this kind of traffic to get through El Paso.  We stopped at Exit 0 to top off fuel and took a moment to decide where we wanted to stop for the night.  We are both tired, but we decided to push on to Deming, NM.  I called to secure us a site at an RV park there (no problem).

Down for the night.  Rufus got to go for a short walk before calling it a day; he is not a fan of gravel, and all the RV parks in this area are gravel sites.  The lady at the RV park had put us down for one of their longer pull-through sites... Joan had to park the Equinox sideways at the back of the site so we'd fit.  It works.  Low tonight is supposed to be about 35º, so we'll have the heat going.  We plan to stop in Tucson tomorrow night, so that will be an easier day.  Assuming no detours.  We looked around at several RV parks there, and decided to go for one connected with a casino... maybe we'll get lucky?  ;-)


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