On "the list"...

For almost two decades, I have thought about visiting Big Bend National Park everytime we are on I-10 in west Texas.  Alas, that drive across west Texas makes me just want to get across there!  We are heading for home, but this time we are taking the time to visit this National Park.

We gassed up before leaving town...

I have gotten spolt - that' Texas talk for: spoiled - by the gas prices we have been paying.  It seemed high at $2.20 yesterday; it was $2.33 here.  And, will be higher when we get closer to Big Bend.

Driving south out of Alpine is darn near a delight... of course, that might be in comparison to the shit road yesterday.  Two-lane, decent road surface, lots of hills and curves...

The speed limit is 70.  I did 60 on the straight portions, a lot less through the curves.  The Aspect is surprisingly nimble, even pulling this train.

An easy drive today, less than 100 miles.  More in the next post

I axed my friend Marfa if she wanted to go Alpine skiing for her birfday...

Rolling east out of Deming, the landscape is ... enchanting...

It's on their state signs and license plates.  This passes for "land of enchantment."  As we approached Las Cruces, there are some pretty mountain silhouettes in the distance...

Crossing into Texas, we made our usual stop for gas, then picked up a breakfast sandwich...

I was dreading the passage through El Paso - bumpy roads and crazy-ass drivers.  I guess I didn't have to worry about that... we saw a sign that said, "Interstate 10 Closed 11 Miles Ahead."  I-10 runs near the Mexico border, and right along the Rio Grande River in this area; the detour took us on a loop that had us climbing a mountain...

At 5,280' (one mile high), we had a good view of the El Paso area below us...

It was a steep climb, but the road was good, and we got to see another part of El Paso... and much less of the zoo that is the normal traffic on I-10.  We even got to try out one of the raised ramps when we got back to the Interstate...

Although it seemed like quite a trek out of the way, it was only about 6 miles further and maybe 20 minutes longer.  I would consider this by-pass in the future if the GPS shows a traffic slow-down on I-10.  We came out at Exit 34 onto the Interstate, well past the worst of the traffic... if the Interstate had been open.

Double towing since our departure this morning, I get the "All CR-V Channel" on our infotainment center...

Heading east, you come to the Border Patrol checkpoint near Sierra Blanco...

"Are you both US citizens?"

"Yes, sir."

"Have safe travels."

Lots of trucks on the road again today...

When planning, Joan had considered an overnight stop at Van Horn.  I was delighted to get there early enough to keep rolling.  Turning south on US Hwy 90, we were on a two-lane road with a 70 mph speed limit...

And, a bunch more nothing out there.  Shortly, the road got bumpier, but they made up for it by upping the speed limit to 75!?!

It was clear that we were coming up on some road construction...

How often do you get to drive on the left side of a double yellow solid line??  Oh, yeah, it deteriorated...

But, we were on the proper side of the double yellow line now.  Then, the road turned to absolute crap.  The speed limit dropped to 45 mph.  The lane was so narrow, I had to straddle the solid double yellow line to keep from dropping a tire off the right side...

It was about that time that a semi and a pickup came up behind me doing about 70 mph.  Yep, the both passed me on the double yellow.  Welcome back to Texas.

What's that??

An aviation observation tethered blimp.  Technically, an "aerostat," it is equipped with down looking radar to keep track of low-flying aircraft.  Why would an aircraft be flying low... coming up from Mexico... trying to stay under more typical radar?  Yeah, I wonder.

On the way today, we made a reservation for an RV park in Alpine, Texas.  "Alpine" brings to mind a village in the Alps.  Well, for me.  I'm thinking there won't be any downhill ski resorts in this Alpine.  Before getting to Alpine, we came to Marfa, Texas...

Marfa is a long ways from civilization.  You have to want to be going to Marfa.  It is known for a local film festival and the Marfa Lights: lights in the sky that have been occasionally observed that some think are from UFOs or some supernatural event.  The government says it is reflections in the low clouds from car headlights or campfires.  If we were going to be here longer, I would put on my tin foil hat and check it out for myself... but, the road construction wore me out.  I am ready to get down for the day.

South of Marfa (I just like to say "Marfa"... as in: Marfa Stewart went to jail), the terrain gets more interesting...

And, the road is decent!  We are settled in for the evening in a nice RV park on the outskirts of Alpine.  We drove through town on the way in - it looks like an interesting town, but it is 4:30 (lost another hour, now in Central Time Zone)... Izzy and I both need a walk.  Joan will be making supper.  We'll have time to explore town a bit in the morning, before heading to Big Bend.

On edit:

Little Izzy got two walks in - one right after I made the above post, then another after supper.  They've had some rain here earlier today, so we had to be careful to not walk in the mud... and by "we," I mean I had to steer her around it.  Back at our site, she climbed up on the brick and concrete picnic table to have a look around.  A rooster called out...

"What the heck was that??"  I explained what a rooster is... "Sounds delicious!"

;-)

We be rolling...

Steph and Dan came by our RV site for hugs and good-byes.  Yeah, it always gets a little teary - we love to spend time with them.  Now, they can get back to their routine.  There was some discussion that they may have come by to make sure we are leaving town... April Fools.  ;-)

It is going to be a busy weekend in the Phoenix area: the Final Four is going on at the stadium in Glendale; expected to bring over 70,000 people to Phoenix.  There is a Final Four Fan Experience going on in downtown Phoenix.  The Pride Parade (another huge event).  And, opening day tomorrow for the Diamondbacks - the game is sold out.  Because of this, we expected heavy traffic while going through Phoenix...

Not even a slow-down as we drove past the downtown area.  South of Phoenix...

The least amount of traffic we have ever encountered on this stretch.  They made up for it, but being thick with big trucks and RVs.  The weather has been windy, so I'm thinking some have sat for a day or three and are now on the move; with it being the first of the month, and snowbirds heading north and east, we encountered scads of RVs.

It was nearly bumper-to-bumper as we drive through Tucson.  Separately, by the way, since double towing isn't legal in Arizona.  I missed having my Honey by my side...

And, I think she missed having her chauffeur; she isn't used to hours behind the wheel.  At the far end of Tucson, we stopped for fuel and a bite to eat.  The gas station was a zoo, but I managed to get a spot amongst the car pumps.  It took some maneuvering to get out of there; we pulled back to the truck parking, backed into a slot, and got Izzy some lunch...

She thought she wanted to go for a walk; I promised her a walk when we got down for the night.

We kept seeing this warning sign...

A warning for high winds.  Joan was thinking it was left over from the past couple days - the wind wasn't bad.  Climbing out of Tucson...

Again, lots of truck and RVs, and not all able to maintain speed on the uphill climbs.

The elevation is around 4,000' in this area; some of the pecan orchards are just starting to leaf out...

Rugged terrain; then, we are in New Mexico...

This is always fun...

This was the smallest RV I saw today...

We originally thought we'd stop for the night in Bowie, AZ, but it was still early, so we pushed on.  Lost an hour when we crossed into New Mexico, and rolled into a park in Deming before 4:30.  The didn't have a pull-through site, but a back-in works fine...

We drove separate through this part of New Mexico, even though double towing is allowed, knowing that we'd have to unhook at this RV park anyway.  I called when we stopped in Tucson to reserve a site.  The lady that checked me in said she had to turn a bunch of people away... "And, they weren't happy!"  I got a site; I am happy.  It isn't fancy, but you can't beat the price, thanks to Passport America.  When I was done plugging in to electric and cable, little Izzy reminded me about my promise to take her for a walk...

"Yes, my little furry girl - we're going for a walk."  She is happy.  North of us in Albuquerque, they are getting snow.  It is going to be chilly tonight (in the 30s), but no precip is predicted... I am happy.  We'll hook the "train" up tomorrow and be able to drive together.  And, speaking of trains, we can hear the nearby trains rolling by... Joan likes train noise.  So, everybody is happy!

Heading to Big Bend National Park.  We haven't been there before.  Researching, I saw that it is the 2nd least visited National Park, so (apparently) a lot of people haven't been there.

Gettin' naked...

There is a difference between "naked" and "nekkid"... naked means you have no clothes on; nekkid means you have no clothes on and you're up to something.  Today, we were up to something.

Fully attired, however.

Joan suggested breakfast out before we set about getting our RV site stuff packed away so we are ready to roll in the morning...

That is a "naked" RV site.  Oh, there is more to it than just putting away chairs... the e-bikes come off the back of the coach, get folded and go into the CR-V.  The heavy-duty bike rack comes off the back of the coach, gets folded up and goes into the cargo trailer.  The patio mat that has been down for a couple months gets unstaked, shake the sand and grit out of it, and into the trailer it goes.  All the other odds and ends get put away.  The windshield cover gets wiped down and comes off.  In fact, it was an ugly, windy day yesterday, making for a lot of blowing sand in the air - so everything needs to get wiped down before being put away.  (Steph says that it my fault because I washed the coach on Wednesday.)  All the tires get checked and aired up as needed... and that is a bunch of tires.  Towing stuff lubed and prepped.

Little Izzy got one last walk; she looked a bit confused when stepping outside - "Where'd everything go?"  It is still pretty breezy, so it wasn't a long walk.

After we spruce up, it will be dinner with the kids, hugs and good-byes (the good-byes are my least favorite about the departure), then... hopefully a good night's sleep.  Tomorrow morning, we'll clean up, unhook utilities, hook the cargo trailer behind the coach, and hit the road.  Separately.  Until we get out of Arizona and can double tow again.

I don't think we've changed a bit...

In regards to getting together with Mark and Cindy last night...

A mere 40 years or so ago.  Wait - that can't be right.  Let's see... carry the 1... divide by the square root of Pi... yeah, plus or minus 3 or 4 years.

---------------

Some things really don't change...

Scoots are in their chocks and strapped down.  When we are ready, there will be a few more patio things that will go in there, but the departure process is underway.

Making some music...

We had supper tonight with friends Mark and Cindy.  Afterwards, we came back to our RV park... gave them the whole nickel tour of the Aspect.  Izzy got shown off a bit.  Then, time to break out the guitars.

We did some "show and tell" inside, but it can get tight with 4 plus guitars, so we moved out to the patio...

 

We started out with Mark on the X20, me on the X7, then swapped.  It was after the swap  that Joan got the camera out.  Besides having fun with our friends, it was the first time I've heard these guitars from "out front" - nice.  The X7 had Mark smiling...

 

Little Izzy always likes to listen when I play.

We took turns with "do you remember this one?"

Mark and I played in bands together in high school and college.  We did a duo, Mark on piano, me on guitar, both of us doing vocals.  Made more than our day jobs back in our college days.

It is always a treat to see these two.  There are some friends that you can go years without seeing, then come right back to it, as though no time had passed... Mark and Cindy are that kind of friends.

I still do plenty of playing, but this was a special treat tonight.  And just a delight to spend this time with our friends.