Tuesday, February 24th

We spent the night in Vado, NM at an overpriced discount park. The facilities were only so-so, but it was located at a convenient point on our route. When we awoke on Wednesday morning, we prepared the coaches for travel and pulled out around 9AM headed for the Flying J truck stop only 10 miles down the road. We got there, found the RV islands, and topped off the tank. It was a well-arranged truck stop with the RV island located for an easy departure.

We drove over the Woodrow Bean Transmountain Rd. north of El Paso and avoided the road construction through the downtown area. The Transmountain Rd. had a fairly steep climb over the top followed by an 8% downhill to the east side of the mountain. The road then goes through the Ft. Bliss Army base where the construction is massive. There area lot of barracks-looking buildings being erected and roads developed everywhere. Adjacent to the base are many developing subdivisions to support the military families. In this time of economic difficulty, it was interesting to see all the work that was going in.

We finally got back to I-10 and headed east. The interstates of west Texas don’t have a lot to look at. Except for the occasional road kill, the scenery is pretty sparse. I don’t particularly care for freeway driving since it’s mostly a gray band of concrete that can get extremely boring. However, when you want to travel from Point A to Point B quickly, it serves its purpose. We were attempting to get miles behind us and reach the San Antonio area as quickly as possible. The most interesting attraction was watching the semi trucks and comparing the sleeper cabs, paint jobs, and listening to the discussions on the CB radio. We also discovered that there aren’t many radio stations out in west Texas, so a satellite radio would be a treasure to have.

We made several stops for stretching the legs, swapping drivers, and grabbing a bite of lunch. Finally we arrived in Ft. Stockton after 335 miles and headed for another discount park. We found the park south of town and it resembled more of a parking lot than an RV park. Jim checked the outlet at his assigned site and discovered an open ground. The maintenance guys came over and sprayed some WD-40 on the receptacle. It seemed to resolve the problem - probably a dusty or corroded receptacle. We all sat down to a steak dinner and retired to our separate coaches for the evening. We decided to try for an 8AM departure.

It was fortunate for us that we tried for an early morning. Jim had a leaky tire valve and I had an almost flat tire on the front of the coach. We needed the extra hour to get aired up and ready to go. By 9AM we were pulling out of our sites. Our drive to Canyon Lake had us continuing east on I-10 to the town of Boerne (pronounced bir-ney) and off the interstate. We took several smaller state highways and wandered north of San Antonio. Before we arrived at Bob Clerc’s house, I gave him a phone call and he drove down to meet us and lead us in. He has a house on almost three lots and a comfortable place to park the coaches.

We drove around the back of the house where Bob had two electric boxes and got set up. It was really good to see Bob and Maribel at their house. In addition, it has been a fantastic two days of sight-seeing led by Bob. I was able to lighten the load on the coach by dropping off a case of Two Buck Chuck wine purchased in California.

On Friday we all loaded in to Bob’s Honda Pilot and headed for the LBJ Ranch and Fredericksburg. The Ranch was an interesting tour and quite a sight to see. The 6000’ runway amazed me and the house was beautiful. We drove on to Fredericksburg, a town that shows a German influence, and has a lot of touristy shops on the main street. We had an early supper, did some window-shopping, and started back to Canyon Lake.

Saturday morning found us headed for San Antonio and the Alamo. My memories of the Alamo are over 40 years old when you could actually see the old fort building from the street. Now the park is surrounded by a rock wall and very commercialized. We wandered through the buildings and watched all the tourists spending money on assorted trinkets and clothing.

When we left the Alamo, we walked to the River Walk. This is an amazing development along the San Antonio River that has become quite an impressive sight. There are restaurants, bars, bistros, and big hotels all built around the 4’-deep canal with pontoon boats giving tours and dinners. It was a bit overwhelming to see all the development that has taken place since my days in San Antonio back in the mid 60’s and USAF basic training. On the way home we stopped at Sam’s Club to get some grocery items, gas, and found a Dairy Queen for a blizzard. Maribel put together a comfortable evening meal for us and we were headed for bed by 9PM.

On Sunday Bob and Maribel went to mass and we prepared for our departure. By the time that they returned, we were hooked up and ready to pull out. It was with a great deal of sorrow that we left their house and headed east on Texas state highways. We drove over to New Braunfels, then north on I-35 to San Marcos, and east on TX-21 through Bastrop to Giddings and Brenham, home of Blue Bunny ice cream. From there we took TX-105 to Lake Conroe and the Lake Conroe Thousand Trails Park. Jim & Peggy split off to the Castaways Western Horizon Park. We checked in to the TTN park and were pleasantly surprised to find a great end site with a little front yard for Nancy.

On Monday morning Dottie immediately got started on laundry and I worked on cleaning and waxing the coach. We were finished by noon and drove over to The Castaways to pick up the Griches. We drove down to Oak Ridge North, where we lived 35 years ago, to see our former neighbor, Doris Sterling. She had made arrangements with the current owner of our old house to let us see the inside and the many improvements they have made. It was quite a tour and a great chance to see the house that we had lived in and the changes that have been made in 35 years! After visiting with Doris, we headed back to the campgrounds and stopped at a Super Wal-Mart and a Ryan’s buffet. We stuffed ourselves and returned to the coaches.

Tuesday morning Jim & Peggy drove over near the Thousand Trails park and we met them on the road. We drove down to Conroe and took TX-105 all the way over to Beaumont. The road goes through some interesting small towns that reflect the unbelievable poverty of East Texas. The roads were good, but the scenery was lush, tree-filled acreage. The homes are mostly ground level and look like they’d be very susceptible to the heavy rains that come through this area of the state. A lot of mobile homes and older vehicles are parked on the lots. It’s saddening, but beautiful at the same time.

We drove until we joined up with I-10 and proceeded east to Orange, TX and the Flying J truck stop for refueling. After fueling the coaches, we drove to the back of the parking lot and took a lunch break before continuing our drive for another 100 miles to Frog City RV Park in Duson, LA. Today is Fat Tuesday and the park is full with Mardi Gras attendees. Dottie fixed a spaghetti dinner and we all settled in for a quiet night.