Welcome to our new blog where we will be sharing our trip Out West. In the right hand column are categories from which to choose Trip Reports, Navigator's Log (daily updates), Maps to show our route, and maybe photo galleries of additional photos. Check them out. We had planned to leave on our West Coast trip Sunday morning April 3, but due to Jeep repairs on Saturday, final preparations were delayed until Sunday morning. Finally leaving at 1:35, we made to San Antonio for a delightful evening with our son’s family. The next morning we detoured to Fredericksburg to visit two old friends. That’s ‘old’ as in ‘long term’ and just ‘old’. One of them turned 100 last week. Then a further detour north to Llano to meet a friend to look at an RV he was considering buying. We finally headed west again through the towns of Mason, Menard, and Eldorado, then dropping down to I-10 at Ozona. We elected to stay on the back roads because it was excellent two lanes with hardly any other vehicles. That made for leisurely, stress-free, gas-saving, speeds around 60 mph (Remember, we don’t have any deadlines). Beyond Menard we felt like we had arrived in West Texas, as the terrain was relatively flat with scrub mesquite. Ozona is a nice little town on I-10, but they don’t have a Walmart or a truck stop. We asked a guy about that as to stopping for the night. He suggested the parking lot at the Chamber of Commerce, a defunct shopping center, or in front of the local butane distributor, where he worked. We opted for the C of C. Not being able to pick up any TV or internet, made for a quiet evening. Then I discovered that our camera disk was unreadable, so we lost what few pictures we had taken. Early risers that we are, we were on the road at 6:30am, destination Las Cruses, New Mexico. We consider I-10 west of San Antonio to be a very beautiful drive. The pictures we take are ‘on the move’ from the RV. We see a lot of things to share, but we can’t stop and go back. Something we always find interesting are the 'windmill farms' all over the hills. These are 'green energy', producing electricity. I think they are rather graceful looking. We saw a couple of trucks each carrying a blade for one of these windmills. They are huge! Probably 40-50 feet long. The roadway goes through many 'cuts' through mountains, exposing interesting geological strata. Mary Lou has a book describing geological information and history along Texas highways, and that was technical, but interesting. The photo below is not the best example, but we are usually late with the camera as we drive. We expected to see the desert alive with wildflowers, but lack of rain this year has held them back. We finally ran across these. A view of I-10 from a mountain overlook. See our rig down there? New Mexico Welcome Center Picnic area at the Welcome Center. Desert/Mexican motif, nicely done. Another sight along the road. I think he lost the circus! Next stop, Las Cruses, New Mexico. We'll cover that in the next report. Stay tuned.
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Who Are We?
Chuck and Mary Lou have been traveling in their RV since 2002 and have lately been taking longer, extended trips. This is our way to share our experiences. Trip Reports
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