Texas april 4 - 9/2012

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When we stand early in the morning at Louis Armstrong Airport, we hear that our flight to Dallas in Texas has been cancelled. Only tomorrow afternoon we can leave. Later we hear that Dallas has been struck by several tornados and that half of Louisiana is under the water. Our plane is damaged like half of the fleet of American Airways and parts of the airport in Dallas are destroyed. For me it is not that bad, because I feel really sick and spend all day in bed at a luxurious hotel near the airport in New Orleans.

In Dallas we pick up our motorhome. It takes half a day to arrive at Travelhome. Public transport is not that good in this region. When we finally leave with our car it is late in the afternoon and we try to find our way in the mix max of roads around Dallas and Fortworth. None of the roads are on our map and the traffic congests every now and then. We choose the roads on intuition. To the west we have to the go. But where is the west? Apparently our intuition works, because after an hour or so we arrive at the I 20 to the west.

We are not accustomed to drive in such a luxurious car. Everything is there: toilet, shower, tv, fridge, kitchen with oven... During our trip across Africa and South America everything was low profile. We slept often in our little tent. In a silent moment during our trip across Texas we confess to eachother we liked that far more. Now we have to take care. Is not it something leaking? What to do with this and that button? Switch it on or off? When I am frying an egg for breakfast at our first campsite (it is Eastern) the alarm goes on. An ear devastating noise is sounding all over the campground. What is it? The sensor for propane? For smoke? Or the one for carbonmonoxide? We still do not know. Out we go with our fried egg and the alarm stops. We think it was the sensor for fried eggs.

All day we drive across Texas. It is boring. In the beginning we see bluebonnets in the shoulders of the road, but finally all flowers disappear. "Do not mess with Texas!', we read on the billboards along the road. But the landscape is allready completely destroyed by oilindustry and forests of sequoia high windmills. The worst part is near the city of Midland. But Midland has something no other city obtains. It is the homeland of George and Laura Bush, as a billboard proudly announces.

We pass Odessa and follow the I 20 up to Monahans. There we turn to route 18 to the south, to Fort Stockton and afterwards route 385 to Maraton, where we find a campground. After 8 hours driving we are surrounded by dark thunderstorms.

Next day the weather is fine and we drive a little bit further to Big Bend National Park, near the Mexican border. It is a remote park and not so often visited. In spite of the long trip nature is absolute rewarding. The sky has cleaned up and we make a beautiful hike along the Rio Grande. At the other side of the river we see Mexico. We see beautiful plants like the Giant Dagger (a yucca), beautiful cactusses like the Strawberry pitaya with his vermilion red flowers, the Ocotillo, the Whitethorn Acacia and the Creosote Bush. There is a pond and inside lives a fish species which is endemic for only this pond. We see hummingbirds and flycatchers. When we climb a hill we see stones with marine fossils, which means this part was once covered by a sea. In the visitors center we see a wing of a Pterodactylus. It was the biggest flying animal ever with a wing width of 9 meter.

Next morning when we leave Big Bend NP we see some Javelina's (collared peccaries) and a Roadrunner, the bird that runs to hunt his prey. It is the symbol of New Mexico, our next destination.

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Comments

[Vera]

Willie Nelson - On the Road Again
Great photos! It's a pity that there are no photos of your luxary caravan! :) I was reading and thinking that it could be nice to listen at that moment a song : Willie Nelson - On the Road Again