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Nathanael - Self Photo
Here is my wonderful son filling his time while riding in the car. Once again I am amazed at how much he looks like pictures of his dad. Boy oh boy! Do I ever need to spend some time in front of my lap top to catch up on daily journaling and blog entries! So here we go with a rather quick account of our trip from San Antonio, Texas, to Tucson, Arizona which will be our home base for a while.
Saturday, March 7, 2009 we were off early from San Antonio after once more washing up and dressing in the camper. Nathanael was happy to be on the road snapping pictures all over the place. He especially enjoys taking shots of ‘inside the camper,’ his face, eyes, nostrils, hands and feet have all been subjects of photography. It’s a good thing digital cameras now make it possible to eliminate the expense of printing such silly pictures. I like this shot of Nathanael’s adorable face, though. He looks so much like his dad and just as fun-loving, too. I can see that he has grown on this trip because his face is getting longer and thinner, no more baby-faced boy.
The day was overcast which made for not too bad driving and a reduction in glare from the sun. We
Somewhere In Texas
This rest stop presented us with a beautiful view of the magnificient vistas Texas has to offer. Such rolling landscape of open range. Nathanael thought this was a great place to pose. Isn't he getting tall? took a break from driving at a rest stop somewhere in Texas and enjoyed the beautiful vista spread out before us. Nathanael picked up a rock for my flower bed as a remembrance of this trip. Any rock samples picked up on this trip are going to have to go in our side yard so they don’t get mixed up with our souvenirs from trips of years-gone-by. That will work well because our side yard is so hot in the summer it reminds me of the weather we are experiencing here in the south. Ah, this is the life.
As we headed west we were shocked to see the speed-limit signs. Maximum 80 miles per hour! We knew the Autobahn in Germany has no speed limit and people go very fast and we have seen maximums of 75 miles per hour in Michigan and a few other states, but this was the fastest speed limit we had ever seen anywhere in North America. We would be interested to know if anyone else has ever seen a higher posted speed limit on this continent. It was such a novel thing for us that we just had to
Just "Flying" Along
Although the speed limit was 80 miles per hour, .... something we had never seen before in our lives, .... the traffic just flew past us because our little RV can't come anywhere close to those speeds. A comfortable 60-65 miles an hour is about all we can handle. take a picture of the sign. Only in Texas, I guess.
As we continued westward the landscape did not change very much. There were loooonnnnggggg distances of scrub brush and rolling hills. Because there were no WELS churches within the distances we had to travel, we pulled into the Fort Stockton, Texas, RV Park early in the evening. There was an outdoor pool and Nathanael was delighted, ..... until he dipped his toes in the water. It was not a heated pool so it was quite freezing, even for him. Too tired to cook, we had supper at the Roadrunner Cafe which is run by the Christian owners of the park. The food was excellent, especially the homemade biscuits! We wrote post cards in the evening and set our alarm so we could be up in time for breakfast at the cafe. We were told it would be unforgettable. We did forget, however, to change our clock and watches to daylight savings time so we nearly missed that much anticipated breakfast. If it hadn’t been that the cook also forgot to reset his clock, we would have been out of luck. Following breakfast and a Sunday
Fort Stockton, Texas
Our overnight stay in the prairie land of Texas was very enjoyable. Here is a picture of our camper parked amid the sagebrush and cactus. morning devotion, we were on the road by 9:30 a.m.
We had thought we might try to stay overnight at the church in El Paso but since we could not reach anyone there, we decided to keep on going. There were several Border Patrol check points going both in and out of El Paso. This was a new experience for us but not unexpected because of the proximity to the Mexican border. We crossed into New Mexico, stopping at the first rest area. Interestingly enough, there was an historical marker at the stop, indicating that stagecoaches of the Butterfield Overland Mail Company stopped in the area on their way back and forth between St. Louis and San Francisco in the mid-1800’s. The 2,795-mile journey took 21-22 days.
We continued through to Deming where we pulled off at a really cool souvenir place. It was there we learned that several scenes from the latest “Indiana Jones” movie were filmed just outside of town. So, in keeping with the movie’s theme, we bought Nathe a whip as a remembrance of the locale.
We stopped for the night at the “Little
A Wagon Wheel Novelty
Both Nathanael and I fell in love with this swing. Believe me, if we could have fit it in the RV we would have taken it home. Sometimes it's a blessing to have no room or we might have brought back all of Texas with us. Vineyard RV Park.” There was an indoor pool and hot tub which Nathanael thoroughly enjoyed. We also took advantage of the Sunday night hamburger barbecue, nothing fancy but it saved Mom from cooking and cleaning up. After a day of driving it is always a welcome break to not have to prepare a meal. The temperature cooled down quite a bit overnight and we got rain, .... not particularly appreciated when one’s windshield leaks.
Monday, March 9 we were up by 5:30 a.m. but it was so dark we reset the alarm for 6:00. We were on the road before 7:00 a.m. after stopping for rather expensive gas, $2.24/gallon. I felt like I was being robbed. (Boy was I a novice. If I had only know what gas prices were further west.) Although we tried to beat the bad weather that was forecast, we still experienced windy conditions and intermittent rain showers. Of course the windshield ran water down the inside of the glass. We passed the Continental Divide just west of Deming. The land was littered with scrub brush, grass and several different types of cactus. We thought it was hilarious when we saw road
Deming, New Mexico
This Souvenir Store was just east of Deming where we spent a second night at an RV Park. We entered Mountain Time only to have to change our watches back for Daylight Savings. Very confusing indeed. signs warning of dust storms and zero visibility due to blowing sand, .... quite entertaining for those crazy Canadians who are used to only seeing signs that warn of “blowing snow!”
We passed into Arizona just past Steins, New Mexico. The rest stop/welcome center was lovely with an inner courtyard and fountains but there were no maps or information available. The land began to get hillier and shortly after we crossed the state line, we drove through an area called the Texas Canyon. This region was filled with amazingly large rocks and boulders that looked like they had been picked up and just deposited there. We also saw pecan orchards and some vineyards.
Because of our early departure, we arrived at Janice’s house by about 11:30 a.m. and were welcomed by Matthew, Janice’s grandson. How happy we were to have finally reached our destination. After a shower we both felt much better and began working on unpacking the camper. We decided to empty it of almost everything since the extremely high temperatures in Tucson might be dangerous to some of the contents (such as candles, food stuffs and spray cans).
Highway Warning Signs
This was something else we had never seen before in our lives, warnings for dust storms and zero visibility due to blowing sand. Wow, what a different world it is down here. Janice arrived home from her Monday piano lessons in the early afternoon. Once we had off-loaded the bicycles and scooter, we had a light supper and got ready for bed. It was so wonderful to be at Janice’s. I had looked forward to this visit for so long and now it was a reality. I feel very blessed to have our dream finally come true. We are anticipating a wonderful time with a very dear friend.
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Penny Hunter
non-member comment
Hello !
Hi there !! We have been receiving your post cards and I have finally sat down and checked our your travel blog. Is this ever neat. It sure sounds like you two have been having a very interesting time. Hope to see you soon. Love Penny