Driving.....San Antonio to Fort Stockton to Artesia

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Friday we continued west along I-10, aka the longest, most boring, hottest road known to man. We decided to aim for Fort Stockton for one night to breakup the trip to Carlsbad Caverns. It was our first taste of new landscapes and hilly terrain, we had to sweet talk the truck into going up a couple of the steep grades. Also gas was a bit troubling again, almost ran out seeing as there only seems to be five gas stations between San Antonio and Fort Stockton, all of which were close to one another. But that's what happens when we explore new areas. Along the way we enjoyed seeing the mesas, many hills and cactus starting to show up more. Have to say we really liked seeing the wind turbine farms just massive spinning fans off in the distance as if we were on another planet. We made in into Fort Stockton and stayed at Parkview RV Park, not shady at all, open field type camping, but for $16.00 cash and to have sewer, Wi-Fi and cable could not possibly been better. Plus the owners are incredible nice which is a nice change to what we have come across. We got setup and ate dinner and had a little time to explore town to our favorite retailer, you guessed it Walmart. You have to be a vampire to survive around here, night time is the right time, considering it was 104 at 6pm when we arrive.

This morning we were fortunate enough to see a road runner running across the campground. After this we continued on our second day of driving was all good roads and much different from the day prior. Not as many hills, tons of oil grasshoppers, dust devil and a little bit of windy conditions. Nate did some research and found that Texas Route 18 is the way to go over Highway 285 due to oil field traffic destroying the road. After our drive we settled into Artesia RV Park for three nights. They are not a passport park but were kind enough to give us one of the three nights at Passport rate which was $20.00 for them and the other two nights at Good Sam's rates of $39.00. The Wi-Fi was only for one device but otherwise the stay was nice. The site was spacious and we were able to see 2 deer right from our site, which was surprising since we were very close to downtown. The staff here was very kind too.

We spent one of our three days just exploring their town. We walked main street and drove through town to view many of their bronze statues. We also viewed a movie at their local theater which was small but nice. We ate a great lunch at Wings. I have to say that we feel so blessed that God has given us this opportunity.

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