Living Our Dream

Dallas to Albuquerque

One of the interesting things about staying at Hickory Creek Campground on Lewisville Lake in the Dallas area was the large number of wading birds that visited the lake. There would usually be at least a few birds around almost all the time during the day; but just about every morning for a short time just about the time the sun came up, there would be 20 or 30 great egrets and a few blue herons at the little inlet near where our site was. On the morning we left, Paul finally managed to catch a photo of a large group of the birds.



We finished packing, and took off for our next overnight stop at Copper Breaks State Park. Located about 12 miles south of the small town of Quanah, TX, Copper Breaks is an out-of-the-way state park that might be one of Texas' best kept secrets. We were there in the middle of the week, and the camping areas were empty except for us and the campground host. The photo below shows our site at Copper Breaks State Park.

 

Copper Breaks has paved roads, gravel pads, water and 50/30 amp electric hookups, tepee-like lean-to shelters, and widely spaced sites. There are hiking trails, an equestrian trail, and mountain bike trails. The campground is in the middle of nowhere (that's Zeller-speak for there isn't a Walmart nearby), and it was very quiet. Unfortunately, it was 90 degrees and we had to run the air so we couldn't enjoy the quiet.

About dusk, it had finally cooled off enough for us to go for a short walk. We were just in time to catch the sun dip below the junipers.

The park takes its name from the gray-green streaks of copper ore that run through the red rocks. Even in the waning light, the colors were very striking.

 

The next morning, we were on our way again for another one-night stop in Amarillo, TX, where we stayed at Oasis RV Resort. Oasis RV is a relatively new campground, and it is very well designed. The sites are fairly widely spaced and are completely paved with gravel between. Oasis is a member of Passport America, but the 50% discounts are temporarily suspended because they are offering a special $20 a night rate (their regular price is about $33 - the going rate for the area) to everyone to try to keep the campground as filled as they can after the high fuel prices last year and the poor economy this year. There are a lot of empty sites around us in the photo below because quite a few people had already left that morning.

 

From Amarillo, we drove about 5 hours to Albuquerque, NM. We will be spending a week at American RV Park. American RV has mostly pull-throughs with back-ins around the perimeter. Some of the pads are paved and some, like ours, are gravel and sand. The sites are a little close, but not too bad. American has full hookups including cable, and they have Wi-fi. Like most of the campgrounds in Albuquerque, American RV is located right along I-40, and there is some traffic noise. The photo below shows our site at American RV.

 

This is our first visit to Albuquerque, and there are a lot on our "want to see" list. We'll be sure to share what we find.

Amarillo, TX

We left Taos and headed southeast to Amarillo, TX. It would be a little too far to make it comfortably in one day, so we stopped overnight in Tucumcari, NM, at Cactus RV Park. Cactus RV is located on historic Route 66 close enough to I-40 to be convenient, but far enough away that there is no way you could hear the traffic.

Cactus RV is on the grounds of an old motel, and the old motel rooms still run down the eastern side and across the back of the campground. It feels a little bit like a piece of history. The campground has full hookups (no restrooms or showers, so self-contained RVs only), free Wi-Fi, and cable TV.

There are a few bigger shade trees, but mostly there are smaller trees (primarily junipers) between the sites for privacy. All sites are level and most are extra long pull-throughs so you don't have to unhook if you don't want to. Cactus RV is great for a one- or two-night stop, especially at the Passport America rate of $13 a night plus tax.

The sites at the front of the campground are all gravel and there are some in back that don't seem to get much use that are in an open, grassy field. The photo below shows our site at Cactus RV.

From Tucumcari, it was about a two-hour drive to Amarillo, although we lost an hour to the time change going from Mountain to Central time. We arrived at Ft. Amarillo RV Resort in the early afternoon. It was Sunday and the office was closed, but they had a little packet of information for us with our name and site number on it at the night registration desk.

Ft. Amarillo RV is located west of the city just off I-40. In fact, I-40 overlooks the campground and there is some traffic noise from the interstate. The roads and sites are gravel (it looks like some parts may have been paved at one time). They could use a little fresh gravel to reduce muddy spots when it rained and to cut down on dust when it was dry. The sites are mostly pull-throughs.

The campground has full hookups, free cable and Wi-Fi, an indoor pool, a hot tub, an exercise room (with two weight machines, a set of dumbbells, two treadmills, and a stationary bike), a putting green and a tennis court. Each site has a small, concrete patio. The spacing of the sites isn't too bad for a private campground, and they also have 3 foot high privacy fences between sites. The photo below shows our site at Ft. Amarillo RV.

 

Fort Amarillo RV Resort is also home to Lizzie Mae's Mercantile. It's a country gift shop much like we seen in Pennsylvania and Ohio but not in the Southwest, so it felt a lot like home. :) It's crammed with collectibles, Southwest home decor, jewelry, purses, locally-made jellies, and many more things. We were able to do a little Christmas shopping. :)

Last year we spent a good bit of time farther south in Texas, and we were curious about the northern panhandle. Since our route back east this year took us through the panhandle, we scheduled a week stopover to explore Amarillo. This got us a weekly rate at Ft. Amarillo RV Resort that averaged out to a little less than $21 a night.

We had previously researched  Amarillo on the internet and found some sightseeing possibilities, but we also needed a stop near a little bigger city like Amarillo because Margery needed to do a little shopping and because Paul needed to find a Lowe's or Home Depot for a few supplies for some minor RV repairs.

Approaching Amarillo, we ran into something we haven't seen for a while - rain. Oh, we've seen a few thunder showers, especially in Taos; but we haven't seen several days of off and on rain. Well, a rainy day was a good time to get our shopping done.

Then on the second day of 80% chance of rain, we started out with a breakfast buffet at the Big Texan Steak Ranch. The Big Texan is famous for its 72 oz. steak dinner that's free if you can eat everything, including the shrimp cocktail, salad, baked potato, roll, AND the 72 oz. steak, in an hour or less. If you decide to try it, you get to sit on the stage so everyone can watch. About 8,000 people have successfully completed the feat since the restaurant opened in the '60s. If you don't make the one hour time limit, the meal will set you back $72.

The photo below shows the outside of the Big Texan. Even on the overcast, rainy day we were there, the bright yellow color almost hurt our eyes. They offer free limo service to and from nearby motels and campgrounds. The limos with the cattle horns on the hood are parked to the right.

That's Paul posing in the photo below, and that's about as close as he's going to get to a 72 oz. steak.

Maybe the Big Texan's steaks are better, but the breakfast buffet was mediocre at best. Even though they had made-to-order omelets and pancakes, we thought the buffet selection was rather limited and the food was pretty dried out. At a cost of $8.95, we were very disappointed; and we think the Der Dutchman breakfast buffets in Waynesville and Walnut Creek, OH, are much better and a couple of dollars cheaper.

After breakfast, went to the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum about 15 miles south of Amarillo in Canyon, TX. The Texas Panhandle lies in the southern Great Plains, and the museum covers the history of the area from fossils of prehistoric animals, through the archeology and history the Plains Indians, all the way to modern times. There are also collections of American art, Native American art, and firearms.

In the photo below, Margery is checking out a model of an Indian pueblo.

Water has always been important to the plains. The Ogallala Aquifer underlies about 225,000 square miles of the Great Plains, including much of the Texas Panhandle. The museum has a collection of windmills, which were (and still are) used to pump water from this underground aquifer.

 

The museum has a lot of information on the history of oil in the Texas Panhandle. Oil was discovered in 1925 and the boom of oil discovery continued into the 1930s. The photo below shows a pump jack from that period.

 

As we left the museum, the rain had stopped, at least temporarily. We hit a few light showers on the way back to the motor home; but by late afternoon, it looked like the rain was pretty much over.

We gave the weather an extra day to clear, then headed back down toward Canyon, TX to visit Paol Duro Canyon State Park. The name Palo Duro translated from the Spanish means "hard wood" and came from the mesquite and juniper trees found in the canyon.

The canyon was cut into the soft, sedimentary layers of the Texas Panhandle by the Prairie Dog Town Fork of the Red River. Although the river isn't very big, we saw evidence of its power. The road through the park crosses the river several times and there was dried mud all over the roads at the crossings indicating the river had overflowed its banks during the recent rains. One branch of the road was still closed due to high water even though it had been two days since the rain had ended. The water in the river was red with mud indicating the river was still at work to deepening the canyon.

Palo Duro Canyon, which is called the Grand Canyon of Texas, is about 120 miles long, up to 20 miles wide, and a maximum of about 800 feet deep. The state park, which was opened in 1934, comprises 26,275 acres in the northernmost part of the canyon. The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) built most of the roads and buildings in the state park. The photo below is looking down the canyon from the visitor center.

In the closer view below, the flared formation to the lower right of center is called Spanish Skirt.

 

The Lighthouse is a famous formation in Palo Duro Canyon. The hike to the Lighthouse was 5.75 miles round trip with a vertical climb of over 800 feet. With the difficulty making the 3 mile hike with a 480 foot climb to Delicate Arch in Arches National Park recently, we decided to pass on the hike to the Lighthouse. We had to settle for a telephoto shot of the Lighthouse from about 3 miles away. The Lighthouse is just to the left of center in the photo below.

The visitor center had a very good video about the history of the canyon. The first inhabitants thousands of years ago were nomads who hunted mammoth and bison in the canyon.

A Spanish expedition came to the area by way of Taos in 1541. The Apache were living in the canyon at the time, but they were soon displaced by the Kiowa and Comanche. In 1874, the Native Americans were removed to reservations in Oklahoma.

In 1876, Charles Goodnight came to the canyon and started JA Ranch. The ranch, which still operates on a smaller scale today, had as many as 100,000 head of cattle at one time.

Beyond the visitor center, the road descended down into the canyon. As is did, we could see the brightly-colored layers of orange, yellow, red, and mauve in the canyon walls.

Down on the canyon floor, we stopped at a reproduction of the dugout shelter used by Charles Goodnight until he could build a proper house. It was pretty grim - dark, dank, and musty-smelling. We could only imagine what it must have been like mixed with animal smells, dust, and wood smoke.

 

But the location was beautiful. These rock layers were near the dugout.

 

And the formation shown below called Fortress Cliff was not too far away.

We passed the fellow in the photo below on the road and turned around to take another look. By the time we got back, he was off in the weeds, so this was the best photo Paul could get. He wasn't about to chase a 4+ foot diamondback rattlesnake into the tall grass.

The canyon is also the home of Texas, an outdoor musical drama featuring fireworks, special lighting, and a cast of 60 actors, singers, and dancers. Unfortunately, the last show of the season was the day we arrived in Amarillo, so we missed it.

After we left Palo Duro Canyon, we stopped at a roadside pull-off about a mile west of the campground called Cadillac Ranch. Cadillac Ranch is located in a field just off the frontage road that parallels east bound I-40. Cadillac Ranch was built in 1974 and was the brainchild of an art group called the Ant Farm and consists of 10 Cadillacs ranging from 1949 to 1963 models. The model years represent the "tail fin" Cadillacs.

The graffiti-covered cars are buried nose first at an the same angle as the sides of the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt. In 1997, the installation was quietly moved two miles west to be farther from the growing city. The public is encouraged to visit the site and to express themselves with spray paint. The vehicles are occasionally repainted various colors to commemorate special occasions or to simply provide the public with a fresh canvas. Are they junk cars or art? We'll leave that for you to decide.

As we like to do, we again left ourselves a day at the end of our stay to catch up on chores. We cleaned the inside of the motor home, Margery did several loads of wash, and Paul washed the car and finished washing the outside of the motor home.) On the day before we move on, we also like to do things like check the tire pressures and stow gear to prepare for departure, and to have a little time to relax. We are continuing our eastward migration.

We left Tonopah, AZ, with temps in the 70's heading for southwest Texas hoping the weather forecast for highs in the upper 60's would hold. Our destination was Davis Mountain State Park, elevation 5-6,000 feet. Similar to our travels west earlier this year, we ran the gambit of weather. Going across the Sonoran Desert, we were captivated with the clouds and weather we could see in the distance.

As we climbed in altitude crossing New Mexico on I-10, we  encountered  lumpy "rain."

We waited out the weather at the Escapees' Dream Catcher Park in Demining, NM. This full-hook-up campground with pull-throughs is close to I-10 and is an easy in/out.

As we approached El Paso, TX, the Rio Grande River becomes the border between the United States and Mexico. This 1,885-mile river which begins in the San Juan Mountains in southwest Colorado  flows south through the middle of New Mexico and then southeast as the border between Texas and Mexico emptying into the Gulf of Mexico at Brownsville, TX.

It's not exceptionally wide as it passes between El Paso and Juarez, MX, and Mexico is easily seen from I-10. "So near and yet so far" came to mind as we thought about  the  many  people who risk so much to enter the US.

Across from where the above photo was snapped, we were struck by how dwarfed these El Paso houses looked by the mountains behind them.

Davis Mountain State Park was our homebase for four days while we explored the area. This full-hook-up campground is in the most extensive mountain range in Texas, and we were captivated by its rugged beauty.

While we were setting up, a herd of mule deer grazed freely and were not at all shy. Mule deer have larger ears than the white-tail deer found in Pennsylvania.  

Our drive to the top of one of the peaks in the park provided us with a stunning view of the area.

The state park is just 4 miles north of Fort Davis, a military post from 1854 - 1891. Abandoned during the Civil War by Union Forces, it was re-occupied and re-built in 1867 for the newly organized Ninth U.S. Cavalry. The standard of living in this 1867 re-built frontier outpost seemed to us to be rather sophisticated. These furnishings were ordered by Commanding Officer Benjamin Grierson's wife specifically for their move to this residence.

Leisure-time diversions included a band, a library, a chapel and a school. Because many officers had their wives and families with them, the women organized social events, i.e., balls, charades, and dinner parties.

Fort Davis is 30 miles north of the town of Marfa, home of the Marfa Lights. These orb lights have an unexplained history. Ten miles of the road to Marfa was dirt while it's being re-constructed, so we put an excursion to see the lights on our "to do" list in the future.

However, we did attend a Star Party at the McDonald Observatory which is part of the University of Texas at Austin. The night was clear (with temps in the low 30's) which enabled us to see an incredible array of stars. We viewed the sky through several telescopes but the most captivating and memorable for both of us was seeing Saturn complete with rings. It was an amazing experience. The observatory could be seen from a distance.

Not far from Ft. Davis is the Chihuahuan Desert Research Institute where we toured the outdoor exhibits and botanical gardens. This is a great view of Mitre Peak which saw when we were on the Hummingbird-Butterfly Trail.

There was an excellent and educational mining exhibit. What a thrill to find this MSA Mine Spot mine lamp on display. As a manufacturing engineer for MSA, Paul oversaw the building of quite a few of the molds used to make this very lamp.

Leaving Davis Mountain SP, we continued south to Seminole Canyon State Park. Home to Native American rock art, The Fate Bell Shelter Tour is a rugged hike to the bottom of the canyon to see the pictographs first hand led by members of The Rock Art Foundation. The rock overhang in the distance is the Fate Bell Shelter. Although it's hard to tell from the photograph, the floor of the canyon at this point is at least 100' below the rim.

Unfortunately, because of the ruggedness of the trail and Margery's bad knees, we were unable to take the tour, but the state park headquarters had an outstanding interpretive center.

Wondering where the canyons that crisscross this area come from, we learned that hurricanes which hit the lower southwest edge of Texas can dump up to 20 inches of rain in this area helping carve out the canyons.

The area around Semiole Canyon is one of those diamonds in the rough. A short distance from Langtry, TX, we toured Judge Roy Bean's Saloon and home. Known as "The Hanging Judge," there's no evidence that he ever hanged anyone. One or two were taken to the gallows, but were allowed to escape.

This colorful character was self-named "the Law West of the Pecos." Only in the old west could a murderer known for dueling, gambling, and swindling by selling watered-down milk and stolen firewood be appointed a Justice of the Peace. Here is a sample of Judge Bean's "law."

Between Langtry and the state park, there were some great observation points. Here in the foreground you see the Pecos River. Right beyond the cliff at the end of the far bank it flows into the Rio Grande River.  The hills in the distance are in Mexico.

One of the benefits of keeping a loose travel schedule, is the freedom to change plans on a moment's notice. Seeing an advertisement for Alamo Village, "the most active and versatile outdoor movie set," we put it on our itinerary.

Located in Brackettville, it was built by John Wayne and ranch owner Happy Shahan in the late 50's for John Wayne's movie, Alamo. This working movie set includes no false fronts and everything needed for a western film, i.e. hotel, bank, sheriff's office and jail, undertaker's shop, blacksmith, and livery among many other buildings including, of course, a replica of the Alamo.

Today, the real Alamo in San Antonio consists only of the restored mission building. When defended by the famous freedom fighters, however, the Alamo was a sprawling mission-fortress covering nearly four acres of ground. John Wayne and Happy Shahan constructed two distinct areas: the Alamo mission complex and the western/Mexican town.

During our visit, we met the  "marshal," Rich Curilla, a fellow-Pennsylvanian and a '69 Penn State graduate in film production.

Rich was a wealth of information about the movies and stars who are part of the Alamo Village history. He had great stories to share about Jimmy Stewart, James Garner, John Schneider and Matt Damon; but his all-time favorite was Mary Stuart Masterson who stared with Drew Barrymore in Bad Girls filmed in 1993.

More than 200 major motion pictures, music videos, commercials, and documentaries have been filmed here including Lonesome Dove and James Michner's Texas. The next filming is scheduled for early May, and the Village will be open to tourists during filming. Marshal Curilla helps tourists find the best viewing locations without disrupting the filming.

Rich told us about some ambitious plans on the drawing board for Alamo Village, and we look forward to returning in the future.

Historic Fort Clark Springs was our "home" during our visit at Alamo Village. Fort Clark was established on the banks of Las Moras Creek by the U.S. Army in 1852 to protect a segment of the "lower road" from San Antonio to El Paso as well as frontier settlers from Indians and bandits. Virtually all cavalry units including the the 9th and 10th "Buffalo Soldiers" were  stationed here before it was decomissioned in 1946. General George Marshall, US Chief of Staff, and General George Patton, famous for his operations in North Africa, both during World War II, served here in the late 30's.

Today, Fort Clark is a gated resort and leisure-living community. Over 80 historic buildings, many still in use for their original intended purposes, are preserved in this unique community which includes an RV park with full-hook-ups and Texas-friendly residents.

Lake Casa Blanca International State Park is located in Laredo, TX; and it was our "holding" location until it was time to check-in to our March destination.

This was a busy, suburban park that saw a lot of activity during the week and on the weekend. The Mexicans are a fun-loving people who enjoy spending time together as a family.

Laredo was a charming city with a shopping district down by the Laredo International Bridge to Mexico that reminded us of "The Strip" in Pittsburgh...full of colorful, ethnic stores. We were struck by the architectural appeal of the area.

We had made reservations for the month of March in Bentsen Palm Village in Mission, TX, so our transient travels through southwest Texas came to an end all to quickly.  We didn't have time to visit Big Bend National Park but we've put it on our list for another time. However, we were looking forward to staying planted in one place for month, the longest we will have spent in one place since we went on the road last July.

Check out the Photo Album: 014: Journey to South Texas for pictures of the campgrounds we visited and more pictures of our adventures.