Texas – TooBusyForWork

The things I forget each time we start a trip

I know I said I didn’t plan on posting again, but I thought this topic would be a good one to write down so I can look at it before our summer trip. Of course, I’ll probably forget, but I will attempt it anyway.

1. The clothes hangers in the close need to be hung backwards. If I hand them normally they fall off with the first big bump. I am not sure why the direction is important, but it is. Maybe my physicist son could tell me, but I sure can’t figure it out.

2. The things you think should stay on the counter won’t stay, but the things that seem movable will stay exactly put. This is another thing I don’t understand at all. I will put two items on the bathroom counter, one of the most stable spots in the motorhome because it is over the back wheels. One of them will stay exactly where I put it, and the other one will be on the floor. Can’t figure this one out either.

3. It takes a lot, lot, lot longer than you think to rinse the RV antifreeze out of the water lines. Kevin tried to do it at home before we left, and he swears he left each faucet on at least 5 minutes. They all still taste like antifreeze! Luckily RV antifreeze isn’t harmful, but it sure doesn’t taste good. We really do need to plan on staying in a full hookup campground the first night so we can get the lines really flushed.

4. Don’t be in so much of a hurry to start on your trip that you say “I’ll put that up when we get to our first overnight spot.” No, no you won’t. You will be tired and thinking about those water lines. Put things in their place first.

I am sure I will think of even more things soon, but this is a good start.

Oh, and I re-sized the pictures I got of the cats that I didn’t have available for the last post.

Look at the pouch on Luna! She is 11.5 pounds

Minnie loves her treats. She is just 7.5 pounds.

As for where we have spent the nights, we spent Boxing Day (26 December) at the Elks Lodge in Cameron, MO. The advertised electric sites were no where to be found, and the two other rigs there had obviously be there a long time. Not a fan. The second night we spent at the Elks Lodge in Chickasha, OK. It was a long day since there was a big storm coming in behind us. This was another dry camp, but the parking lot was big enough we didn’t have to unhitch. No drinks at the lodge because they allow smoking – ugh. Tonight we made a 400+ mile drive to get to Monahan, TX, staying at SJ Family RV Park. It looks like we outran the storm at least. We wanted to spend the night at the Monahan Sand Dunes State park, but they were full. This place is a real dump, but it is also only $25/night. I would gladly have spent twice the amount for a nicer place, but Kevin had already arranged this one. It is the first time in a long time that we have locked everything up tight! Tomorrow’s plan is to be at the Elks Lodge in Las Cruces, FHU hopefully. We want to do laundry before arriving in Quartzsite, so I am hoping we can get that done tomorrow.

Now back to practicing the ukulele. I still have trouble transitioning to an F chord.

RMMA Rally and heading home

We spent our last night in Ignacio visiting a bit of Chimney Rock Monument and a Native American flute player. The weather was threatening as we drove up, and it got worse. Lightening and thunder were all around us, so the planned outdoor aspects of the visit were superseded. We got to listen inside the Visitor Center, but I did get just a hint of a small ruin, shown below. The giant kiva and the Big House were out of reach this time, so I guess we will have to go back!

One of the smaller ruins at Chimney Rock

We drove to Farmington, NM where the Rocky Mountain Motorhome Association, a regional group from the FRVA, was having a rally. It was our first time at a regional rally, and it was a nice change.It was small enough (100 or so rigs) you got to meet people more easily. The Frustrated Maestros I mentioned last time were a blast! Not all were great musicians, but the purpose is FUN, and I am pretty sure everyone had a lot of that. It took me a while to get into a popular music style since I do so much more formal choral music, but I finally figured it out. Now if only I didn’t get so nervous singing a solo!

Oh, I have to mention that the Verizon service at the Fairgrounds where we had the rally was astonishing! Look at this screen shot; even Starlink could only run at about 180 or so.

In addition to singing three mornings, I also taught a class on making oven mitts. The students got to pick their favorite fabric kit, quilt the fabric, cut it with the Accuquilt, machine bind the edges, and then finish sewing. We had a blast! One of the nicest groups of folks I have ever had the pleasure of teaching, they had enthusiasm and great attitudes as you can see from this picture (yes, they gave permission). Everybody finished one mitt completely, and the second mitt didn’t need much more work but wasn’t quite finished in the two hours we had. I had so much fun picking out the fabric, and I have quite a few kits left. Guess what some of my Christmas presents will be?

All good things must come to an end <sigh>. We are heading to the Red Bay, AL area for work on the motorhome, so most of the rest of the trip will be pretty boring. We spent the first night out of Farmington at the Santa Rosa State Park in NM. We would normally have planned on somewhere closer like Albuquerque, but the Balloon Fiesta is running and there isn’t a place within 100 miles at a reasonable distance. But the state park was lovely. There was a lot of water in the lake since they have had heavy rains, and the area was a lot greener than we had seen it before. Here is a picture Kevin took from our site. The only issue we had getting here was a major accident just a few miles from our exit to Santa Rosa. It took us about an hour to go 3-4 miles! Somehow a semi had destroyed their trailer (peeled the roof right off!) and crunched the tractor pretty good just at the start of a big construction zone. It was awfully tiring driving 2-3 mph. Just about everyone was well behaved, but I was glad to get to the campsite.

We are now in a crowded Elks Lodge parking lot in Amarillo, TX. There are 7 other MHs here, and we are parked awfully close to each other. But the price is right, and it is fine for a single overnight. I got the chance to clean up and sort all my sewing stuff, so that is good. We plan on averaging 200-230 miles a day to get to Red Bay on Saturday. We stay in a parking lot there too!

I probably won’t post again unless I get some sewing done. I have a pair of oven mitts that are partially complete that I was using as a sample, so I need to finish them. I also have the October Kona Block of the Month to finish. Oh, and all those Christmas presents!

Eclipse then home

We woke to a cloudy morning on 8 April. It didn’t look promising for viewing. Kevin kept watching the cloud cover on weather apps, and just before totality we quickly drove 20 miles northwest. We got amazingly lucky, and the clouds parted just enough to view totality! There were still some high thin clouds, but we could see the “Diamond ring” and then the darkness fell. All the birds stopped singing, and even the insects stopped their sounds. Very odd, but just like what we observed during the 2017 eclipse in Idaho. Soon it was over, and we got absolutely no good pictures! We were rushing so much to get to a clear spot we had no time to set up gear. Oh well I have memories.

We spent Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday night at the RV park in so-so weather. We spent Thursday, 11 April at the Walmart in Abilene. Nice spot for an overnight parking location. We spent Friday at Mustang RV Park in Oklahoma, leaving very early after deciding to make a run for home because of a bad storm coming in. We made it to the KOA in Topeka, KS on Saturday, then home on Sunday. We put the motorhome at our local county park, open but without water. We were too tired to unpack, so we just slept there that night. Monday and Tuesday were unpacking – ugh. It always seems a lot more trouble to unpack than to pack. But we are now home, and the cats adjusted quickly. I think they like the extra space for their zoomies. They run from the bedroom through the living room and down the stairs multiple times a day.

April and May are our medical appointment times, and we are both pretty busy with our respective dentists and doctors. Kevin is getting his dental implant finished, and I have appointments with a dermatologist, ophthalmologist, and the pain medicine guy. I need a dentist appointment too. The pain med will require at least two follow up appointments, and the derm probably will too. Sigh.

My poor 830 Record sewing machine had to go to its doctor on Saturday too. I got a thread sound up at the stand and broke the needle. I can’t get it to do any free motion quilting since, and it broke 5 needles when I kept trying various repairs I knew about. It sews ok on straight stitching, but there is thread wadding up on the bottom when I do FMQ. Hopefully I just pulled something out of whack and the machine can easily (and inexpensively) come back from it. I will find out in a week or so. The RZR is in for some major preventative service too since we really don’t know how it was cared for before we got it. We have out a few thousand miles on it! We had a regular oil change done when needed, but this is a more extensive service. We find out that dollar amount next week too, depending on whether they fine anything serious. We don’t think so, but …

I won’t be posting much, normal for me when I am home. Staying in one place just isn’t as interesting as traveling. We do have one short trip planned with my son in law and his two children the week after Memorial Day. Then we will be leaving for our western summer in mid-June.

Lake Havasu, Casa Grande, and the Desert Botanical Garden

We took off on Sunday morning, 24 March, and headed toward Lake Havasu City. We had reserved 5 nights at the Elks Lodge full hookup campground. Very nice! We had an end site, and we were able to enjoy some fabulous sunsets looking over the town and lake. The place was pretty full each night with snowbirds on their migration, so advanced reservations were needed. This was definitely the biggest and most active lodge we have stayed at. Cheap drinks, decent food, and no smoking made it a hit. We came so I could attend a Staycation with the Lake Havasu Quilt Guild I joined back in June.

A quilt Staycation is like a quilt retreat except you get to go home each night! Breakfast goodies, lovely lunch, nice snacks, and prizes were to be had. I took my set of 100 4” finished triangle in a square blocks. I had to arrange them, and the big tables made it so much easier than the motorhome. I got them arranged nicely, sewn together, and then I got the quilt sandwiched nicely. I even started quilting it, but my thread got caught and broke the needle. Even though I tried all kinds of tricks to get the machine working again, I must have tweaked something wrong internally. Sigh. I really wanted to finish the quilt before I got home plus do some other miscellaneous sewing too. I have already made an appointment with a service shop.

Leaving Lake Havasu we gradually headed toward our eclipse reservation in Uvalde, TX. Or at least we tried! We made it a whole 60 miles before we had to pull off the road for wind. That had us spending Saturday night, 30 March, in Bouse, AZ at the Desert Pueblo RV Park. It was a bare bones snowbird park, but very clean and quiet. A single activity room and no pool, but it was only $500 a month plus electricity for winter. We took off on Sunday morning for Casa Grande and another Elks Lodge. This camping area was dry camping, but that didn’t bother us in the least. We stayed two nights since we wanted to revisit the Desert Botanical Gardens in Phoenix. Prepare for a photo extravaganza!

This is two shots of the wildflower garden.

The organ pipe cacti here inspired us to visit Organ Pipe National Monument a few years ago.

I love this view of a saguaro forest on a hill. I really want to come back some time in June to see them blooming.

It was an overcast day that threatened rain, so some of the flowers were curled up.

Look at this century plants (agave) putting out huge flower stalks. After blooming later in the season the plant will die.

There were numerous areas of lupines in all colors. I have a weakness for the dark oin of these.

Saguaro are not just popular with humans, but the birds depend on them. The lower bird was headed into a nesting cavity. The top bird had nesting materials in its beak.

We never did find the plant tag for this tall fellow. To compare, Kevin is 5’10”.

Barrel cacti are my favorite type. They come in a variety of shapes and spine types, but these orange flowering ones were showing off through the garden.

I am showing two pictures of these small barrel cacti to give you an idea of scale. The cacti “buds” were 2-3” high, and the flowers tiny but brilliant.

And I just think the white spikes on this succulent is interesting. The Palo Verde Tree behind it was lovely too. Palo Verde trees do their photosynthesis in their green trunks instead of their leaves.

This barrel cactus was in a container right at the entrance. It was a good opportunity to get a better view of the flowers.

These Chihuly glass sculptures were also at the entrance, sparkling even under the overcast skies.

Kevin and I both agreed we need to plan a trip to the area later in the year, heat and all, to catch more blooms.

After Casa Grande, we spent a night in Deming at the Elks Lodge. They don’t officially have a camping spot, but they said we were welcome to park overnight. Dry camping on the edge of bunch of WWII barracks foundations and across the street from an old Army Aerodrome from the same time. The lodge looks abandoned, but then, a lot of Deming looks the same way. We spent Wednesday night in the Van Horn RV Park which meant lots of laundry. They have a decent little cafe there with standard diner food but delicious home made cobblers. Ft. Stockton RV Park was the last stop before we landed in Uvalde, TX where we are staying at Qual Spring RV Park. Very nice place! Live oaks give lots of shade, and the sites aren’t bad sized. We aren’t fond of Texas, but this is definitely one of the nicer places we have stayed in the state. We won’t leave until Wednesday morning, 10 April. Clouds are expected to put a huge damper on our eclipse viewing, but that is the luck of the draw. We talked about trying to chase the totality zone to a place without clouds, but decided it wasn’t worth it.

On the way west

We are finally in Arizona. As I noted in the last post, we spent Sunday night at a Walmart in Arkansas, then Monday night in the parking lot of the Grand Casino in McLoud, OK (near Shawnee, OK). We were able to have dinner with my sister and nephew in Oklahoma City which was nice. We saw high winds and red flag warnings were getting posted, so we left a few minutes before 7:00 am to try to make it to Amarillo, TX before the storm got bad. We barely made it. The last 30 miles or so were pretty white knuckled driving, but we got to our reserved spot at the Big Texan Ranch RV Park. We ended up leaving all but one of the slides pulled in. The winds were steady at 30+, and the gusts were 60-65+. Definitely not the time to leave the slides out. For anyone not familiar with the big slides on a big motorhome, they all have some type of vinyl covering over the top of the slide. Ours are made out of Sunbrella, and they fit pretty snuggly. But the noise they make when they start flapping in heavy winds can drive you crazy, so we bring them in. It isn’t a safety thing.

The wind warning went through Wednesday night, so we decided to just stay put in Amarillo for two nights. We went to Palo Duro State Park, just a short distance from Amarillo. Kevin and I had taken Alan and Mark here the first year we owned a pop up camper. Mark was a toddler, and Alan was 5 or 6. We hadn’t been back since, so it was time. It was cold and the wind whipped right through us, so we definitely just drove through the park. Pretty nice scenery though.

From the visitor center looking into the sun and wind.

This is lush compared to the surrounding land

They had “glamping” available for $75/night

We made it to the Seligman, AZ KOA for tonight. Both days were more driving than I like, but there is snow coming in behind us in Flagstaff. This KOA must have gotten drenching rains recently, probably leftovers from the California deluges. There are puddles everywhere. But we are able to finish up laundry, fill up propane, take on fresh water and dump gray water, and generally get ready to dry camp for the next few weeks,

And just a hint of how lovely Arizona sunsets can be. No editing; these really were the colors.

Monahan Sandhills, Deming, and Willcox areas

After we left Abilene, we decided to head to Monahans Sandhills State Park in Texas. It was just an overnight, but it was a relaxing stop. We got there in plenty of time to sit outside in the warm temps. The campsites are pullouts on the side of the road, and ours was listed as 40’. However it was plenty long enough for both the 40’ motorhome and the Jeep. Even better, it was deep enough that I didn’t worry about someone hitting the slide outs, something g that has worried me about other pullout spots! Here is a bit of a sample.

We next drove the short trip to Willcox, AZ. We stayed at Lifestyle RV Resort. It wasn’t bad with level sites, but I wouldn’t call it a resort even with an indoor hot tub. The sites were crowded on a gravel parking lot. The good thing was it was relatively inexpensive, level, and all the utilities worked just fine. We managed to get all our laundry done, some shopping accomplished, and we enjoyed a few short trips.

Chiriacahua National Monument was our primary place to visit. It is a pretty small place with only one scenic drive, but it was lovely. The rock columns are the draw here, and readers should know by now I like rocks!

This green lichen was on one side of a lot of the rocks

We saw lots of interesting birds including hummingbirds (no pictures), Mexican Jays, and another one I don’t recognize. We also caught a glimpse of some type of weasel, but I didn’t see enough to identify it.

Wish I knew what this robin-sized bird is

The day after Chiricahua we went to Cochise Stronghold in the Coronado National Forest. Cochise and his band were able to hold out here for long enough to convince the US to let him stay after making the area an Apache reservation. More rocks!

This shows a part of homestead that is now available for rent through the NFS.

There are a number of inholdings in the area

Wilcox also has a nice apple business where Kevin bought a great apple crumble pie. Nice supper treat.

We leave tomorrow for Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. I expect poor or no service, so it will probably be a few days before another post.

On the road again

I said last time I have been in a blogging funk, so nothing has been written. I have been slowly recovering from my shoulder surgery, but it has been slow. I think the soreness is one of the reasons I haven’t been doing as much. We have been doing a few things though! We had Thanksgiving dinner with three of our kids and all six of the grandkids, something that hasn’t happened before! We went a bit non-traditional with a smoked turkey and sous vide sirloin. It was a much more relaxing approach, and I think I will repeat it in the future. We also had Christmas with all four kids, spouses, a girlfriend, and five of the grandkids. Even nicer was the meal was mostly made by my oldest son and his wife, both great cooks. It is time to start transferring host duties.

I have also been in a quilting funk. I have only finished one quilt for my daughter. I was lucky to get time with each of the older two granddaughters, 12, to do some sewing. They each got to pick out fabric for a pillowcase, and then they sewed it by themselves. They were appropriately pretty proud of themselves.

We couldn’t leave right after Christmas because I needed to get a laser treatment on my eye. Nothing critical, just clearing out some film behind the cataract lens. Then we had snow and ice, so we didn’t leave until 30 December. We made it only to Lakeside Casino Campground in Osceola, IA to get the rig dewinterized and filled up with water. The campground has definitely had better days, but it is open all year and in a convenient location for getting things set for the trip.

Bad weather was dogging us, so instead of the two days we planned on to Oklahoma City, we pushed through the 500+ miles in one day. We decided we would much rather be stuck two or three days there rather than somewhere along the road. Good thing because we made it just before very cold weather with sleet and ice! And guess what else we found wrong with the rig? The thermostatically controlled outlet for the wet bay stopped working, and we didn’t have good luck with temps going to mid single digits. Kevin tried some other options like an incandescent trouble light and a heating pad, but we had frozen water by the morning of 2 January. Sigh. I looked at Kevin and said “I want to go south!” So we did. We chose to leave OKC and headed to Abilene, TX. By noon we had water again, and by 3:00 or so we were set up at the KOA. Nice place. While we aren’t far off I-20, I don’t hear the traffic.

We decided to stay 2 nights in Abilene to throughly warm ourselves up. Today we went to the Frontier Texas Museum, and it was fabulous! It has multi-media interpretive displays showing the viewpoints and experiences of the natives and the Anglos. Lots of fascinating immersive exhibits, and I highly, highly recommend it. I also got a bunch of equilateral triangles cut with my Accuquilt for use as what I call “mindless sewing”, an easy way to sew while traveling. I also have a 4” Drunkard’s Path die along with a bunch of fat quarters of fabric to cut. I will use the scraps from that to make more triangles later. The DP definitely isn’t mindless, but I do really like the design. Hopefully I can get two lap quilts done by the time we get to the FMCA rally at the end of the March. They always collect quilts for a local charity in the area of the rally.

Tomorrow we are heading farther down the road, but only 200 miles so we stop ahead of some heavy winds. I promise to post more!

Oklahoma and into Texas and New Mexico

We spent the last day, 9 June, at Canton Lake in Oklahoma driving to Boiling Springs State Park. The park doesn’t have hot springs like the name implies, but it has bubbly natural springs that have been an attraction for thousands of years. The park is small, and it was really, really hot, so we mostly just drove through, stopping at some of the sights. The park facilities were mostly built by the CCC in the 1930s. The big pool and wading pool have had updates since them, but the buildings are still mostly CCC work. The National Park Service did the architectural work, and it is pretty obvious.

A church group was enjoying the big conference center, also built by the CCC

A wonderful old water tower built by CCC

We left Canton for our first Boondocker’s Welcome stay on 10 June. We stayed at a working ranch just barely into Texas off I-40. BW is a subscription service for overnight stays offered by volunteer hosts. There is a $50/year charge for the service, but no charge for the location unless there are other amenities offered. In our case, we got a halfway level site with a gravel base, 50 amp service (!), and nice views for no cost. The hosts get “paid” with a membership in BW themselves. The electrical service was nice because it was still hotter than hell! We could have used our generator of course, but the lack of noise was nice. I gave them a thank you gift – two bowl cozies made with a great camper fabric with a red background. It turned out the wife of the couple was also a member of the FB group RV Quilters, just like me. We had a nice chat.

The forecast was for significant wind on 11 June, so we left our BW site by 7:15 to get as much driving as possible in before the winds got extra bad. It was over 300 miles to Raton, our next spot, and some of it was white knuckle driving. I can handle 20-25mph steady winds without issue, and up to 30-35 in a pinch, but we eventually got winds so gusty we had to pull off the road for a couple of hours. It was NOT a fun drive, but we eventually made it.

The Raton KOA is the lowest level of KOA, a Journey. This category is for locations oriented towards those passing through, not those looking for many amenities. They gave us a tight 30 amp back-in site with nice trees for shade, but we had to position the rig very carefully to fit; it was not designed for a 40’, 4 slide motorhome! We made it, but there was no option to open the awning! Luckily the trees were quite nice, and I sat in the shade for a few hours each day. This KPA has pull-through and 50 amp sites available, but those are held for the overnighters. It was rather amazing watching the park transition from mostly empty to completely full in 3 hours each day. Every morning the first folks started leaving around 6:00 am (yes, I wake up ridiculously early!), and the park was empty again by 10:00.

Since the drive in was so tough, we ate dinner at the Colefax Ale Cellar, a brewery with good sandwiches and better beer. We ended up buying some of their great dark beer to take with us. It is hard being a stout and ale drinker in a world of IPAs, but they had some good ones.

We got around the next day to drive to a long loop to Cimaron, Eagle Next, Red River, and Taos. It was a great trip! I always stop and read all the historic markers, and we accidentally found one about the town of Dawson, an old Phelps-Dodge mining town. What a serendipitous find! The drive in was lovely. The community was a classic company town with a population of 6,000. When the mines closed in 1950, some parts went to other company towns but most was just razed and the debris removed.

The community was infamous for two horrific mine explosions, one in 1913 and another in 1923 with a total of 383 miners killed. The company provided the metal crosses since so many were immigrants away from their families. Some families added traditional markers later. The cemetery is maintained by an old settlers group, and they have big gatherings every 2 years.

The old cemetery was well kept and poignant

I have really bad internet here, so I will leave the rest of our trip for another post.

Death Valley catchup (plus Iowa things)

Warning – this has a lot of time and variety in it!

To catch up on Death Valley and surroundings, we stayed at Sunset until the morning of 20 February. Since the cellular data service ixps extremely limited there, we were pleased to make full use of the monthly WiFi pass at the resort. $60 gives you 30 days of high speed Internet on up to two devices! I tried to get some pictures from Kevin’s fancy camera of the Funeral Mountains to the east of us, but I wasn’t terribly successful. The mountains are made up of rocks so old and confused they are called “Funeral Chaos”. Twisted, faulted, squeezed, faulted again – they show amazing patterns. I just couldn’t get a good picture though, so I guess I will try again next time.

Searching for phone service and a place to hunker down to care for Lily, we ended up at the Needles KOA. We have stayed there a few times before. The sites are big enough, and there is a resident group of quail that I find adorable. I tried to get a picture of the 20 or so who ran across the road as we were checking in, but they were too fast for me. You can hear them clicking away in the mornings if no one has taken their dogs out yet.

As I said in the previous post, we headed back to Iowa as soon as we knew about Lily’s condition. We stayed at Lavaland RV Park in Grants, NM the first night after we left Needles KOA, Tuesday 23 February. They had a nice brewery that concentrated on porters and stouts, my favorites. Sadly their kitchen was closed, but we did order some pizza delivered to the brewery. Nice to eat pizza and beer inside an almost empty place. Our next stop was Big Texan RV Park in Amarillo. It is a mile or so away from the famously advertised restaurant, but it was an easy in and out spot. We made it to the Wellington KOA on Thursday, much nicer than the dreadful place we stayed heading to Arizona in December. We then headed to the Lakeside Casino RV Park in Osceola, IA for our last night. It isn’t very suitable for big rigs since the turns are tight and the sites pretty short, but we found a spot we could fit into. It wasn’t the one the check in folks had us in initially, but with only 5-6 other rigs we had our choice. It is close enough to home to make it a good spot to winterize the rig, and thanks what we did on Saturday morning before heading out. We are pretty good at it these days, and it too, less than an hour. The ice maker is always the hardest!

We had gotten COVID vaccination appointments on Sunday, 28 February, and we had our follow up vaccination yesterday (Pfizer). I am anxiously awaiting my 2 week time for feeling comfortable again! We are having two of the kids and their families over for Easter (another son heads to his cabin every Easter), and I am soooooo wanting to hug them all!

Kevin’s big job this time was installing new LiFePO4 batteries. He chose three 200 amp hour LifeBlue batteries with their integrated heater. Lithium’s don’t charge below 35 degrees or so, and we stay in those temps too often to not get the more expensive heater version. He needed a new solar controller, and luckily this one has Bluetooth so it is much easier to see what is happening. They see to work fine, and I am anxious to try them out on a real trip, not just sitting outside the storage unit. Our solar system will be able to punch more power into the batteries because it won’t be throttled by the lead acid charging curve.

We have been doing work on the house too. We bought a pergola to go on our very hot west side deck. It has a nice adjustable shade cover that will help with keeping the house cooler too. We even bought a propane fire pit to put under it!

i also finished the three quilt tops I sewed while we were out. I got them quilted pretty quickly, but I procrastinated on the binding because it is the task I like least. I got them into the wash yesterday though.

The first two were made from a layer cake I bought on sale. I love the water lilies and dragonfly theme.

Bound and backed with a green Grunge fabric

Bound and backed with a light turquoise fabric with yellow dots

This one was way outside my comfort zone! I just don’t “do” scrappy well. It will make a fun ”I Spy” quilt for some child though.

Enough for now. More going on at home, but I will leave that for later.

Big Bend completion

I had great intentions of posting the day after my last post, but the reception was just too bad. Here is the entire Big Bend completion, all in one fell swoop!

We stayed 3 nights at Stillwell store campground. We then moved to the NPS campground at Rio Grande Village. I had carefully checked the campground size, and the site was plenty long for us. However there were lots of overhanging trees and we couldn’t get in! The lovely camp host moved us to an overflow site that was very nice. We stayed there 3 nights too. During the week, we drove the dirt road to Dagger Flats, home to a large number of Giant Dagger Yuccas. They were impressive in winter, and they must have been amazing when they bloomed. The flower stalks can be 70 pounds!

Plants 10-15’ tall, flower stalks another 4-6’.

We also drove to the Chisos Basin twice, both times to eat in the lodge restaurant. The lodge isn’t one of the classic NPS ones, but the food was quite good. Of course it is the only place to eat in the park, so I am glad it was good. The views are lovely, and the Basin is up high in the mountains for a totally different experience than down in the flats.

You don’t expect colorful oak trees in the southern Texas desert!

The Chisos Basin is surrounded by spiky peaks

Looking through a gap to the valley. Sorry for the trash bins.

The third part of the park is the Rio Grande River area. The mountains on the Mexican side were tremendous. Our campground was a couple of miles from the river directly, and maybe 5 miles by road. There is an official Border Patrol crossing its you want to go across the river in a boat, but we passed. The Rio Grande also had some hot springs right on the bank. It had been a popular attraction, and there were a lot of relics left.

Lots of remnants from when the hot springs were a big draw

Palm trees always mean someone had a commercial establishment. This is the Hot Springs store.

Astonishingly we found a tree felled by a beaver someone ago

The Rio Grande isn’t very big this time of year, but the reeds show where it is during peak flow

The hot springs have pools with reclining backs built in

A very impressive colony of palms protected some picnic tables

The other big advantage desert mountains have is the quality of the light at dusk.

Just driving one of the backcountry roads and saw a hawk

We saw only one javalina this trip, but we saw lots and lots of roadrunners! They are obviously experienced camp robbers, but they found us uncooperative. One walked up fewer than 3 feet away from me! We also had a resident coyote in the campground that cruised the dumpster hoping someone was messy. He was always disappointed while we were there.

We left the National Park today, and we took a slow road west through Big Bend Ranch State Park. This place had incredible scenery! It also was very empty past the entry point. Most people use the road we were on for river access since it parallels the Rio Grand closely. There just isn’t much river running in mid January though! It was lucky for me we had such limited traffic because the roads were narrow, steep, and winding. With no one behind me (only 3 cats passed me in 25-30 miles) I could slow down and enjoy the ride and the view. The most challenging section was a 15% (yes, 15%) grade both up and down. The diesel motorhome took it slowly and steadily, 15 mph up and 12 mph down. I doubt I ever break that grade record.

We now are spending the night at Van Horn RV Park where we stayed last year. They have a cute little restaurant with good food, so no cooking for us tonight.