Meandering Through Texas, No More Red Chili…

Wow, all I can say is in the future I will make sure I book well in advance for stays in Texas during the weeks of spring break for all the kiddos. We have had a heck of a time finding places to stay on our way across Texas this time!

We left the fun Las Cruces area and only drove a short distance down to El Paso where we stayed one night at the Sunland Casino and Racetrack in Sunland New Mexico. We are actually only about a block west of the Texas state line. When we checked in with the security desk at the casino they told us there would be horse racing later that day.

We drove over to the New Mexico State University campus and strolled around. We had been here before but enjoyed our walk nonetheless. We had a few hours until race time so we drove over to our favorite Mexican grocery chain called El Super where we ate a taco at their cocina (kitchen). We also loaded up on our favorites  from this furthest eastern store of their chain. We will sorely miss this grocery store but we at least can look forward to Texas’ HEB’s.

We ended the day by watching the horse races and checking out one of the local breweries here called Ode Brewing which had some nice beers. We also succumbed to our better judgement and ordered a bowl of their hand cut fries with cilantro ranch sauce…. YUM!!!

We left the Casino in New Mexico and headed east into Texas. As I have mentioned on several occasions we don’t like to drive very far as it takes away time for exploring during the day so we usually limit ourselves to under 150 miles. However, we left later in the day than normal since we have visited Van Horn before. A few hours later we pulled into a Passport America Park we have stayed at before in Van Horn called Desert Willow RV Park.    

We used the remainder of this day to do laundry and Sharon had her hair colored so now she is a happy camper. We made some pork pastor tacos from the meat we bought at El Super the day before and man were they yummy! We may have not won at the horse races but shopping at our last El Super was paying dividends in the wonderful dinner we had.

The night before we were to leave Van Horn I started checking where we would go next and the next morning Sharon called many of them only to find out there were no vacancies. Yikes!!! I did  finally find another (not so well rated) RV Park in Fort  Stockton about 140 miles east so we decided it couldn’t be all that bad so we hit the road….

NOTE: We are now in the town of Fort Stockton, Texas for two nights as we are waiting for a storm to pass through the town of Sonora Texas…

A day at the dog track and a good Thanksgiving…

While we may not be huge gamblers one event we enjoy is an occasional visit to a racetrack. When I was younger and living in South Dakota a friend of mine invited me to watch the greyhound racing in Rapid City. I remember placing a few bets, winning a little cash and after that day I was hooked. I have loved watching the dogs or the ponies race many times since that day. Although there may be a slightly darker side to racing I have concluded, to my own satisfaction, that it is no worse than many other things I enjoy seeing and doing.

In Naples there is a greyhound track that on every first and third Friday sponsors what they call Dollar Days… however we refer to it as Dollar Daze! Why Dollar Daze? Well not only are hotdogs, soda, popcorn and pretzels a dollar but they even sell beer for buck as well. It does cost $2 to enter and a racing book is a buck as well. So for five bucks for the two of us we have an entire afternoon of enjoyment while also having an occasional one buck beer!

We have been to the track twice since we have been here and the first time we only won two of our bets. Now we are not heavy gamblers so we typically bet the minimum $2 per race. We may not even bet on a particular race if we can’t agree on a good one to bet on. We also aren’t expecting to get rich so we typically only bet a dog to place or show. We have found this works best for us and even if we don’t win any races a typical day at the track with lunch and beers would cost no more than about $30.00. But, since we usually win a race or two it is often much less. We typically carefully consider which dog looks ready to race, compare notes and settle on one we feel confident to bet on.  Our first trip after our consideration regimen we placed our bet and then had to laugh because our dog came in dead last.  We certainly had some rust to knock off....

The second time we went we got on a lucky streak and won several bets including three in a row. By the end of the day our out of pocket expense was a bit over $5.00. A great value for a lot of fun!

Suddenly the calendar slipped up on us and we noticed it was Thanksgiving. We had no real plans other than making our own super feast just for the two of us. We had scored a turkey at the local Publix grocery store for 59 cents a pound. We figured we would cook this 8.5 lb. turkey in the convection oven since we no longer (because of lack of storage space) have our favorite cooker for turkeys. We also had purchased some other fixings for our traditional feast.

Then a couple we met two years ago here at Imperial Bonita Estates (IBE) invited us to a small gathering of folks converging for a Thanksgiving dinner. So we scrapped our solo plans and tagged along with the group. Sharon made our favorite (and very fattening) southern style sweet potato casserole (with the pecan praline topping). Oh my this is a yummy way to make a very healthy sweet potato into a very fattening yet truly delicious side dish!

Well we had a fun day with all the other IBE folks and many of them were snowbirds we had remembered from our last stay here. Another great day to be thankful for and as always we are grateful to our RV family and friends who enrich our lives daily… Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

Bristol Tennessee and Bristol Virginia, Twin Cities…

We sure enjoyed our short stay at Cumberland Gap National Historic Park and will definitely stop and visit this fabulous park again. But it was time to leave Kentucky and move into the state of Virginia with our next stop being Bristol Virginia! Virginia, you say? Bet you thought Bristol was in Tennessee… well it is. Bristol, Virginia is the twin city of Bristol, Tennessee, and home to the Bristol Motor Speedway NASCAR racetrack.

To get to Bristol we drove a little over a hundred miles through some very scenic countryside until we hit Interstate 81. Once we got off the interstate we began to look for our next park, Sugar Hollow Campground located in a city park called Sugar Hollow Park. Now finding the park wasn’t hard but getting to our campsite was a bit of an ordeal. Between the road construction at the park’s entrance and the skinny and partly dirt road into the park (along with all the low branches) you could tell that not a lot of big rigs come here. But we managed to get in and got settled into site 31 which was just fine for our two day stay even though it took a bit to get level.

We got all set up, finished lunch and then went over to see the Bristol Motor Speedway. We were fortunate in that the Speedway had a Fan Day promotion when we went so we got to watch lots of NASCAR drivers test their cars on the track for an upcoming race.

The track seats 160,000 people and is dubbed the "world's fastest half mile." There are two races per year on the NASCAR Sprint Cup circuit and two races per year on the NASCAR Nationwide Series circuit. They also host one race per year on the Camping World Truck Series circuit along with various other racing venues. The track was built in 1960 with its first race held in July 1961. It has also been named one of the loudest NASCAR tracks in the country and we can certainly believe that! Man was it LOUD!!!

The next day we just went to the downtown area and strolled around. The main road is called State Street and it is interesting in that the state line between Virginia and Tennessee runs right down the middle of this main street. We stopped by the Visitor’s Center Bristol that has a huge guitar out front. Bristol was recognized as the "Birthplace of Country Music," according to a resolution passed by the US Congress in 1998 but hey, what do they know…

We picked up a walking tour brochure and one for a tour to see their art in public places. Bristol is a neat little town with a nice farmers market that we lucked into visiting. We scored some beautiful garden grown tomatoes along with some perfect red and yellow bell peppers and fresh corn. Love those farmer’s markets! There are several interesting murals downtown and a nice park where they have weekly musical events during the summer.

We enjoyed the Historic Downtown Bristol walking tour but I have to wonder if they shouldn’t eliminate their Art in Public Places Walking Sculpture Tour. Now I know art’s beauty is in the eye of the beholder but the art sculptures here lacked a lot to be desired. There were some art pieces in town not on the tour that I thought were much nicer than most of the weather beaten pieces that were on the tour. Nonetheless, we had an enjoyable day and finished it off by visiting a newly opened brewery in town, Bristol Brewing Company. We had visited one near the Speedway the day before, (Holston River Brewing Company) that was much better than this one was.

Next we are off to Christiansburg Virginia to visit nearby Blacksburg and Roanoke, Virginia…

Sunland Park Casino and Racetrack, El Paso, Texas…

We left Columbus, New Mexico and headed east on highway 9 until we arrived just outside of El Paso, Texas. Our destination for the next few nights was just short of the Texas border in New Mexico at the Sunland Park Casino and Racetrack. To the left of the entrance there are 8 sites in the parking lot with water and electricity (30/50 amp).  There is no sewer but they do have a dump station nearby. The sites are first come-first served so when we arrived around noon there were three taken and we slid into slot 8. Slot 8 is the best one on my opinion especially when the horses are racing at the track. The reason was our front window overlooked the racetrack where we could watch the ponies warm up every morning.

Since the horses were racing the day we showed up we went inside to pay our $15.00 per night fee at the casino security office. We paid for two nights and then went on over to the racetrack to bet on a few races. We bet on two races and didn’t win either of them but it was fun and before we could bet on the third race we were received a call from a friend we wanted to meet up with. I have mentioned him in the blog before. He was a professor of mine when I attended Texas A&M University whom I worked closely with.

We met with Merrill and his wife Sonia to have a late lunch/early dinner at one of their favorite New Mexican restaurants, Carnitas Queretaro. I ordered some red chile cheese enchiladas that were pretty good and Sharon ordered Asado Bellazano.which was better than mine easily. The best meal was the Carnitas that Sonia ordered. After our wonderful New Mexican styled food.we returned to the casino with them to have a drink at the bar at the racetrack. It was really good catching up with what was going on in their lives.

The next day the two of them had to go to Las Cruces so Sharon and I used the time to do some grocery shopping and we also decided to try lunch at one of the El Paso Reader’s Choice Award places for lunch. Taco Tote is also a New Mexican style fast food restaurant that specializes in tacos and is know for their salsa bar. Once again Sharon ordered the best taco which was a very good shrimp taco. Mine was good but Sharon’s was better and best of all their salsas were excellent!

It clouded up in the afternoon and with rain in the forecast we went back in to the casino and paid for one more night. Since we had signed up for a players card and gave them our email address we were rewarded with $20.00 each free play. We spent some time playing on their money and luckily left with a good share of their free money.

The next morning we woke to rain and I was worried as I had scheduled Safelite to come and repair three rock chips in our windshield. My coverage on my insurance has a high glass deductible but they will repair small cracks and chips for free. Fortunately the worst of the rain held off until he had repaired our chips. Since it was raining Sharon and I did a little more shopping at Costco and bought one of the rotisserie chickens that would be so good for travel food the next day.

Since it was St.Patrick's Day and it was still raining we decided to  go over the casino to have a few green beers and ate some pretty good Rueben sandwiches with some beer battered (black and tan) onion rings. Everything was on special and the whole meal along with a couple of beers each was only about $15.00!

Wednesday morning came and there was still a light rain but we decided it was time to move on and so we did. Next up is a one-nighter in Van Horn, Texas…

To Delta Downs and on to College Station, TX…

We finally left Betty’s after being caught in her web for an extra four days. As a result we only had one extra night to spend on the road since we made reservations at Holiday RV Park in College Station, Texas. Not wanting to spend a lot of money for a one night stay and not really wanting to spend our first overnight in a  Walmart I found a nice overnight spot right on the Louisiana and Texas border.

We drove 109 miles over to the Delta Downs Racetrack and Casino in Vinton, Louisiana after calling ahead to ask if it was okay for us to overnight in their parking lot.  They said yes and instructed us to park in the back lot. After looking on Google Maps I located the lot that we were going to park in so we wouldn’t be confused when we arrived at Delta Downs.

We pulled into the back lot and parked parallel to the Delta Down horse racing track. We centered our rig under a street light so we would have ample nighttime lighting without having to use the generator as much. After parking we walked around the property and went inside to see if they had any new player comps. They did and although they were quite meager it still didn’t stop us from using them to gamble a bit. We played about an hour, enjoyed several complimentary beverages and by the time we left we were only out about 10 bucks! Not bad for a evening worth of entertainment as well as an overnight parking spot.

Come morning I arose to a treat as I opened our blinds up to our view of the outside adjacent horse track where the ponies were running around the track for some early morning exercise. I made a pot of coffee and sat back in by driver’s seat to watch the ponies warm up and practice out of the starting gates right in front of our home. What a sweet spot for an overnighter… much better than a Walmart I would bet.

After breakfast we tidied up and left Delta Downs for Texas. A longer drive was in store for us today as we made our way to Beaumont and onto highway 105 to avoid Houston. One hundred and eighty eight miles later we pulled into our site for our next month long stay at Holiday RV Park in College Station, Texas.

Traverse City, Michigan Peninsular Drive…

We left Mount Pleasant, MI around 11:00 am on Thursday morning. We enjoyed our stay at the Isabella fairgrounds and as it turned out on our last night we were the only ones in the park.Our plan was to head northwest toward the town of Traverse City along the coastline of Lake Michigan. Lake Michigan is one of the two remaining great lakes we have yet to visit on this summer’s Great Lake Journey so this 104 mile journey will get us closer to one of the last two lakes.

It was a nice easy travel day as we pulled into the Northwest Michigan Fairgrounds.This was another nice wide open park with lots of empty sites as only three other people were camping here. Twenty dollars per night provided us water and 50 amp electricity and we are only a 10 minute drive into one of the summer destination towns in Michigan, Traverse City.

After lunch we drove into town where we took about a 45 minute walk around the waterfront part of town.  We found it to be lively and vibrant, very clean with lots of energy… The town of Traverse City is right on Lake Michigan and the blue waters of the lake are visible from many locales throughout town. Pocket beaches are scattered across the waterfront as well. Lots of shops, restaurants and pubs line the street and on this particular day it was bustling with activity.

The next day we drove to the town of Old Mission up the Old Mission Peninsula on M37. The Peninsula projects northward about 16 miles into Grand Traverse Bay and contains approximately 42 miles of Great Lakes shoreline. What a very scenic drive it was as we passed cottages all along the lake… (mind you some of these "cottages" would probably cost in excess of a million bucks!!!) Also on the Peninsula are numerous wineries and cherry and apple orchards. The cherry trees were loaded with ripe cherries ready for picking.

We stopped at a nice little neighborhood beach park where we had lunch while sitting in our beach chairs watching the waves – almost like we were practicing for our planned stay in Florida this winter…We will certainly need to re-acclimate before heading south because we both are amused how hot we felt on this 78 degree afternoon.  After lunch we waded in the refreshingly cool Lake Michigan water and Sharon was delighted at the clear water and sandy bottom.  The lakes she had been accustomed to were not this clear and had squishy, muddy bottoms.  She rather liked this lake experience mentioning she wished we'd thought to pack our swimsuits and kayak!

Further up the peninsula we came across a charming lighthouse at the northern tip called the Mission Point Lighthouse which was first lit in 1870. Although it was a small rather featureless lighthouse, it was delicately perched atop a picturesque ridge just above where we presumed the waters of Lake Michigan once were. Since there was a really long rocky expanse between the lighthouse and lake we felt the lake must be down a considerable amount, unless of course unbeknownst to us this is normal for here,  It just seemed odd. It was pleasant to walk across this rocky expanse to pause and watch as the swans and mergansers were swimming peacefully in the lake, content, as we were, in this serene setting…

The drive back along the west side of the Peninsula along Peninsular Drive was just as pleasant and when we returned to the fairground we were surprised to see that it was packed with RV’s and tents… what the heck was going on? As it turned out we are right next to a BMX bicycle race track and there was a two day racing event for all ages from age 5 to people we thought were maybe much too old to be racing these little BMX bikes. But just for fun we walked over to the track and watched some races from the grandstand… Lots of kids in very colorful uniforms getting ready to race. It was something we had never seen before so we luckily stumbled upon some interesting (and free) entertainment for our Friday night…

 

Later today they will hold a Redline Qualifier for the Redline Cup Series which is apparently a big deal to the racers here. We will miss todays racing as we plan to drive up along another peninsula nearby…