Out in the west Texas town of El Paso…

Our next stop on our westward trek was for an overnight stop in Van Horn, Texas. We don’t often stay for just one night but we have been to Van Horn many times and there really is much worth revisiting in this area, so we didn’t even disconnect the CRV.

The next morning we drove into El Paso and over to the Sunalnd Casino. The casino has 8 first-come first-served RV sites with water and 30/50 amp service and we were hoping to snag one for an extended stay in El Paso. Lucky for us there were several available so we hooked up and went into the casino to pay. Wow, only $15 per night to stay here!

It was nice to be in civilization once again after several remote stays in a row. We even found a nice disc golf course called Nations Tobin  we played. Also it was nice to be able to shop in real grocery stores and go out for happy hour. The Union Draft House and Aurellias Brewery were our favorites.

Also nearby was a TruFit fitness center, the same company we became members of in College Station Texas. We are really glad we took advantage of becoming members for FREE via the Silver Sneakers program giving us access to such a nice gym.

While here we took a drive through the Franklin Mountains, the largest urban park in the U.S. There are a few pullouts that provide some scenic panoramic views of the city and surrounding landscape. We didn’t stay until sunset, but we imagine it's especially picturesque during sunset or sunrise.

Lucky for us not too far from Sunland Casino we found a few places to hike and to birdwatch. One was a heritage park and another was a hike along the Rio Grande. Both places were fun and were quite scenic for hiking with views of the Franklin Mts.

Our next planned stop was in Las Cruces NM but the reviews of the park we normally stay at were scathingly bad as it appears the homeless and druggies have discovered the nearby hotel. We decided to drive to Las Cruces in our CRV and see if the reviews had any merit.

When we arrived at the RV park, we saw that the reviews were spot on. The only other park in our budget really wasn’t our cup of tea so we decided we would add a few more days in El Paso and skip staying In Las Cruces. However, while there we went to our favorite New Mexican restaurant, Andeles,  for some green and red chili!

We also went for a hike in Mesilla Valley Bosque State Park while in Las Cruces. So even though we weren’t going to stay we did find things we wanted to do had we gone there.

Back in El Paso we were treated to a beautiful rainbow before leaving. With the weather getting colder in the forecast it was time to move on…

Reviewing three FREE RV parks in North Texas.

Our next planned stop was in Texas. We wanted to take this opportunity to stay at three of the free city RV parks in the panhandle of Texas. Our first stop was at the Ray and Donna West Free RV Park in Muleshoe, TX. We have stayed at this park before so we knew what to expect.

Muleshoe is a small city with a population of around 5,000 people. The city is known for its agriculture, particularly in the production of potatoes, cotton, and cattle. The free city park is right in town and has eight RV spots with water, sewer and electricity (30 and 50 amp). A sewage dump station is available on site. You can stay free up to three nights and there is a donation box.

Nearby is Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge which is worth a visit.. There is also a nice place to eat with a bar right across the  as well as other conveniently located businesses near the downtown area. Oh I must mention there is also some awesome Tex-Mex food to enjoy.

We took a day trip over to the refuge and found some short hikes and  a bit of birdwatching. We spotted quite a few horned larks which are a quite interesting little birds with its tufts of feathers on its head resembling horns. They are plentiful in the plains states which is why we haven’t often encountered them.

Our next free park stop was in Levelland,Texas located 30 miles west of Lubbock.and has a population of 12,600. It is the home of South Plains College and home to the Levelland City Campground. The campground is free, has seven sites, and provides electric (30 and 50 amp). and water hookups s well as a dump station.

The campground is located south of town on Highway 385, next to the Levelland Municipal Airport. It i really a nice wooded park which we had all to ourselves during our three day stay ( the park offers 3 nights max for free and then $20 per night up to seven afterwards). We stayed the entire three nights since it was close to Lubbock where we explored both the town and Texas Tech University.

The museum on campus is worth a visit.  We happily discovered lots of interesting sights including some huge dinosaur skeletons, Indian Art and some cool photographs like the one i took of a tree frog, super cool.

Our last free campsite stop was in Lamesa, Texas. The population is about 8,600 and is located about an hour south of Lubbock on the Llano Estacado. Founded in 1903. the town site had been part of the large Slaughter Ranch, famous for its “Lazy S” brand. The town was carved out of 160 acres of Frank Conner's Ranch

The Lamesa RV Park also called Rodeo RV Park is in a city park with eight back-in sites on asphalt with water and electric (only one site has 50 amp). The park is the least desirable of the three we visited. Campers can stay up to four nights free however, we only stayed one night as the town was a bit underwhelming.

The only highlight for us was the frisbee golf course within the park (in the above picture you can see our RV in the background)..  The course was a few steps from our front door continuing across the street and was a nice little course to play. Big Spring State Park is also nearby but we had visited it before. We panned to stay two nights but aa I mentioned the town left us feeling a bit depressed  so we moved on down the road…Its always nice to be back in Texas!

Yet another quirky stop in Marfa Texas and a hike at Ft Davis Natl. Monument…

We really enjoyed our brief stopover in Marathon Texas but it became time to move on and our next stop would be in Marfa Texas. Marfa is well known for the Marfa Lights.

"”The Marfa Lights, mysterious glowing orbs that appear in the desert outside the West Texas town of Marfa, have mystified people for generations. According to eyewitnesses, the Marfa Lights appear to be roughly the size of basketballs and are varyingly described as white, blue, yellow, red or other colors. Reportedly, the Marfa Lights hover, merge, twinkle, split into two, flicker, float up into the air or dart quickly across Mitchell Flat.”

We wondered if maybe we would see the Marfa lights?

Our park was the Tumble In RV Park which is a no frills park on the outside of town but it does have an interesting feature nearby that I’ll talk more about later in this blog. Marfa is a county seat and as such has a nice courthouse. The town is also known for being an arts hub and is a bit quirky as well.

We found a small disc golf course in Marfa to play. It had a limited number of baskets and a confusing layout of 18 holes. Even it was a quirky encounter. One that stopped Sharon in her tracks was what appeared to be a Mardi Gras mask buried on a mound of dirt. The course also had a few interesting mandatories (mandos)  to challenge us and we had to smile when we saw some Christmas ornaments decorating the cacti as we played. It was fun.

Close to Marfa is another small Texas town called Fort Davis. We made the drive over to the National Historic Site to tour the fort and take a short 3 mile hike in the hills around it. With several steep climbs we were well above the fort giving us glimpses of what many soldiers and probably Indians may have seen over a 100 years ago.

The hike was scenic, reeked of history and was pretty well maintained. We really enjoyed this hike and as many of you may know about us, once we finish a hike we like to find a spot for a cold beer.

So back to Marfa where made time for a cold beer at the historic Paisano Hotel. It is well known because the entire cast of the movie Giant stayed here. People such as Elizabeth Taylor, Rock Hudson, James Dean, Carroll Baker, Jane Withers, Chill Wills, Mercedes McCambridge and Dennis Hopper.were all there. Pictures taken on the movie set adorn the walls of the lobby and common areas so it was fun to admire them while walking through.

Now back to the Marfa Lights. Did we see them? No, we didn’t but we saw something we thought was cooler. They are called the Actual Contact or the Marfa Pillars. This artistic endeavor began as an idea first constructed at a Burning Man festival and later created in Marfa.

Actual Contact is art that is composed of twelve 10ft steel pillars arranged in a arch adjacent to our RV park so we were able to walk to it. Each 10ft pillar is inscribed with arcane symbols created by the artist Jason WA Tucker.

On each column there are two images, one on each side cut into the pillars.. Inside the pillars are lights that come on at night making the images brilliantly sharp. The illuminated images seemingly float above the desert floor in the dark of night. In the daytime they were simply brown columns with a faint outline of the images seen by day only up close..

So, in a way, YES, we did see the Marfa Lights and they were way cooler than we would have ever imagined.

A stop in Lockhart for some BBQ and new tires for the RV

The month went by pretty fast in College Station. Our next stop is one of our favorites  because of the gastronomic delights found in the area. That stop would be to Lockhart State Park, a mere 115 miles west. We plan to get our fill of Bar B Que and to have new tires placed on the RV during our short two night stay.

Let me tell you about what we went through to get our tires. While we were in College Station I hoped to have new tires installed at one of the local shops there. Well as I soon discovered no one carried the tires we needed to match the front two we bought a few years ago.

My thought was I would order the tires from simpletire.com as I have done before. One can simply order the tires on-line and have them shipped to the tire installer. Well no tire installer in College Station would take delivery of any tires. So my second thought was to look at our next stop in Lockhart.

I found one installer who would install them but also wouldn’t take delivery.  However, I contacted our friend Tim who said he would take delivery and then I could transport them to the installer before we left Lockhart. Perfect! So I went to order the tires and they were out of stock again!!! I found an alternative brand that were the same circumference and ordered them, from of all places, Walmart.

While we were waiting for our tire appointment we had fun hiking in the state park and eating Bar B Que. Our first BBQ stop was at Chisolm Trail, one of the local favorites. While it did not disappoint we did suffer a little sticker shock with BBQ brisket going for $25.00 per pound.

We normally stay four nights in Lockhart and go to four different BBQ joints. Since we only had two nights we went to Smitty’s BBQ for the second night’s dinner. Smitty’s was pretty good too but it seems as if the “brisket” wasn’t actually brisket. I suspect it was actually a clod roast smoked like a brisket. Although it was good I was a bit disappointed.

The morning of our appointment we drove over to the Luling Texas to the Humphries Tire Shop to have the four tires replaced on the rear of our RV. Our friend Tim graciously volunteered to haul the new tires to the shop and we arrived right behind him. I talked a bit with the shop owner only to discover what a great guy he was and he assured us the tires would be installed in a few hours.

We said our hellos/goodbyes to Tim and thanked him profusely for bringing our tires. Then we drove off to check out the Zedler Mill Museum & Park. While it was cold outside with some light rain we still had a nice time walking around and exploring the old Mill. We found it pretty interesting and a great way to kill some time while waiting for the RV tire installation..

As lunchtime rolled around we stopped at Luling’s City Market for some of Luling’s best BBQ. It definitely did not disappoint. Afterward we made our way back over to Humphries Tires and waited just a bit longer until our RV was ready.

We also had them inspect our car and RV while we were there. We cannot put into words how great Humphries Tires was to us. We wholly support and recommend this shop for your tire needs if you are ever in the area. You will not be disappointed!

Stopped in LA for Boudin Balls and then had a RV problem near Beaumont TX…

Our next stop on the road was near Lafayette Louisiana in the small town of Duson. We have stayed several times before at Frog City RV Park . It is a nice little Passport America park just of the interstate.  It has pull through sites, a little road noise, a small pool and a great location to try out all the boudin balls in the area.

Next to the town of Duson is a small town called Scott. Scott, Louisiana is smack  in the middle of a region in Louisiana known as Acadiana.  A lot of French influence historically in this area gave rise to the wonderful Cajun culture we so thoroughly love. Scott is a well known tasty stop off of I-10 for some of the best boudin in Louisiana.

There are four places in Scott known for their boudin balls  Boudin balls are a classic Cajun culture food staple. Made from boudin which is a pork sausage made with rice and seasoning usually stuffed into a casing. For boudin balls, they simply remove the casing, roll it into balls (about the size of a tennis ball), bread them and then deep fry them to a perfect crisp.

Healthy? No! But let’s be real healthy food will never tastes this good. We planned to try all four stops at Billy's Boudin & Cracklins, Kartchner’s Specialty Meats, The Best Stop Supermarket and Don's Specialty Meats. We managed to try three out of the four as Don’s was closing by the time we arrived and didn’t have what we wanted.

The winner for us was Kartchner’s Specialty Meats Jalapeno/cream cheese boudin ball and the runner up was Billy's Boudin & Cracklins pepperjack boudin ball. I also had to buy me some cracklings at Billy’s and had absolutely no regrets doing so. Man this was some fine, albeit unhealthy, eating. I am sure I’d be 250 lbs. if I lived near here!

We left the Acadiana part of Louisiana and stopped for one night in another site we have stayed at before in Texas just across the Louisiana border. Near the town of Vidor we stayed at another Passport America park called Boomtown RV Park.

We didn’t even unhook as we planned to leave the next morning. Well that is when things turned sour. As we were preparing to leave one jack would not come back up. I couldn’t retract it manually either since I didn’t have the right sized bit to use in my drill to retract it. We called the office for mobile RV repair guys and both of the ones I called couldn’t get to us for several days.

Not wanting to spend more time in Vidor we called the office again to ask if they had a commercial hydraulic jack and lucky for us they did. A nice young man brought it over on his golf cart and jacked up the front of our RV. Then I simply crawled under the RV and unplugged the Atwood jack. I then removed the four bolts holding it on and removed the jack from the RV.

The nice guy then dropped the RV back down and I tossed the old jack into our CRV. We even made our departure before the 11:00 am checkout time. We were so thankful that Boomtown RV Park worked with us to help get our RV mobile again. Now when we get to College Station I’ll have a longer time to solve this problem.

Lafayette LA treats, Disc Golf and a Betty Visit!

Waking up in Vidor Texas to witness the sunrise over the large pond at the RV park while enjoying my cup of coffee was a great way to start this travel day.After breakfast we packed up and tested everything before leaving. Our towed vehicle lights are still not working properly so I had to re-wire the 7-way plug and clean it up. I got them working but I am going to need to replace that 7-way plug with a new end.

We hit the road and a few hours later pulled into Duson, Louisiana at Frog City RV Park. This was yet another good Passport America park honoring 50% off their regular price. We have stayed here before and after setting up I had to walk over to the truck stop nearby and buy some Pepperjack Boudin Balls. Man were they good. We love being back in Louisiana because the food is awesome.

Our first day we drove over to play some disc golf.at ‘Pa” Davis Park. We had never played at this park even though we have spent a lot of time in the Lafayette, LA area. The course was really nice and best of all it had a lot of shade making for a great disc golf day in the heat with temperatures in the upper 90’s.

After disc golf we stopped at our favorite wine store in Lafayette called Marcello's. The owner has a few restaurants in Louisiana and sells all of his “leftover” wines here resulting in some great bargains. This is the only wine store we stop at where we always have to use a grocery basket to load all of our finds. This trip was no exception…

We also stopped at Rouse’s Grocery store which is a Louisiana specialty stop and tends to have all of the Cajun delectables. I love their homemade sausages and Cajun prepared meats. This trip we found some fantastic looking bacon wrapped chicken thighs stuffed with cream cheese and jalapenos all spiced with a Cajun seasoning. We bought these and cooked them in the air fryer for dinner. They were so good we bought more before we left the state.

Normally we stop at Betty’s RV Park when coming through this part of Louisiana but since we had to stay in College Station TX for two months we weren’t able to stay our normal month with her as she is officially closed until September. However, since we were close to the park we called Betty to arrange to meet her at happy hour. What fun we had!! It was so great to see and chat with Betty again even though we weren’t staying at her park.She is as lively as ever and seemed really excited about her summer vacation plans.

Before leaving this area we had to stop in at the Old Thyme Grocery and get, in our opinion, the best shrimp po’ boy in the USA. This po’ boy was no disappointment as we enjoyed each and every bite while washing it down with Envie craft beer made by Parish Brewing in Louisiana.

We love this area but it’s time to go once again…

Gilbert AZ Riparian Preserve…

What a neat spot we found nearby in Gilbert Arizona. The Riparian Preserve at Water Ranch was once just a slice of the Sonoran Desert until the town of Gilbert converted it into a wonderful preserve. The preserve is a great places for visitors and residents alike to go walking, fishing, birding or picnicking. They have created a perfect slice of wildlife habitat within the city!.

In 1986, the Town of Gilbert made a commitment to reuse 100% of its effluent water which led to the development of the Riparian Preserve in 1999. There are 110 acres in this preserve and of the 100 acres 70 acres are part of  the 7 water recharge basins which are filled on a rotating basis with treated effluent in order to allow these waters to percolate back into the aquifer for future use.

While hiking on the over 4.5 miles of trails in the preserve visitors will be hiking through various vegetative zones ranging from marshlands to native riparian and upland vegetation areas. Here you may encounter some of the 298 species of birds which have been identified on the site. The hiking and the birding is what attracted us to this site.

The preserve is also used for community development and for educational purposes for the children attending schools in the greater Phoenix metropolitan area. We have seen many people fishing, children learning, people walking their dogs and nature enthusiasts in the park on our many jaunts to the preserve.

On any given afternoon we will drive the 8-10 minutes to enjoy a nice walk. We have hiked all of the trails within the park and have seen many different species of birds. With fall migration in full bloom we have seen some birds one wouldn’t expect to see in the desert such as Whirl Pelicans and even a Roseate Spoonbill!

Another neat aspect of this preserve is the abundance of rabbits. While walking on trails throughout the preserve you will see 100’s of rabbits and even more Gamble's  Quail and Abert’s Towhees. These species have obviously benefited from this wetland oasis in the desert.

What makes this preserve even better for us is the proximity to the old downtown area of Gilbert AZ which has become quite the entertainment district. After hiking/birding in the preserve we can be found at one of three downtown establishments who offer up some of the best food and happy hours we have encountered during our travels.

O.H.S.O. in Gilbert is a brewery currently offering $7 32oz. pitchers of any of their Arizona craft brews until 5pm. Along with a nice selection of food on happy hour and some great burgers this is a must stop in town.

Another favorite is a wine bar called Postinos who offers $5 32 oz pitchers and $5 glasses of wine from 3-5pm. Wine lovers can also opt to have the whole bottle for only $20. On Monday and Tuesday evening they offer a deal of $25 for a bottle of wine and a bruschetta board with ample portions of various bruschetta choices.

Our favorite has to be the Joyride Taco House where we have become somewhat regulars during our stay here in Mesa. Their 3-5 happy hour offers $5 32oz beers as well as $5 margaritas (until 6pm). Even better a basket of hot chips and salsa is served to everyone for free. Finishing the evening with 2 or 3 of the street tacos at $2.50 apiece makes for not only an inexpensive dinner but a great night out on the town. Joyride is always an energetic, happy place to be.

We are certainly going to miss these locations when we leave this area on November 1st…