11/20 A premature Thanksgiving

 

Tuesday 15 Sept  - Coushatta Casino parking, Kinder (LA)

We left 8016 St Charles Avenue in New Orleans (LA) around 11 AM - trying to get out of town before the storm, Sally, which ended up hitting further east.

Melanie was preparing supper in the galley when the carbon monoxide alarm went off. I could shut it off but the noise continued. Given my hearing, or lack thereof, I couldn’t tell that the smoke alarm was going off at the same time. Finally reset both and peace reigned, though Melanie was a bit disturbed - her hearing being much better than mine. 

Our first night out we were unable to find a campsite. The previous hurricane, Laura, hit southwestern Louisiana pretty hard; as a result many with RVs had left the coast and booked sites at parks and campgrounds further inland so we were ‘camped’ at the Casino. Being another ‘first night’ our sleep was restless - reminiscent of other first nights on boats and campers. From time to time people going home after their late shift commented on the Casita and those passing by in the morning were friendly. We eventually got up and under way, destination Livingston (TX) and home of Escapees, the RV organization of which we have been members for more than twenty years - they handle all our mail, forwarding it to us in the States, Canada and to Spain and Portugal in years past.

16 - 20 Sept - Livingston (TX) 

The scenery across eastern Texas is beautiful, large rolling open grassy fields dotted with old live oaks, occasional streams and woodlands, really lovely countryside; it goes on and on as we found out over the next few days on the road.

We’d not been to Livingston for many years but found the park familiar, the people friendly and helpful. We pulled into a small site surrounded by tall pines and oaks, complete with a resident orange tabby cat. Residents feed the cat daily and when they found that we liked cats, supplied us with cat food to put out each day. This is how we met Bill who had decided to settle in the Park until the Covid epidemic died down. Bill has been a fulltime RVer for eleven years and has a dog, Scruffy, which he rescued.  Scruffy and the tabby were ‘good’ friends and Bill brought the tabby premium wet catfood twice a day. Rosie who also fed the cat had another cat which had just had a litter - so we almost got a kitten, but at three weeks old we deemed it too young to leave its mother. 

We’d initially signed up for two days at Escapees Rainbow’s End Park, then stayed another day, and yet another. The Casita, not having been much used these past few years, had wrinkles which needed ironing - small items like fuses, water pressure valves, an anode rod for the hot water tank, a cap for the back bumper which houses the waste water hose used to empty grey and black water holding tanks, and other bits and pieces. So we settled in, used the local facilities, joined the Livingston Library (they have lots of e-books), took showers, did laundry and enjoyed meeting others in the park.

Sunday 20 September - Fort Parker S.P., Mexia (TX)

Got away around 11 after stopping at a nice grocery (Brookshire) in Livingston to pick up a few items, then back on the road. There is a setting in Google Maps that allows one to avoid ‘Highways’ which basically means no Interstates. We’ve pretty much stuck to that rule and have enjoyed the rolling rural countryside and small towns we’ve driven through. Still getting used to hauling the Casita, I try to keep it around 60 on the highway. What with the villages and hills, plus stopping for a bite to eat or use the head, we’re finding that if Google says the trip will take four hours we can count on five. 

Sunday evening we spent our first night in a Texas State Park. Based on a sample of one the parks are clean, well run, with widely separated RV sites (water and electricity) in treed areas - we found this to be the case over the next few days. When possible we tried to book a site near water. Although there doesn’t appear to be much water in western Texas or up in the panhandle, almost all of the State Parks are on lakes, some of which are quite large. Booking sites must be done either on-line or by phone, not in the parks themselves, so we planned our next few days drives based on the location of the state parks. Then, when we found internet access, we’d book a couple of days ahead. To simplify the process we joined the Texas State Parks association which gave us free access to the parks and made the booking process a bit easier.

Monday 21 September - Lake Mineral Wells S.P., Weatherford (TX)

Another nice day’s drive ending at a campsite in the woods above a lake. Going in to the site we drove just below a damn with waves breaking over the top before getting to our site which was surrounded by scrub pine. We’d planned to take a walk down by the lake the next morning but it was raining so we packed up and got under way. The sky cleared by noon and we had a lovely drive through rougher dryer countryside, gone were the big green pastures and oaks.

22 - 23 September - Copper Breaks S.P., Quanah (TX) 

This small park, being further west, had smaller trees, less water, and was in red rocky rolling terrain. Its lake was small but apparently had fish, or at least a boat ramp and space for fishermen to park their trailers; it also had a small swimming area. It was most noted for its equestrian section which provided camping areas and corrals for horses together with a number of trails for riding. There were three Airstreams in the park Wednesday night, two traveling together. Both looked squeaky clean and shiny but turned out one was a 1995 and the other a 1987 model. 

Each site had a peaked wooden teepee sort of affair backed to the prevailing winds over a concrete pad with table so we sat out in the afternoon and read. I had taken a longish walk in the morning but we did another walk after dinner, just before sunset, very pleasant. The next morning we planned to get away around nine but met another couple with a Casita and spent about an hour swapping stories and learning about modifications they have made in both their rig and truck - some good ideas about storage, an outdoor gas stove, etc…. 

While at Copper Breaks we went to the guard house, which had a small museum, to use their internet Unfortunately there were no spots available at Palo Duro Canyon S.P. for the next few days so we booked ourselves a site at a commercial park in Amarillo. Since then we learned there might be some dry campung options close to the Canyon but we’d already booked in Amarillo …. We also called Bud & Nancy in Fayeteville (CO) to find that the smokey conditions have eased so we are now heading that way over the next week.

24-26 September - Overnite R.V. Park, Amarillo (TX) - a commercial park

We’ve started to run into full parks, no space available. Apparently the COVID epidemic had caused a massive jump in RV sales (near 300%) and a related increase in demand for sites in the state parks. This, coupled with the fact that many parks are operating at 50% capacity, to avoid crowding, makes sites hard to come by.

On Thursday we saw significant changes in topography, apart from the occasional hill, draw, or wash the land was very flat with huge grassland areas plus fields of cotton, milo, sorghum, and some corn. A few small towns, with signs at the edge saying something on the order of Pop 451 which seemed on their last legs with many closed stores, dilapidated grain elevators, and empty houses. On the other hand, Amarillo seems to be thriving, perhaps in part due to the very active trucking industry which seems to run through here.

On our way to Amarillo we spent several hours in the Prairie Plains Historical Museum in Canyon on the campus of West Texas A & M. The focus was on the history of the petrochemical industry in the area, history of the local Indian culture, and prehistoric animals which had been found in digs in the Panhandle. But they also had a section on ‘old’ cars from the 1930’s and 40’s, women's clothing from the late 1800’s to the present day, a large collection of different types of barbed wire, a section on native American pottery, and so on.

It was warm when we finally pulled in to our RV park around 5 pm and for some reason the AC unit decided not to be cool. After trying to figure out what was wrong, to no avail, we went out for a bite at a local Popeye’s, caught the internet at the McDonalds across the street, and then home to bring this screed up to date.   - it now being 9:50 pm Thursday September 24th.

Sept 25 - Amarillo

Slept ‘til 5 am in spite of the truck traffic, then rolled over and slept until after 8, guess the noise wasn’t too bad. Plans for the day: go to MacDonald’s for Wi-Fi to get this blog posted, map out our route and overnight stops to Boulder (CO). Then pack a lunch and spend the day at Palo Duro Canyon S.P., maybe drive around Amarillo to learn the city a bit, maybe back to Canyon - seemed like a nice college town. Can guarantee I won’t try to eat 4 lbs of steak with fixins in an hour just to get a free dinner.