ARIZONA
Finally!
Finally the long winter’s layover in southwest Arizona came to a premature end in February. I couldn’t sit still any longer. We moved on, south, to slowly begin our journey for the year. The speed at which we travel is a matter of weather. We can’t (or won’t) go anywhere until the rest of the country warms up. A cold front from Canada had moved down upon the U.S. so all places seemed equal and the urge to move was too great to ignore. Although the wind was fierce out of the west the drive south to just outside of Yuma went well considering broadside twenty-five mph winds all the way. We arrived at a small VFW Bureau of Land Management (otherwise known as BLM) area just outside of town. I had stayed there before and found it refreshing to see the homeless encampment in among the cottonwood trees bordering the area had been cleared out and cleaned up. The wind continued to howl; the skies were brown with dust. A man walked by wearing a dust mask. It must be bad out there. That night around midnight I was awoke by the loud sound of an engine. I thought of the motor used for parasailing. I then realized a low throbbing sound of a pulsejet motor. This continued on and off for an hour and there was no sleep to be had with this contraption flying low and directly overhead. I could only figure a drone being used by the Border Patrol for surveillance of illegal migration traffic. Just a wild guess.
We left before sunrise the next morning to begin a big day of food shopping and filling up fuel and water. Half the day was shot before putting Yuma in the rearview mirror. Ten miles further along lay another free camp area just south of Wellton, another place I had stayed before but Claire, my GPS lady, had other ideas and sent us on the “scenic route”. This route showed our destination being over thirty miles away. I could see her tour would take us right pass where I wanted to go so I let her have her fun with me for this time. You will be hearing about more of Claire’s antics throughout this book, guaranteed. This small piece of Arizona Trust Land is good for an overnight stop although there are some who obviously stay here much longer than that. It is a small, rather flat desolate looking place but that evening proved otherwise. Around nine P.M. as I lay in bed reading I could hear the approach of a helicopter. Looking out the window I saw it circling then landing off in the distance over by the interstate highway. I assumed there was a nasty accident over there and this was a Medivac chopper. But no, for it took off and then began a repeated back and forth sweep over a quarter-mile square area of farmland just north of camp. Armed with three brilliantly bright searchlights on the front he would swoop down real low to the ground−it looked as if one could jump up and touch the landing rails−then he’d pull up, turnaround and sweep back down covering the next row in his search pattern. It was entertaining to watch and thankfully not in the middle of the night as the drone from the previous night. Again I can only assume some more illegal border crossing activity was in play. After about a half hour of this they finally gave up and flew away. Who or what they were searching for must have eluded them in the rows of spinach. The next morning we moved onward to quieter surroundings.
We stayed outside of Ajo, Arizona for ten days. I had been here before also and there are lots to see and explore. The area lies right in the path of a major traffic route for drug smuggling and illegal immigration being only thirty-five to forty miles from the Mexican border at Organ Pipe National Monument. It is interesting to hike around and find cast-off pieces of clothing, food containers and water bottles by those trying to get through from Mexico undetected. As you can imagine there is daily Border Patrol vehicle activity passing by camp all the time. That aside, the Darby Wells Road is a great place to camp for free. From there we had a hundred-twenty mile drive on Highway 86 east towards Tucson. This is a narrow two lane highway that for the entire length is littered with roadside memorials erected by family members of those who have died in an automobile accident along the route. There were well over a hundred of these crosses and shrines which makes one think the locals around here are very inattentive or reckless (or both) in their driving. With great relief we reached the outskirts of Tucson not having been caught up in one of these incidents ourselves and with no one to establish a marker for Beans and I.
NEW MEXICO
A new state; now we were making progress.
We free-camped at tourist trading posts along the way and a Veterans Park in Lordsburg. Progress was slow; as slow as an algebra class. Headlong winds were once again in the twenty-five mph range. I’d drive only thirty miles or so a day. There was no need to waste fuel beating on into the wind. After a few days we arrived at Rockhound State Park outside of Deming. We were in the middle of spring break and all the schools were out. Families were vacationing. We got the last available campsite. In the wake of my good fortune I broke one of my long standing rules, never pay for more than one night at a time. I had paid for two. Late that afternoon the two-year-old next to us started in on his or her (I couldn’t really tell the gender by looking at it) daily screaming, crying, wailing tantrum session. Normally I’d move but the campground was full with nowhere else to move to. In a situation like this I would leave the next morning. Ah, but I had paid for two days. We were stuck. I did move to the other side of our site and that helped as they were down the slope a bit further away now. New Mexico has great facilities, campgrounds and rest stops alike. Their campgrounds have showers, the kind of shower where you don’t need a fist-full of quarters to take a three minute tepid bath. I like New Mexico.
On the third day we broke free from the family of six and their two-year-old noisemaker for Pancho Villa State Park thirty miles to the south at Columbus, on the border with Mexico. All the way the winds had their way with us again. The little town of Columbus (pop.1600 plus) lies three miles north of the U.S./Mexican Border. On March 8, 1916, Pancho Villa sent two of his officers to Columbus to scout around. He and his 485 troops were in desperate need of arms, ammunition, food and clothing to carry on in their revolutionary battle with the Mexican dictatorship in power. The officers returned reporting there were only thirty to fifty soldiers present. In reality there were three hundred fifty U.S. soldiers. Oops! Someone probably got demoted in rank (or shot) for that bad piece of intel. The Mexicans raided the town in the early morning hours of March 9. After the dust had settled ten citizens and eight soldiers had died along with seventy to seventy-five of Villa’s troops lying dead in the streets. Four buildings were burned to the ground one being the mercantile store, the very place containing those much needed supplies they so desperately sought and the whole reason for the raid! These banditos weren’t the smartest by any means. Soon thereafter President Woodrow Wilson ordered General John “Black Jack” Pershing and ten thousand troops to pursue and capture Villa. They trailed him some five hundred miles south into Mexico and never located the raiders. With the outbreak of the First World War and the U.S. entering into the war, President Wilson ordered Pershing and his U.S. 13th Calvary to cease the “Punitive Expedition” and return to the states. Today Pancho Villa State Park resides where the Calvary had established Camp Furlong. Here we stayed for four peaceful warm days.
TEXAS
We crossed into Texas at El Paso. Slowly we worked our way east with no real destination in mind. The further east we went the more desolation we saw. This is oilfield country. We spent a night at the city dump in Pecos. Okay, it was really a picnic rest stop. There were six graffiti covered cement picnic tables each with a shade structure and a large fifty-gallon barrel drum for trash. None of the barrels had trash in them. It is easier to just toss your rubbish on the ground. Trash was everywhere. Hundreds (not exaggerating) of beer bottles littered the ground, many of them broken. The place was a minefield of broken glass, not something I wanted Beans walking around in. The weather was nice with no wind, the birds were singing and the view was abysmal. While camped I surveyed the incessant stream of oilfield related traffic that rolled by on the highway within a stone’s (or a beer bottle) throw away. About nine out of every ten vehicles that passed had to do with oil production: crew-cab pickup trucks (most were white, or were at one time), pickup trucks towing trailers, pickup trucks with dual rear wheels towing fifth wheel flatbed trailers, big rig trucks hauling drilling pipe, compressors and other implements of oil extraction and of course tanker trucks going back and forth. All this truck traffic destroyed the roads through the town of Pecos itself. The asphalt was grooved with two large furrows where the tires ran. The road heaved, buckled and was strewn with potholes for every mile of it. And there was no color. What was once a red gas station, a green grocery store, was no more. Everything in town was covered with dull dirty oil-town brown dirt: automobiles, trucks, buildings, signs, dogs and cats, all the same dirty brown color. The noise of diesel engines powering all of this traffic was mind numbing. By the fourth day of being immersed in this environment my attitude towards the trip was so low it might have struck oil had we lingered any longer. I did some research. At Midland we turned southeast. Then finally after four hundred thirty miles of driving since crossing the Texas border at El Paso there was the first green to be seen along the highway and down the center median. Once again there was happiness in The Little House on the Highway
We spent a relaxing and refreshing three days at a nice little city park along the steep banks of the Llano River in Junction, Texas. It was there I decided we would go to Padre Island National Seashore off the coast of Texas at Corpus Christi. I had watched a few YouTube videos from a couple fellow travelers I knew and although they reported it being windy and chilly I decided to be brave and go. Upon arriving the ranger at the kiosk booth advised me to go to North Beach and there we went. I drove down the last bit of pavement onto the beach sand and was astonished to see the water up so close to the dunes. I could see campers scurrying about moving their gear up toward the dune embankment. I stopped and talked with the first set of campers. In one more hour it would be official high tide and with the recent storm and we were in a full moon, “…this is a bit unusual” he said. He added a ways down there were some open spaces which implied there were a lot more people strung out there along the beach than I bargained for. I told him that I don’t need this kind of adventure, thanked him and backed on out of there. We’ll go to South Beach Beans.
South Beach was no better. In fact what small bit of sand there was to drive on was wet sand! Good grief! And to think this is going to repeat itself twelve hours later at four A.M., I wanted no part of that. We went over onto the other side of the barrier island to Bird Island Basin. This camping area was a sandy gravel parking lot with thirty-four spots so close together, practically door handle to door handle parking, you could hear your neighbor snore at night. We left the next day. A couple days later another video showed up on YouTube. She showed the thick fog rolling in where she couldn’t see over fifty feet away and was worried about someone driving into her. Sounds lovely.
During all of this I had a worn brake pads warning light come on. This could not be. I had new pads and rotors installed not that many miles ago. Plus I am careful when braking gearing down for every stop. I stopped at a shop on the way out and they directed me to another shop in Corpus Christi that had a lift for RVs. They got me right in, pulled all four wheels and found the pads to be just fine. I’ve had an issue in the past where the senor wires grounded out sending a false signal but here that was not the case. The guy did some research and learned that the emergency brake has pads which are located within the rear axle housing. Imagine that. Well there’s no way I’m going to say yes to tearing down the rear end so I told him to put the wheels back on and I’ll live with it. Days later the light was more than annoying so I blocked it off from view. (A few weeks later I noticed the light was off. A few weeks more and it came back on.)
After a series of truck stop, picnic area and roadside rest overnight camps we came to Lake Limestone near Jewitt, Texas. This was a lovely campground of trees and cut lawn grass, well away from any roads or towns. We stayed an entire week there and besides the occasional fisherman launching his boat we had the place all to ourselves. No other campers, picnickers, day use people…no one. Sometimes I make a good call.
One day on a little walk along the shoreline I came to the cement boat ramp, paused to look out on the water then proceeded up the ramp. Suddenly about five feet away I see this large dark grey snake lying out on the rocks to the side of the ramp. Now I like snakes. I especially like them when I see them before they see me. This encounter quite unnerved me for he gave me no warning that he was there. I could have easily walked into him. I’m from the west. There the snakes that can do you harm are rattlesnakes. Rattlesnakes are always kind enough to warn you well in advance with their rattling. This snake did nothing. Once I regained my composure, I found a stick and prodded him out from the rocks a bit more. I wanted to see the tail. No rattles. The snake was close to four feet long and as thick as my forearm. Is this a water moccasin? I had never seen one before. So now I am unsettled once again thinking this water moccasin could have bit me before I knew he was there. Back at camp I got online and compared my photos. The snake turned out to be a “harmless” water snake. Well, so be it. It got my attention.
We continued our tour of the Hill Country of Texas and eventually had driven out of it. Still the scenery was wonderful doing short drives from here to there camps. Near Holliday (yes, it is spelt with two L’s) Texas we found Stonewall Jackson Camp. The camp was one of several by that name so it seems. They were little camps and parks established for veterans of the Civil War to get together for annual reunions. For this particular camp was the fact that this was in Comanche Indian territory. Nearby was a certified Indian Marker tree. Indians would bend over and tie down a young sapling as to mark a direction of travel on a trail, a water source, a place to cross a river or stream, or any other useful piece of information. The tree would continue to grow and take on an abnormal shape horizontal to the ground. There are many misshapen trees all over that are due to natural acts such as lightning strikes, another tree falling on it during the wind storm, or snow bend from heavy drifts of snow. So a very few trees are certified as actual Indian Marker trees. I found this very interesting and would look at these malformed trees I find during my hikes in a different light from now on.
OKLAHOMA
I had planned on staying there a few days but on the second day I noticed the coach batteries were reading a low voltage. I have had these batteries for ten years, well past their normal life expectancy. But I take care of them and they’ve continued to take on and hold a charge through the two hundred watts solar panel system onboard. Alas, one battery finally passed on. The nearest place I could buy two new Trojan six-volt golf cart batteries was in Oklahoma City a hundred miles to the northeast. Well, our route had been decided for us. We arrived on a Monday morning. I installed the new batteries and we were on our way heading west by noon.
I aimed for a free camp at American Horse Lake some thirty-five miles northwest from Interstate 40 at Calumet. Once there we were met with a large Oklahoma Wildlife Department sign listing all the rules and regulations for hunters and fishermen using the facilities. “A hunting or fishing license or Conservation Passport is required to enter unless exempt”, then a list of rules for fishing and another list for “other”. There on the “other” list among hunting, boating and skiing was one reference to camping−three day limit. We ran into the very same thing at another “free” camp, Lake Burtschi, on the way to Oklahoma City. What is this Conservation Passport and do I need one to camp? How and where do I even get one? I got on their wildlifedepartment.com site and looked all over finding no answer. I gave up and left. A day later brought us to our third “free” Oklahoma site, Lake Vanderwork, near Cordell. Yep, there was another one of those signs greeting us. By now I was a bit frustrated and aggravated and decide to stay. Being a nice grassy spot by the water with no one else anywhere I felt I couldn’t go wrong. I took the time and did more research. Finally, this is the third of fourth attempt mind you, I found something that implied that yes, I needed a passport to camp, and that it cost fifteen dollars and was good for three days. But nowhere did it say how to get one, no page to fill out a form and PayPal button to pay the fifteen to buy one, nothing! Why don’t they just stick an iron pipe into the ground, provide some envelopes and you drop your money in down the slot?! Just let someone of authority come by and ask me if I have a passport. By the time I’m done with my rant they will be sorry they stopped. By day two the weather was deteriorating. I felt confined in the hollow of the reservoir and I decided we best move out. Plus I had discovered a National Grassland managed by the Forest Service that looked promising. I never got to confront anyone of authority.
Black Kettle Grasslands wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, like the vast grasslands of Montana for example, but we weren’t greeted buy any confusing signs by the Oklahoma Wildlife Department. This was Federal Forest Service land and we’ll take that. The area is named for Chief Black Kettle, a leader of the Southern Cheyenne. He was known for his peacekeeping efforts with the white man. And for that, in November of 1868 he was killed by then Lieutenant Colonel George Armstrong Custer during a raid upon their winter encampment.
Our camp was at the base of Dead Indian Lake dam, a reservoir that was constructed in the 1950’s on Dead Indian Creek. The creek was named by early settlers to the area since they discovered many Native American sky burials along the creek. A sky burial is method of generally the Sioux and Lakota Plains Indians to honor their dead. The body is placed on a wooden scaffold for the spirit to rise. Birds, mostly vultures, deal with the remains. However you view this method of dealing with the body, I for one would want my moldy carcass done this way rather than being tossed into a hole in the ground and buried under six feet of dirt. Cremation doesn’t appeal to me all that much better. But I’ve got off track here. Sometime around 2001a do-gooder felt the names for the creek and lake were derogatory to the Native American and petitioned for the State of Oklahoma to change it to Black Kettle Creek or Medicine Woman Creek, after Black Kettle’s wife. Meanwhile there were those who wanted everything to remain named as they were. This group contacted the nearby Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes where they accumulated more than a thousand signatures to leave it Dead Indian Creek/Lake. The do-gooder had by then moved to California, where a lot of do-gooders with their misdirected ways reside, was never heard from again, and the petition was given its own sky burial.
TEXAS AGAIN
A week later a check of the weather showed the winds would be out of the east. We were running low on fuel and seventy-six miles away from the next town where I could fill up. So we took advantage of the situation, set sail, left Dead Indian Creek sooner than planned and blew back over the state line into Texas. We arrived at our next camp at Lake Meredith, north of Amarillo, not a minute too soon. The wind immediately picked up with some serious intent, rocking the RV back and forth reminding me why I could never manage being on a boat on the ocean – I get seasick. This was a nice campground run by the National Forest Service. It is free to stay for fourteen days and even had showers for the price of admission. It is very rare for that combination to occur. As nice as this camp was, including the much appreciated hot shower, the wind was a constant issue. Beans didn’t like to be out in it. I didn’t like to be out in it. The weather forecasted our third day there to be calm and peaceful. I was really looking forward to that and do some cooking in the Dutch oven among other outdoor activities. But the day before the wind became fierce with gusts at fifty mph. Looking ahead, after the predicted calm day we would be in for a string of four to five days or howling winds. I couldn’t see being trapped inside for all that time. We left on that one calm day heading south as much as possible to get out of the wind-plagued Texas panhandle.
We stopped at Jack Sisemore’s RV Museum in Amarillo, something I saw on a YouTube video and made of note of wanting to see. There are nearly two dozen vintage RVs and trailers from the 1930’s through to the 70’s to see. All are fully restored and accessible to walk in, look around and imagine. This was such a delight that I forgot all about the disappointment of leaving Lake Meredith sooner than planned. I met and visited with Jack, a very nice gentleman and he suggested we go to Palo Duro Canyon State Park just south of town. I have had others recommend going there so we did. When we arrived unfortunately there were no camp spots available unless I had made a reservation beforehand. Nope. We didn’t even do a drive-thru. With the urgency to get out of the wind tunnel we pressed on further south.
Two days later we were in the little town of Floydada and stayed at their community run RV Park. A nice quiet little place, free for the first two days, ten dollars thereafter and complete with hook-ups and a dump station. This also is very rare to have those services in a city-run park let alone being free. I did a little drive around their downtown business district which revealed the same story as most all small towns we visit, all closed up out of business stores. The extra wide brick paved streets were void of any activity. No people, no cars, and this was at high noon on a Saturday. It had a very apocalyptic feel to it. The next day was a short drive to Crosbyton and their small RV Park. It had the same set-up as Floydada and here we stayed for two days.
These little city parks are great and I had our route planned for another in Haslett, a two-hour drive. Along the way I kept looking for a place to get propane. The propane tank was low, like on E low. There was nothing to be had and Haslett being a larger town I felt for sure they would have propane. Nope. It was iffy the refrigerator would make it through the night and I certainly did not want my ice cream to melt. The park in Haslett wasn’t as nice as the previous two so we continued on northward in search of propane. Finally, fifty miles later and out of the way from our direction of travel I found propane in the little town of Knox. With that done and the ice cream now safe we backtracked towards the town of Munday. Outside of town was the Believers Chapel of the Knox Prairie. Here we took sanctuary and stayed the night in their parking lot.
The next day and onto another city park in Throckmorton. We never made it. I stopped in the middle of nowhere alongside the road for lunch. All of three cars passed by while there. Why go into a town when no one and no cars come by here? There we stayed with the flat prairie surrounding us, the birds singing and the wind keeping us comfortable in ninety degree weather. Then all hell broke loose.
I received a ‘severe storm warning in your area’ alert on the phone. To the south the skies were dark and lightning played about. I sat outside for forty-five minutes enjoying the show when the first raindrops were felt. I decided I would stand out in the rain as I had done before. Well that didn’t last long. The wind-driven rain hurt. Before I could get inside the wind picked up in intensity and it took all I could do to shut the door to the motor home. Picture the scene in The Wizard of Oz where Dorothy’s family is trying to get the storm cellar door shut. Once inside the wind grew even stronger; rain sounded like pea gravel being shot against the side. The RV shook and shook like it never had before. Outside the grasses were laid down flat onto the ground. Initially quite frightening, I reasoned there wasn’t a thing I could do about it so I may as well enjoy the experience. No longer frightening, the storm was now fascinating. After five or ten minutes (I had lost any sense of time) the storm was over in an instant. The rain stopped as suddenly has it had begun and soon the outside was bathed in sunshine. I stepped out, perceived no damage to The Little House on the Highway and watched the storm cell moved northward with bolts of lightning playing against a dark backdrop. I couldn’t recall the sound of any thunder during the tempest. It could have been there but was drowned out by the noise of the wind and rain, I don’t know. A beautiful full arc rainbow was left behind.
The planned city park stop in Throckmorton wasn’t all that great. Being still early in the day we pressed on to Hubbard Creek Reservoir near Breckenridge, Texas. Upon arrival it looked promising despite all the trash lying about. Shade trees, lakeside camps and no one camping. Yes, this will do fine for a week. Well, that didn’t last long either. Later in the day the local yahoos showed up hot-rodding their trucks around the camp roads. I had already moved once for no soon as I had finally got a somewhat level set-up some clown pulls in right down the way, leaves the doors open playing loud music while he fished and his blonde bimbo girl friend did whatever blonde bimbos so. Then there were the ski boats with their loud sound systems blasting rap-crap noise. Sounds carries wonderfully over water so a quarter of a mile away was just like them being right offshore.
The next day was a Friday, the weather was overcast and cool which kept the yahoos away. But I knew the weekend would be mayhem and so we left for Lake Daniel south of town twenty miles away. This looked better in that no ski boats, no swimming and not as inviting for idiots from town, with only about a half a dozen campsites. But every site was being used. Now what? Just as I pulled out past the locked gate there was a back-in spot on the end of the road. I backed in, found it quiet and no one else in their right mind would want to be there. We stayed the weekend.
The first week of May and the weather forecast called for mid nineties weather all the next week. This was my first indication that Texas wasn’t going to last much longer for us. I’d have to consider higher elevations for the summer if we were to remain in the south. Last summer we were up in Idaho and Montana which was nice. Now I needed to consider National Forest land in New Mexico and Colorado but that was three hundred miles away. What to do for the immediate? We went back to Hubbard Creek Reservoir to sit out the hot week coming.
The week went well considering the infrequent visits of the locals. I sort of planned on leaving on Friday and Thursday evening when I went out to leave some food for this orange tabby that would come to visit Beans I spotted a baby rattlesnake curled up beneath the slide-out of the RV. This was the regular path that Beans would walk and needless to say the sight of the rattler left me a bit unnerved as to what would have happened had she been out with me. Most people would have killed the snake without hesitation but I could not. This is its home; we’re just visitors. I relocated the snake down by the water and decided for sure, we’re leaving.
Our first night was HOT at a Walmart Travel Lodge in Snyder, Texas. That was followed by a couple real nice city traveler RV parks in Lamesa and Levelland. These were extra special in the fact that they provided electrical and water hook-ups and still all for the price of FREE. At each we were able to get some shade from the blazing Texas sun. Our next stop would be the Muleshoe National Wildlife Refuge. On our way there I turned on the air conditioner and no cool air. Are you kidding me? Now, on the hottest day you don’t work?! Beans was none too happy about this and let me know about it. Meow! The refuge turned out to be a dead dry grass field with no shade and no redeeming qualities of any type. We left for the town of Muleshoe hoping to find an auto repair shop that could deal with an air conditioner.
I had another free city run park lined up for this town and drove by a small auto shop a quarter of a mile before it. I pulled in, parked, went inside and was soon greeted by Michael. He was welcoming, had a positive attitude and I thought he’ll do just fine. Outside he had me start the engine and said right off that the compressor was working. This was what I thought the problem was. Then he pointed out where a leak was in the condenser, the radiator looking like piece of equipment mounted in front of the radiator. I could see where a rock had hit it and recalled taking a hit the day before just that I knew not where. He made a call and said a new condenser would be here from Lubbock in the morning. This is what I like about small towns and small shops, no making of an appointment or “We can probably get to you later this week”.
With that set we moved up to the street to Ray and Donna West RV Park. Again, free hook-ups but no shade. But you get the added pleasure of being a stone’s throw from the railroad tracks where trains rolled by at all hours blasting their air horns at every street crossing which there are a dozen or so in close proximity to each other. So essentially it is one long continual horn blast. Very nice at four A.M. in the morning. My fellow resident in the park was an older, rather large woman in a Class C RV about the same size as my Winnebago View. She only came out to hook up her power cord and sewer hose. The rest of the time she was inside sewing, long into the evening with the TV playing. She had her sewing machine set up on the dining table what looked like permanently. I could see inside that a wall of little cubby hole bins and drawers were immediately behind the seats in the