Living Desert Zoo & Gardens State Park

Well, we will move on tomorrow morning, so I better write a post about the last few days here. You can not believe how nice it is to look out the window and watch the rabbits, road runners (they don't look like the cartoon at all!!) and Doug says he has seen some coyotes the other day.

So the other day we went to "Living Desert Zoo & Gardens State Park. One thing I have learned by now is that these zoos and parks are not as big as the once at the east coast. These are zoos and gardens that are fairly small and most of the time display animals and flowers that are common to the state. However, it makes them unique and interesting in their own way. I love cactus in bloom and always love to see animals, so here are some pictures of the things we saw at the state park.





Want to know where we go next? Stay tuned ...:-)

So Long Texas - Hello New Mexico!!!

After three driving days, we actually managed to leave the state of Texas and cross over in to New Mexico. I forgot that they changed to mountain time as soon as you cross the border. My phone apparently knew that, however, my car is not quite as smart. :-)

Before leaving Alpine, TX, we tried to make a reservation in Brantley Lake State Park on Sunday on the Internet without success and I called the reservation desk on Monday to find out that the park supposedly was full. So on Tuesday we stopped at the edge of Carlsbad to decide where to stay next and Doug came up with a really good idea. How about calling the park directly and finding out just how much they are really booked up? Guess what, state parks have an area that is on a "first come first serve" basis and most of those spots were empty. So we drove up to check it out and check out this amazing sunset view out of the back window of our rig the day we arrived.

We did, however, have a small disappointment when we arrived. We purchased last year an annual New Mexico park pass for the rig and the truck, but now we also have the car and unfortunately, it can not be included in this pass. It still is a good deal to stay at state parks, but it put a little damper on our spirits. Come to find out the next day when we went to Living Desert Zoo and Garden State Park, there is a huge gathering of Airstream owners in town and a spot in a RV park would have been hard to find. But more about that later.

McDonald Observatory

Once in a while you have to do something to stimulate the mind, so we decided to check out the McDonald Observatory in Fort Davis, TX. It turned out to be a very interesting day for us. Upon arrival we decided to take their three hour guided tour, which was not starting yet for about 40 minutes. So sitting in the restaurant after checking out their museum, we had a chance to watch some very hungry hummingbirds.

McDonald Observatory is at the highest accessible spot in Texas, which lends itself to some really nice areal shots.


Among the several smaller telescopes, there are two that really stand out. One of them has a 107" mirror and can rotate and tilt in every way possible. Standing in front of it makes you somehow feel just a little bit small.


The other one is built on a totally different principal and is made up of 91 different mirrors, which are being align every day before they start using this telescope and it also can only be rotated, not tilted.

Now, since I am not an astrologer, if you want more info you need to visit http://mcdonaldobservatory.org/visitors/

Big Bend National Park

We had heard a lot about how beautiful Big Bend National Park is with all its different flowers and all. What we did not think about is that Texas has drought conditions right now and a lot of the park is very dry and under extreme fire conditions. But first, you have to see the pictures of this person's front yard that we saw on the way to the park. Only in America!!!!

I have no idea why somebody would want the Statue of Liberty, a pirate ship and the top part of a submarine in their front yard, but to each its own.

We went on to the park. As you can see, we did get to see some plants in bloom.
What amazed me is the difference in altitude.We were as low as 1850 feet, when we finally found the river at the Boquillas Canyonn Overlook. Also, keep in mind that across the river is Mexico. Somehow it does not seem like a big deterrent to cross the river. Signs also warned us not to purchase any Mexican artwork that we would see while in the park. It is considered illegal.

We first thought we would find the river at the Rio Grande Overlook, but the water levels are so low that you have to more guess where the river normally goes by all the green trees and shrubs surrounded by desert like vegetation.
I loved the little turtle sunbathing on the Nature Trail.


We went on to go to the basin, which is strangely enough at 5401 feet. We got to see lots of trees and shrubs, which you would find when you go into the mountains.

Once at the top, we had a very nice lunch with a beautiful view.

All in all we had a great day and got back to the rig pretty tired at 8 pm.

On the Road Again ...

This is the view when we open the door to our RV in the morning. Life is good. Friends and family, get out the maps, because we are on the move again!

For the last three months we have enjoyed our stay at Retama Village. We made some new friends, had some great "Happy Hours" and built ourselves a little nest to come back to at any time, should we choose to. But now it is time to go back on the road again and this time we are doing it a little bit different. We have decided to take the VW Rabbit with us, which means we are both driving at the same time. We will try not to do more then 250 - 300 miles a day and stay in a place at least 7 days before moving on. Given the high diesel prices and the mobility that the little car gives us, it sure seems to make sense. Ask me again at the end of this season, which should be around the end of November.

So we started our trip on Tuesday and headed north west to Eagle Pass, TX for our first stop at a local Casino that had free RV parking. It was 277 miles and a very interesting day. It is not so easy for me to follow, since Doug now has the GPS and if I loose him, I don't know where to go. After running two red lights to make sure I don't loose him, I realized that first of all I have cell phone, a walkie talkie and the rig is so big, I can see him from a mile away, unless a tractor trailer gets in front of me. I settled down and the rest of the first day went well. We continued on yesterday to Alpine, TX, which is about 100 miles north of Big Bend National Park, the reason why we are traveling this way. The road we traveled on had very little traffic, so we moved along quit well and were able to stop at an interesting little picnic area on Route 90.

We are now about 6 miles south of Alpine, TX in a very small RV park, enjoying the quite and being parked in mother nature. We will be here for a week and decided today to check out the town and see what it has to offer. It was nice to be able to browse the local gift shops, have a nice lunch and check out the Big Bend museum.

Tomorrow, we will drive down to Big Bend National Park and check it out.

It's Time to Go

I can't believe we have been here since the end of December, but slowly but surely, we are getting anxious to get back on the road again. Temperatures in the daytime have been going up to 106 degrees last week and yesterday it was 103 degrees. Even though the humidity is very low here, that is still pretty hot. We sort of skipped spring and went right in to summer. At night the temperature are normally not below 72 degrees, which means we are running the air conditioner a lot. If everything goes as planned and we will get our mail on Monday, we will be back on the road on Tuesday heading northwest.

So what has been going on with us since I last posted? Well, we spent Easter with Doug's Dad's wife's brother's family in Victoria (try to stay with me on this one) and had a great time. It was a 4 hour car trip to Victoria, but well worth the long driving time. There was so much good food and a very strange Easter tradition. After lunch all the kids go out to hunt for Easter eggs. So far so good, but then a whole bunch of eggs are being brought out that have confetti in them. The egg fight that followed was indescribable, Confetti was found in every ones hair and lots of other places. :-)



We have made friends with some of the other couples in our RV park and three of the ladies and I have been going shopping to Clothing Outlet stores and the mall. Three of us actually went to Mexico last Friday. Bonnie had to go to the dentist and Linda took the opportunity to show me a little bit of Progresso. So many street vendors and little stores with nothing but tourist stuff and pharmacies. It is well know here in the US that most of the towns across the border have cheaper medicines and dentists as well as purses, clothing, alcohol, etc.. It was interesting to see, but also good to be back on American soil at the end of the afternoon.

People around here find a reason to celebrate just about anything. So we went to a "Blooming Onion Festival" last Saturday. The onions have been planted on October 15th the year before and are therefore called "Onion 1015". Good food and a lot of heartburn was to be had, but they also had some music band playing and an one hour demonstration of "Dancing Horses", which was pretty interesting.


We have spent most of this week deciding what will stay here in the coach house and what to take with us back on the road. Coach house is pretty much done and the storage areas in the rig are starting to shape up nicely. Next time I will post, we should be on the road again. Until then ....