South Llano River State Park, TX was our next stopover for one night. The weather was warm and we had visions of floating and wading in the river to cool off and relax! (This was advertised on their web page). But when we checked in, they told us that all river activities had to end daily at 3:00 pm due to the effort to encourage wild turkey roosting on their nature preserve…we had arrived at 2:30 pm. Pretty disappointed about that. We did enjoy another nature hike, they had bird blinds set up so you could hide and record different birds coming and going – pretty cool.
EXIT AHEAD!
We had to change our planned route for COVID 19 Regulations!
EXIT AHEAD! News about the Corona virus had been circulating since early February, but not a lot of attention was given to it – at first! Now we learned that the April Juice Plus LIve Conference in Phoenix, AZ had been canceled! We also learned that ALL of our reserved campsites in New Mexico and Arizona had been canceled and money refunded. We scrambled to make a new route – so far Texas was still open – but we needed a place to “shelter-in-place”, but where? This was another opportunity to trust God and watch how He would direct and provide for our every need! His “exit” plans always work out for good – we’ve earned this truth over and over throughout our lives. God IS good!
We stayed at Fort Stockton, TX for a couple of nights. This allowed Lorree to work at ROH on Monday. We got to experience the worlds 2nd largest Road Runner in downtown Fort Stockton! There were lots of yucca plants along the highway – finally got to get a picture close up for comparison of the size! We never had these in La Junta, CO!
EL PASO, TX!
Lorree helped out driving across Texas – sooooo many miles to travel! We travel with all of our “gadgets” turned on; Garmin GPS, Google Maps, rear view camera behind the trailer, nothing’s going to surprise us (ha! ha!) Lorree tried to eat that semi!
We were able to make reservations at the Mission RV Park in El Paso, TX. Very nice park (even though we were just located just off the interstate and parked on a gravel “parking lot”). We enjoyed using their swimming pool and hot tub a couple of times! We were thankful for a place to stay for a few nights – we learned that other campgrounds were closing and telling people to leave ASAP. RV’ers are scrambling all over the nation to find a place to hunker down. Never imagined we would be faced with this when we started our new lifestyle!
We sure eat good when we get to settle down for a few days! The camp store sold ice cream – so we HAD to try the famous Blue Bell Ice Cream – YUM!
El Paso sits right on the boarder of Mexico. We drove by a section of the boarder wall that President Trump is building. Pretty impressive – not an eye-sore. We could actually see through it – but it would be pretty hard to climb over!
We went on a day trip to the mountings right outside of El Paso. We ended up at Franklin Mtn State Park. The new rules allowed for day visits and hiking, but no overnight camping (?…go figure!) We never saw any of the famous blue bell blooms (too early – usually in April they say), but we saw lots of the yellow Buttercups and Indian Paintbrush plants. Beautiful landscapes!
Aztec Caves Trail – looked like a nice moderate hike – we set out on a new adventure!
This hike about did us in – except that we were wise to stop, rest, and take our time! We were at about 5,300 ft elevation. It was about a mile to the caves with an elevation change of about 600 ft. We realized that although we thought we were “in shape” we needed more work on that! It was a bit treacherous coming down because of the steep path and the loose rocks, so glad we have walking sticks! We had a great day!
On the way home, we drove along side the boarder wall and came across this mile-long line of semi’s. They were going into Mexico – we don’t know if this is an everyday occurrence or a slow down of border crossing because of COVID 19.
Getting some Vitamin D and ultra violet light to keep the virus far away! The warm sunshine felt so good!