March 30, 2011 - Day 2 - Balmorhea, Texas

March 30, 2011 - Day 2 on the road.   Our start time seems to be 11:00 a.m. this trip.  I did see wildlife this morning, a bunny rabbit hopped by the front of our RV.  The only other animals I saw today was roadkill (a few undetermined species and one deer).  Our neighbor had an interesting cat cage out -- we had never seen one like this before.

But I really wanted to go for a short hike here at this park this morning, so we drove down to the Visitor Center to get some information.  Joe decided I needed a walking stick, but we didn't bring wallets with us, so we drove back to the RV and Joe got his wallet.  We went back to the Visitor Center to pay for my walking stick, and Joe then saw the sign, "no debit or credit cards."  He only had $10 in his wallet (my walking stick was $15), so back to the RV we went again, and we both got our wallets, and some money.  By this time, he decided he should get a walking stick for himself, just in case he ever gets to do any walking, so he picked out an $18 one, and we finally got out of there, and up to the beginning of the trail.




This is a half-mile trail, mostly downhill after the first part, one I carefully selected!  A lady had just finished the 1.5 mile trail and was doing push-ups leaning on the rock wall, getting ready to hike the same trail a second time.  Joe thought I should follow her example.  She did take some pictures of us, just in case I didn't survive my hike.

Although Brenda did not return our rock collection box, we did find a Brenda rock here.

So off I went, with my sack to collect rocks.  You can take 15 lbs. of rocks from the park.  By the time I got back, I decided my sack must weigh 25 lbs.  But as I rounded the last curve, a welcome sight awaited me -- Joe was coming to meet me, using his new walking stick!

The Visitor Center had a display of the rocks that could be found here.

Here's my collection (which remains unidentified).

While I hiked, Joe got the RV ready to travel, so we hit the road, heading to Texas.  We hit the Texas state line about 12:50 and made a fuel stop, and I picked up Subway sandwiches that we ate while Joe continued driving.  We are trying to offset the increased price of gas this year by camping at state parks (and Walmark parking lots, with an occasional casino parking lot thrown in if I can talk Joe into that).  Our first day we averaged 7.59 mph, which is pretty good for this RV.  Fortunately, we've had a tail wind most of the time, so that helped some.

Joe put in 290 miles today, about 6 hours driving.  We lost an hour yesterday, and a second one today as we changed time zones again, so it was 7:00 p.m. when we got to the campground.  We are staying at the Balmorhea State Park tonight, heading to Ft. Davis and Big Bend National Park tomorrow.

Day 1 - Getting out of town

3/29/11 - Here we go!

We still had a lot to do this morning and didn't leave until 10:50 a.m.  We are both glad to be on the road again.  It's warming up in Arizona, and Joe was barely out of Apache Junction when he said he just wanted to turn left and head straight north.  But he didn't, and we drove on through Superior and Globe.  We stopped in Bylas at a rest stop for lunch and had a short nap -- worn out already! We did have a view of snow-capped Mt. Graham in the distance (elevation 10,720) so we pretended to be in Alaska. 

Then we drove through Thatcher and Safford, crossed into New Mexico and spent the night at a real nice state park about 10 miles southeast of Deming, Rockhound State Park. We haven't looked for any rocks yet, I think that requires hiking.  We drove 286 miles (over our limit, and on the first day!) and I (myself) even drove about 50 miles on I-10 between Lordsburg and Deming.  Pretty straight stretch of road, not too much traffic (lots of trucks), and only one curve and one hill.  I managed to keep it between the white lines (although I think I took up the whole lane).  Joe probably expects more driving out of me in the future, but I'm not too sure about.  I think I can threaten him that he has to do more cooking if I'm driving, and that should take care of that.

Alaska is the page right in front of Arizona in the road atlas, so every time I look at Arizona, I keep seeing that and remembering our wonderful trip last year.  This year's trip won't be anything like that, but we are hoping to see lots of interesting things, spend time with family, and enjoy life on the road.  Right now we think we'll be back home in August, and that does NOT sound like a good idea, so we'll see what happens (when we run out of money).  Joe has to have surgery on his other foot when we get home, but it is not scheduled yet so we have no deadlines.  We have to be in Corpus Christi, Texas by next Thursday, 4/7, to pick up John and Bridgette at the airport, then attend Bridgette's defense on 4/8.  So we are heading in that general direction.

Hwy 60

I think she's pointing East. Maybe Globe?