Del Rio

April 4, 2011 - Del Rio, Texas - Joe drove 221 miles yesterday, out of Big Bend and over to this State Park, and we had a pretty good evening.  I talked to one of the bicyclists this morning and she said they were riding from San Diego to Florida, in 52 days.  Yesterday was a lot of uphill riding for them, and she said it was a pretty hard day.  Then they slept in a tent with an outside temperature of 90 degrees.  Does that even sound like fun?????  They were gathering up pretty early this morning.  Here's is the stack of gear by the restroom.

Joe had visions of a Whataburger breakfast this morning, so I woke him up about 8:00.  It was pretty nice outside, a little hazy, about 72 degrees.  We enjoyed our coffee outside at the picnic table, then walked over to the restroom.  On our way back, the wind rose and all of a sudden, we had gusts about 40-50 mph, and the wind just set in then.  Our plans for an early start were stymied as we discussed what we were going to do.  Our intent was to drive to Laredo, which we thought was about 200 miles, with a stop in Del Rio to see what there was in that border town.  We decided to just go as far as Del Rio and spend the day and night there, since the computer showed the winds were supposed to last until 7:00 p.m., so we took off.  The wind was bad at first but as we headed more south, it seemed to not be hitting us as hard.  We only went 44 miles, and there wasn't much traffic, so we made it just fine.

We came up on the Amistad Reservoir, and some more of its boat ramps and recreation areas, which was about 10 miles before Del Rio, as well as the dam, which takes you right into Mexico.  Here's the bridge over part of this very pretty lake, which was white-capping big time when we drove through here.  The Amistad park extends 81 miles up the Rio Grande, 14 miles up the Pecos River, and 25 miles up Devils River.  The Reservoir has 540 miles of shoreline in Texas.

We found the Whataburger Restaurant, right on the main drag.  This is the face of a happy camper.

After we fueled and I drove back to check out the campground we thought we might use (we didn't, it was kinda junky, so we are spending our first night on a Walmart parking lot), we stopped at the Visitor Center and then drove back to the Amistad dam area.  We didn't have our passports with us, so I told Joe I did not want to end up in Mexico.  The road over the dam takes you right into Mexico, but we managed to not get on it.

Brenda, here's what a Texas Billie Boat looks like.

We drove back into town and found the San Felipe creek and dam, which was pictured in one of the brochures we picked up at the Visitor Center.  The San Felipe is the 4th-largest springs in Texas, and they have made a pretty park where it flows through town.

There is a canal that joins this spring, and there are waterfalls from both the spring and the canal.

We stopped at a Mexican restaurant for lunch, but it must have been too authentic for me, because I didn't think it was that great.  The salsa, however, was HOT!  After we drove around the town a little more, we went back to our campsite (Walmart parking lot) and relaxed (read) for a while.  The temperature stayed in the 70s all day, and the wind was intermittent, it was a relaxing afternoon.  We finally walked into the store and did a little shopping.  Tomorrow we will try to make it to Laredo.