"Today is a Good Day to Drive!" .....Van-Go

December 6, 2006 Happy St. Nick’s Day It was a productive morning. Will did some Roadtrek repairs and Kathy put a wreath together for the front of the Roadtrek. Today the sun warmed the air and took the chill from the ground. It was noon when we departed continuing north on route 337. The Double Creek Ranch had unique yard art, “Rust in Peace”. The windy road took us higher and on to Edwards Plateau, Texas Hill County. We got a wifi hit in Leackey and were surprised to find Jen on line; we had a nice chat. Love our wifi! Cliff are you on google chat? Before we left town we stopped to admire a beautiful area where a stream ran and cypress trees grew. We went ten miles south to Gardner State Park, but it was closed for a week of hunting. We turned around and went back north and continued to Lost Maples State Park. It was late afternoon, but warm so we took a hike on the East Trail. Heidi and her male friend were going to do the loop; we chatted a bit and went our opposite directions. The...

December 5, 2006 At about noon, after spending them morning internetting, we headed out of Del Rio. At Laughlin Air Force Base we stopped to watch the planes coming and going. Amazing how they hang suspended in the air, falling to crisp smooth landings. Green fighter jets, white passenger jets, gray propjets and black USAF planes. The are directly above us; we see them coming as just a glint against the clouds, then they are there in front of us and then, gone. Some just scratch the runway then we hear the howl of the engines as it takes off again. We decided to enjoy our lunch what watching. The jets come in ones and twos; our own airshow. We drove up into the hill country. We picked a bunch of mistletoe; it grows symbiotically on mesquite trees, and a few branches of evergreens. We found a pull off, a staging area for road construction and settled in for the night. We watched Fifth Element.

December 4, 2006 This morning we spent time looking over our atlas. The Rand McNally 1996 Road Atlas holds a record of roads we have driven on in travels of North America. It was fun looking back over our adventures and remembering good times we have shared. Nevada and North Dakota are the two states least visited. There are colored lines that criss cross the county; shapes with dates where we have stopped for the night, and “W” for the Walmarts. It was 10am and we did a loop around the Rough Canyon Marina then headed back into Del Rio. We went to the post office and mailed Christmas calendars! A stop at the bank for quarters then, to laundry duty. We couldn’t pass up $5 Little Caesar’s pizza. It is cool, in the 50s. A little spot out by Lake Amistad off route 277 was where we spent the night. Our movie was Man In the Iron Mask.

December 3, 2006 We spent the morning reading a magazine and working crossword puzzles. The day did not get any warmer; the cloud blanket of the sky prevented the sun from shining through. We drove toward Del Rio. The lake at Amistad was full of water; a few years ago we were here and it was about empty. It was good for the people that have lakefront property. We drove to the Mexican border; half way across on the bridge just to say we did it; “We did it”. The center of the bridge has two eagles, the bald eagle and the caracara “Mexican” eagle. There are murals on the walls of a small building on the bridge. In Del Rio we did a little wifi, walked the mall, tried to find a bar to watch the Steelers with no luck-who won?, then drove out to Lake Amistad where we parked near the water. We watched Shawshank Redemption while eating our chicken dinner.

December 2, 2006 We had another lazy morning and didn’t really get on the road until noon. We drove down into the Amistad Recreation Area and got a little closer to the mouth of the Pecos River where it runs into the Rio Grande River. We stopped in Seminole Canyon State Historic Park. We bought the Texas State Park pass for $60 and can now enter fee free into any. Then we walked around the exhibits here telling about early people from 10,000 years ago. We made lunch in the picnic area then returned for the 3:00 tour of the rock shelters of these early peoples. On the walls are paintings, rock art. It is thought they made their paints from bone marrow and ground rock. The characters mostly had long bodies, short legs and little heads. There was one tall figure with the head of a deer whose antlers have black circles over the points. The illustrations, done in the 50’s and replicated on exhibit signs, of the paintings were better than the ones themselves on the stone walls as they have b...

December 1, 2006 We got up early enough, but the day just got away from us. Will made pancakes for breakfast and Kathy got into a cleaning kick. It was noon when we pulled out on to the road traveling east toward Langtry. We found a wifi hotspot and spent some time doing that, then drove down to the Rio Grande river that is only a small creek running through the tall reeds. There are huge sea caves so you can see that at one time there was a lot of water that came this way. We paused to see the Pecos rail bridge off in the distance then drove to the overlook. The mouth of the Pecos River where it flows into the Rio Grande is visible from our picnic spot. To the other side is the tallest bridge that goes over the Pecos River on US90. Will made us spaghetti with garlic butter sauce for dinner, yea, we know it was not Tuesday. We watched Michael.

November 30, 2006 It snowed last night! We were parked at the rest area just west of Pecos, Texas. The winds rocked us all night. We kept the heater on and Will got up a few times to run the Roadtrek engine to keep the battery charged and to heat the engine hoping to keep the undercarriage a little warm so the water pipes would not freeze. We were lucky and although when we first got up we had not water; the pump went on, but no water came out, it thawed quickly with the Roadtrek running. We found a wifi hotspot in town then continued on back roads to Crane, Texas where we stopped to visit with good friends, Jim and Francis. They moved up here from Marathon to be nearer their kids and hospitals, but they miss their old home. We got to meet their daughter Lucille and Jim’s grade school friend, Tiny. Jim made a wonderfully yummy stew and Francis had made a chocolate cream pie. We sat around the kitchen table gabbing away and time too slipped away. We love Jim and Francis; we met them vol...