After the explosive fun with our traveling home yesterday, we spent the day today addressing the damage to our fifth wheel trailer. We went outside and looked at the damage but we are not mechanics so we waited on the guy we called yesterday until his arrival this afternoon.
To fill up the hours before his arrival, we contacted our Good Sam insurance folks to initiate a claim for damages because, based on our completely ignorant speculation, it will be expensive and we would be delighted to get some financial assistance from the folks who have been dutifully collecting our yearly premiums.
The mechanic rolled in about when he thought he would arrive and climbed under the trailer to assess damages and take pictures. It was his allegation that the rear left leaf spring broke in transit, creating a cascade of subsequent actions. The spring failure caused an almost instantaneous destruction of the tire which quickly shredded since we were moving when the spring broke in two. Shrapnel from the tire then blasted out toward the rear of the trailer and caromed off a variety of flimsy components, destroying some of them. One particularly dedicated piece of rubber or cord flew back about 15 feet and took out some trailer wiring near the back bumper.
The mechanic performed a thorough examination of the rest of the trailer, including the roof. It is fortunate because he said we have apparently run into an overhanging branch somewhere and the roof membrane was punctured so it looks like we will be getting that fixed, too. Bummer.
All the parties required (I think) have been notified and repairs should be forthcoming. Who is going to pay is still up in the air but we are foolishly optimistic.
There’s some pix of the carnage. Click here

There was a long drive awaiting us this morning. Our RV park scheduling showed us as being in San Antonio this evening and we like to stay pretty close to our schedule so we don’t end up camping in Walmart parking lots, unremarkable vacant dirt lots under the jurisdiction of the Bureau of Land Management or highway rest areas. With that in mind, we got a reasonably early start from last night’s accommodations in Langtry, TX, and continued southeast alongside the Rio Grande on US-90 toward Del Rio. We crossed over the Pecos River right at the confluence with Rio Grande between Langtry and Del Rio. We stopped for fuel in Del Rio in the first fuel station we had seen in a couple of days.
US-90 turns east in Del Rio and we stayed the course for a few more hours, passing through Uvalde, until we turned north on Farm to Market Road 471 to a little non-town called Lakehills west of San Antonio. FM-471 is a screwy road with about 20 miles of up-and-down and, somewhere along the way, we blew out a left rear trailer tire which took out a bit of plastic exterior molding, quite a bit of slide-out lower weather seal, a bit of sheet metal lower trailer skirt, some electrical components associated with our rear stabilizer jacks, a leaf spring that used to support the tire, one pricey tire and the wheel it used to be mounted on. We called a mobile mechanic and we will have him do a more thorough search for damage when he arrives. If it was just a flat tire, we would have to pay for it ourselves but, since there was a moderate amount of damage associated with the tire’s sudden failure and subsequent disintegration, we may have insurance to pick up part of the repair cost. I’m not too hopeful because I have dealt with insurance companies before.
The good news is that we were in the Thousand Trails Lake Medina campground before Peggy jumped out of the rig to register for our stay and looked back to see that we had had a big boo-boo and we would need repairs. We pulled into a nice, shady spot with full hookups, good satellite TV reception, deer everywhere and no need to leave for a few weeks. We are delighted that the big catastrophe did not occur when we were out in the portions of Texas between here and Del Rio. We like Texas but there are some vast, wide open spaces with no phone service in this state and we easily could have spent a miserable and expensive few days in some tiny town with a name like Succotash.
See a couple pix. Click here

Our time ran out on our reservation in Big Bend National Park and we had to leave. We vowed to each other that we would return because, despite being tough to get to, this park is absolutely stunning with plenty of wildlife, an extraordinary variety of plants and majestic, unique terrain. We started our trip by driving the 20 miles to Panther Junction again where we turned onto US-385, heading north across the 80 miles or so of colorful desert to Marathon.
In Marathon, we picked up fuel before turning east on US-90 for a long haul across southwest Texas. The road passes through a tremendous expanse of good scenery but little civilization. I’m glad the truck ran well and we bought fuel in Marathon because there certainly isn’t a lot of fuel options along the way and running out of fuel here will definitely mean a lengthy delay. After another 100 miles or so, we pulled off in Langtry, Texas, where Judge Roy Bean declared himself as the “Law West of the Pecos” and had a very colorful life while dispensing justice from his saloon. He had a crush on a performer of the time named Lily Langtry and named his saloon and other things after her. Unfortunately, Lily and Roy never met although she visited the remnants of his empire shortly after his death.
Langtry had some boom periods in the past but there is little here now. There is no cell phone service. There is no wifi. There is no diesel. There is little paving after turning off US-90. We heard a train go by town and, since there is very little town and no grade crossings, the engineer doesn’t blow the whistle; only a rumble to let the locals, if any, know the train is passing.There are no full hookup RV parks but we found a place with a 30 amp plug and pulled in.
They do have and we walked over to visit the nice Roy Bean museum and travel info center where we checked out their exhibits. We also checked out Roy’s saloon/courtroom, their very clean restrooms and Roy’s house. There is also a pretty botanical garden with a variety of native, very pointy plants. It is free.
Near our RV spot the Rio Grande runs through an impressive rock gorge. We took a little spin in the truck and checked out the gorge and the massive hollow spots in the banks where the river has scoured the limestone smooth. I wanted to check out the other bank of the river until I remembered it is in Mexico and, additionally, looks roadless.
There’s a few pix to see if you click here

The air temperature was in the low ’80s, there was a nice soft breeze and it was clear in the morning but big, puffy clouds floated over during the afternoon – a perfect day for sightseeing. We elected to take the drive from our RV park on the east side of the park where the Rio Grande runs north along the border all the way to the west end of the park where the river runs south.
We drove again to Panther Junction 20 miles west and continued a bit further before we turned southwest on the Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive. This road skirts the east side of the Chisos Mountains (see yesterday’s poop) before dropping down into a wonderland of spectacular rock formations, badlands, volcanic surprises and vast deposits of limestone and ash.
At the western end of the paving, about 65 miles from our campground on the other side of the park, Santa Elena Canyon cuts maybe 1,000 feet deep into the abrupt, horizon-to-horizon Mesa de Anguila. This part of the park is particularly fascinating for those puzzled by geology because there seems to be some of just about every formation known to man. Jagged volcanic bluffs erupt from the surrounding limestone landscape in eerie juxtaposition of strata. Erosion has plopped a big foot down here with skinny box canyons running in all directions. It is magnificent. This park would be crowded like Yosemite or Yellowstone if it wasn’t located way past the middle of nowhere. However, being remote is great for folks like us – there are few people or drivers here and the scenery is world-class.
See pix. Click here

Our first auto tour of Big Bend National Park took us through all the climate zones. The park is gigantic; the road distance across the terrain from east to west is more than 60 miles and elevations range from about 1,400′ to nearly 6,000′. Magnificent ridges of mountain groups screen each other from view. The rock is both sedimentary and igneous so the variety of geological formations is nearly infinite. Before we even left the RV campground area, we spotted a golden fronted woodpecker, roadrunners, a vermilion flycatcher, a coyote, a chipmunk and either a Bell’s or Hutton’s vireo. There are ravens as big as bread loaves lingering around the trailer.
We initiated our cruise in the southeast end of the park in the area surrounding Rio Grande Village, located, strangely, right next to the Rio Grande. At this point in the river’s progress to the sea, it is anything but “grande.” Perhaps “poquito (itty-bitty)” or “verde (green)” would be a better description. In a few months the rain, if any, will come and the river will exhibit a substantially higher flow rate and a different color.
In this end of the park is the Boquillas Crossing, a pathway into Mexico across the river. Once travelers have shown their valid passport to the Homeland Security goons on this side of the river, a phone call is made to the ferrymen on the Mexico side who will dispatch their craft to transport your car into the tiny town of Boquillas, Mexico. It costs $5, round trip. A good portion of the Boquillas residences appear to be pastel-colored steel containerized cargo units with rectangular window holes cut in the sides.
There is also a Boquillas Canyon Overlook not much further down the road and the river and rock formation views are terrific. One can linger near the Rio Grande at about 1,700′ elevation and gaze up the almost-vertical cliff faces to see the pines growing up on the surrounding 6,000′ ridges. The scenery is fantastic.
After a spin down all the paved roads in the east end of the park, we drove west for about 20 miles, climbing all the way, to Panther Junction, location of a road intersection, a government visitor center and an Alon gas station. From the intersection, we turned southwest and drove up the curvy and sometimes-steep road into the Chisos Mountains, specifically to Chisos Basin. This is a truly spectacular drive from warm desert with a variety of stabby and prickly vegetation into a juniper, pine, fir and leafy hardwood forest above 5,000′ elevation. The basin is completely surrounded by massive rock cliffs and a truly amazing assortment of flora. I highly recommend a visit to Chisos Basin if you want to be overwhelmed with stunning scenery.
Before we ran out of light, we drove out of the Basin, down to Panther Junction and continuing downhill to Rio Grande Village. We spotted a foraging coyote wandering around near our trailer. He seemed unconcerned with us tourists because he pinched a loaf not far from the Barbarian Invader before disappearing toward the river.
It was a day of astounding scenery. Big Bend is a truly gorgeous gem that most folks will never see. The park may be a long way from nowhere but the sights here are amazing.
We have included a few pix. Click here

Leaving Fort Stockton and one of the state’s ugliest RV parks, we drove a few blocks and picked up US-385 south across west Texas. There is very little civilization south of town but the views of the mountains on both sides of the road are pretty good. I thought we had left all of the Texas mountains when we passed through Guadalupe Mountains National Park up on the New Mexico/Texas border near Carlsbad last week. I was wrong.
South of Marathon, Texas, the road starts to climb as we headed toward Big Bend National Park which borders the Rio Grande River and the states of Coahuila and Chihuahua in Mexico. There are massive mountains here, ranging up to around 7,800 feet. The Rio Grande has been sawing through this landscape for millions of years as it passes beneath the spectacular terrain.
We drove into the park through the strangely named Persimmon Gap at about 2,800′ elevation and continued south through the magnificent terrain to Panther Junction at 3,850′ before turning southeast downhill to Rio Grande Village alongside the river at 1,850′ elevation. We drove into and set up at the Rio Grande Village RV Park which boasts of 24 spaces, all of them full. Thank God we made a reservation because all of the park’s camping spots, with or without utility hookups, are occupied. Right off the bat, we spotted a vermilion flycatcher, a new bird on our list. We understand they also have javelinas, mule deer, mountain lions, coyotes and a host of other mammals, 450 species of birds, 55 species of reptiles including 5 types of rattlesnake, scorpions, tarantulas and 1300 species of plants. We can hardly wait to go exploring tomorrow.
There are pix. Click here

Last night (actually, early this morning) we popped out of bed to witness what was touted as a Blood Moon Blue Moon Eclipse. I don’t know why it is called a “blood” moon because it was not red. Apparently, a “blue” moon is the second full moon in a calendar month but it was plain there was an eclipse in progress because the full moon we had seen earlier in the night was a little crescent at 0500 hours. Not too many hours later, we were on our way south with the Barbarian Invader in tow.
US-285 runs from Carlsbad, N.M., to Fort Stockton, TX, and we drove this road when we passed through this area in 2015. At that time, the road was virtually abandoned and we made the long, lonely drive without seeing many vehicles, people or structures. We made the same drive today and there was nasty traffic, construction, congestion and a road surface that appears to have been graded with 500 pound bombs. There are potholes sufficiently large to swallow even the 18 inch tires on our beloved Charlotte. We crossed back into the Central Time Zone despite driving directly south.
Apparently, the refinery that used to be next to US-285 in Orla, TX, blew up in a glorious explosion in December 2015. There are dozens of cranes and extensive personnel housing now strewn across the ugly, flat landscape as a new refinery is being built. Oil industry equipment and trucks are massive and hauling them around on one of the only public roads in the area has resulted in the almost complete destruction of the highway. They also think dust control is for sissies and entire valleys of west Texas are shrouded in gigantic clouds of opaque and pervasive dust raised by all the rednecks and oil field hands scurrying about. It is ugly.
We finally passed through the construction (or lack of construction because we didn’t see too many workers fixing the cratered road) and arrived in the town of Pecos, legendary home to cowboy stuff. There are absolutely no cowboys around Pecos now. Pecos is now a oil industry supply point and it is quite plain who is in charge. The city streets are extremely lumpy, welding and pipeline vendors occupy most of the ugly, ramshackle buildings, all of the pickup trucks (white, of course) have welding machines in the bed and there is a thick layer of dust on all stationary objects.
South of I-20, we departed from the hellish Pecos and broke out on good paving for the remaining 75 miles to Fort Stockton. Other than west Texas scrub brush, the stench of crude oil and distant gas flares squirting flames into the sky, there is very little in the way of improvements or people in this part of the world.
In Fort Stockton, we pulled into the Roadrunner RV Park which is a big ugly vacant gravel and dirt lot with places to hook up to utilities nailed to telephone poles. We will be leaving in the morning to continue our trek south to Big Bend National Park down on the Texas/Mexico border. With our discount card at Roadrunner it is only $12 a night which is about right considering the miserable landscaping but their wifi works. I’m surprised there is wifi here because the locals don’t appear to be computer or English literate. However, I did spot some folks with natural teeth.
There’s pix. Click here

Shopping in Carlsbad was the agenda for today. We went to Harbor Freight for some cheap and cheesy cutting boards, the U.S. Post Office, Albertson’s for groceries, made a fuel stop and topped it all off with a trip to Becky’s which is a drive-in with car hops.
Peggy said her burger was okay and my steak fingers were mysterious. It is quite cheap to eat here but you get what you pay for.
Back at our campsite, we watched scaled quail and a roadrunner as they feasted on the little mounds of bird seed that Peggy had deposited on top of flat rocks near our trailer. They are very pretty birds but quite pushy with each other when food is involved. Not long after the birds found the food, it was gone and they scampered away to seek other suckers.

Carlsbad Caverns is the reason we have come to this part of New Mexico. We headed into the National Park today to make our third descent into the wonderland of Carlsbad Cavern. In 2015 we passed this way and made two forays into the gigantic underground void. We rode the 750′ down in the elevator the first time and walked the steeply descending trail the second time. The trail is rough on the knees because it is steep and relentless.
Today we rode the elevator down and took the pathway around the Great Room which is truly great. The trail around the periphery of the giant room is a couple miles long and, fortunately, the lights didn’t go out because getting out of a pitch-black hole could be problematic. Most of the pathway is pretty level but there are some sections where steep up- and downgrades challenge old people, like me.
The cave formations, however, are spectacular and highly varied; stalactites, stalagmites, columns and weird curtains of limestone and calcite abound and textures of the surfaces seem to run the gamut between absolutely smooth to gigantic clumps of stone that look like popcorn stuck to a stick. Ponds of absolutely clear water dot the floor of the cave but the exits for the water cannot be determined since some flows sideways and other ponds drain out the black bottom. The National Park Service has done a commendable job lighting the formations considering the sheer volume of the place. This Cavern is one of my favorite places in the U.S. and I would never miss an opportunity to descend into this fantasy world if I was anywhere near.
During summer, there is a mass exodus of bats out the cavern entrance every night. An amphitheater for bat watchers is built just above the cave entrance for those wishing to ogle the fuzzy little critters as they emerge to save us from nasty insects. There are lots of bats – a count by the NPS indicated 18,000 bats per minute exiting the opening out of the cavern. Of course, we are here in January and all the bats are lounging in the warm weather down in Mexico so we settled for the magnificent view from the visitor center over West Texas to the south.
On the way home, we spotted not less than seven big, healthy-looking mule deer scattered across the park landscape. We also noted numerous hawks that looked quite large and robust. The limestone cliffs alongside the entrance road to the park are very colorful and riddled with small caves where it looks like former inhabitants found shelter. This park is pretty spectacular both above and below ground.
To see some pix we took in and under the park, click here

We believed we had done enough hard traveling for the last few days so we took a rest day today. We set our chairs outside and scoped out the local birds. There are lots of big American pelicans, scaled quail, ducks, cormorants and even roadrunners here. We took a short spin around the Brantley Lake State Park in the truck but the joint is pretty puny so we were back in about 20 minutes. Then we slugged out and watched movies. We can be dull. Maybe all the time.
We did get a few pix around the lake. Click here