It is Saturday and our RV repairs are in limbo for a couple days since neither the contractor nor the insurance company work weekends and only do slightly more during the week. Since we didn’t need to talk with anyone or refer to our records, we decided to go into San Antonio, thinking traffic would be lighter on the weekend. We were wrong.
We stopped in at a Home Depot for some minor repair supplies and bird seed for our friends. We also tried out a restaurant called BJ’s Restaurant and Brew House which seems unlikely to get on our favorite restaurants list. The servers were nice enough but looked like tatted punks with funny hair. Our beer and appetizers selection was somehow bungled and we ended up with a proper appetizer but the wrong brew. The wait for our food seemed abnormally long. The food, despite the wait, was nominal, at best. The final insult was the $65 bill. We will find other places to eat that aren’t as snazzy, upscale or crummy.
The weather has been getting abnormally lousy for around here. It is mostly cloudy, some rain and temperatures are dropping, even during the daytime. We will cozy up in our traveling home and ignore the weather.

We didn’t do anything productive today. We are slugs.
We did find out that there may be a communication problem between our RV repair contractor and our RV insurance company. Despite allegations from the contractor, the insurance company can’t seem to get it together on the estimate and picture arrivals in their system. Since we do not have any pressing engagements, we may just let these two snotty crybabies haggle it out without any of our help. So there!

There was no progress on our maintenance or insurance coverage issues so we chose to avoid boredom while waiting and took a foray out into the San Antonio area to spend money.
San Antonio covers a monstrous area so we drove about an hour to a Camping World to acquire some stuff. Our current outdoor carpet for the RV was acquired when we purchased the trailer in ’14 and it was almost nominal at that time. It has been slowly disintegrating since then and now merely leaves tiny pieces of itself in our storage bay. Peggy picked out a new carpet to replace the future former unit.
We got a new screen door handle for me to install and, as always, we stocked up on tank deodorizer. On the way back across San Antonio, we spotted a Trader Joe’s and stopped in to buy a whole bunch of very tasty but probably not healthy goods. We managed to escape less than $200 poorer although we may soon be more rotund.
Considering the amount of time we had already spent on San Antonio’s roads, we then chickened out and headed back to Lakehills and our temporarily crippled Barbarian Invader. The weather has been sort of crummy so we are pretty happy just holing up in the trailer and watching movies. Additionally, there are lots of wild critters outside the trailer and we are quite content watching them.

Today we figured we would be able to go exploring but reality set in and fouled up our lack of plans. We found out the roof portion of our temporarily wounded RV will require a separate insurance claim from our tire explosion issue (see 2/6 and 2/5 entries) so I spent a couple hours on the phone chatting with insurance company employees I don’t know. I also spent some time talking to our RV mechanic and giving him pertinent info from the insurance company. It is funny that when folks having some problem are shown on TV, they are smiling and looking quite satisfied when dealing with their insurance company. Our experience has been somewhat different; I have spent hours on the phone either wandering in answering machine mazes or leaving messages for my mechanic who probably cannot answer when I call because he is busy in some uncomfortable space under someone else’s RV. After many hours of fooling around with our cell phone and its charger, I may be done with today’s fun frustrated communication activity.
I dumped the waste tanks but when I pulled in into our current RV space with our trailer with its failed tire and suspension parts, I was unable to check out the sewer location. It turns out that it was at the maximum distance from our trailer that I can deal with but the hole was also a bit uphill from our campsite so dumping was a bit problematic. I am now convinced that shit won’t run uphill.
Peggy went over to the laundry and she did our laundry while I was fussing with the dookies. Only sharpening our knives remains to be done on my schedule for today and I will start on that as soon as Peggy returns and shows me where she has concealed our knife sharpener. I am such a helpless goob without her around.
We put out the bird feeder because we have spotted flocks of them around here. Even though we have been primarily tied up with insurance companies and RV repairmen today, we have identified some bird types we have not seen before and we always think that is good.
We got pictures of some neighbors. Click here

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