East Texas through New Mexico

Well here we are again, off on a long trip around a few US states in Junior. Planning has taken weeks, picking the sites we want to stay in and the sights we want to see there.

On our last trip at Christmas we caught the tow hitch on a raised patch of ground in the RV park we stayed in. It damaged the lights cable from Junior to the toad, and the tail lights on the toad (brake and blinker) were not working. As we were travelling in daylight and the toad brake light still worked from the braking system, we decided to drive home and order a new cable once we got back.

So back to this trip, off to our favorite hooking up place at the local Baptist church parking lot, line it all up, attach the tow bar, breakaway chains, Patriot system in the toad, then the brand new bright yellow lighting cable between Junior and the toad. Test the lights, nothing, nada, zip – no toad lights and we have 230 miles to go. Luckily I had purchased 2 cables, second one same thing, and no light action on the toad. Again daylight and the toad brakes work from the Patriot so we hit the road.

So we get to I20 just south of Fort Worth and the brake system alarm sounded with error 4, if anyone knows that section of road it’s like driving through a concrete canyon with no places for a 37 foot motorhome towing a Honda CRV to pull over. So Connie googled the error, car battery low – OK, it’s not going to cause a problem, drive on a few more miles where we found a nice long wide section. The car battery was totally dead. We have to fix it; we can’t drive without lights on the toad. Start the generator on Junior, get out the battery charger, get the 50 foot extension and plug the charger to the battery – fast charge for 15 minutes and just had enough to turn the engine over. We have to leave the car running as were towing it, better that than have the same problem a few miles down the road.

As Google had helped us with that problem Connie started Googling the hitch cable problem as we travelled – it was a fuse, where are the fuses, on the left on the dashboard under a secret panel. Once we arrived at our first stop I pulled open the panel and searched the Ford manual – ah hah – fuse 22 is a 20 amp for the hitch connection, we must have blown the fuse in Canton when we damaged the cable, replaced the fuse and all was well. What a start to our journey.

We left that RV park to make our way to a site near Lubbock, only 260 miles and fill up on the way, Flying J have started putting RV friendly lanes in their newer stops, we used the one at Tye, just outside Abilene, really easy and filled the toad as well – $125, oh well, just less than 7 miles to the gallon, but that was with the generator running for nearly half an hour.

Lubbock, 3 nights 2 days, one to go into the town and search for Buddy Holley’s center and statue and one to shop for groceries and a new battery for the toad. The first day saw major storms coming through, lightning, thunder and torrential rain – Rusty was a real mess, panting and shaking – there wasn’t a lot we could do just hold him tight and hope the storms would soon be over, not so, almost all afternoon until 9 in the evening. We leave here for New Mexico and Roswell tomorrow, to see the aliens.

Roswell is a really ‘odd’ place, not just because of the brightly colored alien figures scattered around, but because it seems to be a city of 2 halves, the old downtown where the alien museum is and the more modern area just north of downtown. We found a city park where we could take Rusty for a really long walk twice a day, was doing us some good too, getting the blood pumping – Rusty was on a tear each day. We found a food truck – Chef Todzillas Mobile Cuisine, we got the last green chili burger of the day, juices dripping down to our elbows, and the tumbleweed onion rings sliced very thin, coated and fried – really healthy eating. The alien museum is quite odd, with newspaper accounts of the ‘landing’ surrounded by plastic aliens, still interesting though.

The best part of that area was the Bitter Lake Wildlife Reserve. Lots of wildlife, mainly water fowl – 2 kinds of Ibis, American Avocet, small ducks and a yellow breasted bird that we still can’t identify, so if you can tell what it is from the photograph, let us know.

The next day was not a fun day driving, we had swirling side and head winds of 15-25 mph gusting to over 40, new finger impressions in the steering wheel. I had worked out that we had enough gas to get to Albuquerque – hadn’t accounted for the winds and hills, we were lucky to find a gas station 50 miles from Albuquerque, I say lucky as we could get Junior into it, and out again.

This was our second visit to Albuquerque – to walk around the old town plaza again, visit a couple of the local shops for more flavored oils, the ones from the last trip had been used and some licorice from the Candy Lady. She also makes some really amazing truffles, this shop is dangerous and you gain weight just walking through the door. We had a light lunch (and a beer) at the Church Street Café, a grilled chicken sandwich with a green chili for Connie and I had the Ruben (sic).

We had decided that we really wanted to visit the Four Corners Monument, where the four corners of Utah, Colorado, Arizona and New Mexico meet, so our next stop was only 134 miles away. Again we had very strong winds, swirling around so there was no relaxing, for anybody. Connie ‘suggested’ I add the next part – apparently I talk to the drivers as they are overtaking, ‘encouraging’ them to get past quickly. There were also a few expletives when a sudden gust of wind would move us sideways a foot or so, the stronger the wind the stronger, and louder, the expletive. What can I say!! We stayed in a park in Gallup so that we could take a day trip to Four Corners the next day, the next day started really badly, high winds and lots of rain, so we decided to go to the Monument the next day. The rain eased off around noon, too late to go to the Monument so we found a place nearer, the Window Rock and the Navajo Code Talkers Memorial, just 30 miles away, really amazing place.

 

The next day was good so we drove to Four Corners, nice place surrounded by about 60 Navajo tradespeople selling jewelry, arrows, T-Shirts and all manner of souvenirs. Lunch was Navajo fry bread, nothing memorable about that.

So that was our trip from East Texas through New Mexico, next leg is Arizona and Nevada.

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