Adventure 2021 begins

It’s not quite 7am as I sit up in my bunk to start this blog. The temperature outside is 45 degrees, the sun is shining, our propane heater is humming as it rapidly warms the rig.

This photo tells the reason we are here. What a view to wake up to. To be able to sit up in my bed, drink my hot coffee and look out my bedroom window at this amazing view and to know that tomorrow I will do the same thing, only my view will have changed. And I get to choose the view. It kinda reminds you one of those view finder toys Granny had when we were kids. Where you slip a cardboard wheel that encloses a dozen photos of some famous place into a plastic viewer. You insert the card for Mt Rushmore and you ohh and ahh, then you take out that card and insert another one. Immediately you are transported to the Statue of Liberty. For me traveling is kinda like that only better. I love seeing new and interesting places. We ohhhh and ahhh and then off to the next place. It takes us longer than using Granny’s view finder, but it is also so much more rewarding.

My view this morning is from Hueco Tanks just north of El Paso. This is our third and last morning here.

Our 2021 RV trip began on April 21 when we left Clear Lake Shores for a short drive to Lake Somerville, TX. When I chose this location, I was merely wanting a decent spot not too far up the road where Tim and I could exhale. As usual, the stress leading up to the Big Leave can be a bit much and we wanted to just chill and get recharged before continuing on.

Our next stop was Oak Thicket State Park in Fayetteville where we hooked up with a great group of camping, partying, eating, yakking, fun friends from Clear Lake Shores and their friends and family. If you are with this group, you are guaranteed to have a great time and you can’t go hungry or get thirsty. We had 3 wonderful nights at Oak Thicket and hope we get back in time for the reunion in October.

We had a wonderful fish/tater tot fry, a blind taste testing between Crown and High Ridge (of course the cheaper whiskey won) and visited Blue Mule Winery for a Fiber Festival. The highlights of the winery were the gregarious alpacas and the many beautiful yarns that are now being knitted in CLS.

After leaving Oak Thicket, we had a nice boondock at Junction City Park, right on the South Llano River. Just off I-10, it was a great place along the river for the evening.

The planned drive from Junction to Hueco Tanks put us on I 10 for a good chunk of the trip. Rolling down the interstate through mountain passes with 6 wheelers crawling up the inclines only to roar past you on the downside isn’t my idea of fun cruising. Add winds blowing 15-20 mph and gust to 40mph and its time to find a better route. Just outside Sierra Blanca I found a road that would take us straight north and then we could turn onto Hwy 62 and go straight west to Hueco. Boy was I right. With the winds at our back we flew up the backroad faster than we could go if we had stayed on 10. No lights, no traffic and straight as an arrow.

April 25- April 29 Hueco Tanks State Park and Historic Site

Hueco means hollow. Millions of years ago limestone covered this hard outcropping of land. Over time the softer limestone eroded away leaving the harder igneous rock. This rock has natural hollows and fractures that allow for the collection of precious rainwater that has been used by animals and humans for thousands of year.

We spent our first day hiking the Rim Trail and the Chain Trail. I was amazed at the plant life, especially the wild flowers in this desert area. We also encountered a guy from Buffalo, NY who was here for the world famous bouldering. He told us the bulk of his experience was in a gym, and he decided to give it a real life try here. Hmmmmm.

Parts of the park are restricted to visitors except with a guide. I had prebooked a tour for us on our second day. We were a bit concerned about whether or not the tour would still go due to an unusual spring rain, but fortunately the rain did not deter our guide nor the 3 other people who joined us. Our guide, Alex, half Pueblo, half Mexican American, shared stories passed down to him and those learned through his own research. We learned about the Mongolian people who first inhabited the tanks and left pictographs, pottery shards and stone tools. Later came the Spanish invaders and then in the mid 1800s pioneers traveling west to seek their fortunes in gold stopped at the tanks. The Butterfield Overland Mail also stopped at the tanks for water. Many of these early Americans left their marks at the huecos. As we were squatting in a cave listening to another story being told by Alex, a loud rumbling thunder boomer rolled through the canyon. A downpour soon followed giving Alex time for more storytelling. The rain seemed to stop as quickly as it began, the sun came back out and a new sound was heard. The sound of water running. Out of the cave we found waterfalls where moments before there were none and previously dry huecos were now filling with rainwater. So cool to see the rapid change brought by the rains. As we hiked down the rocks, we also saw more wildlife out enjoying the new wetness. Along the trail we saw rabbits, lizards and a couple horny toads. Hueco Tanks did not disappoint us. We were very glad we stopped there.

Next up- a ghost town in New Mexico and the Gila Cave Dwellings.