November 17, 2015 Traveling to New Mexico

We were up early and on the road as the sun rose.  There were wind warnings and we wanted to get to our destination early.

West out of Brownfield:

The towns are few and far between each other but there are farm houses that dot the landscape:

Storage buildings here and there too:

Getting ready to harvest:

Looks like the start of a vineyard:

Cotton, Cotton, Everywhere:

Old farm buildings:

And new ones too:

As we approached the border, we began to see more and more oil rigs:

Amongst the cotton bales and cotton gins:

Into New Mexico:

And we saw more and more of the oil industry equipment:

Sign leaving Lovington, NM:

And then there was nothing – but flat at 3900’:

Now here is where it gets more interesting.  We came down in elevation and it looked like a town that was spread out:

But look real close past the homes along the road:

Those, my friends, are the oil fields.  There was at least one pumper per acre and sometimes three rigs pumping.  Plus they are still drilling.  It was fascinating and went for MILES.

In the next few pictures, check out the background – miles of them as far as you can see and the smell of oil was heavy!

WOW! WOW! and more WOW!  I am still speechless as I write this!

We also crossed another time zone and arrived at our destination at 9:30 AM.  My Andy did a great job getting us here thru the winds.

We are staying at The Ranch, an Escape CO-OP park.  This was our first CO-OP Escape park that we visited in 2008 when we were checking out what this club was all about.  It is still as friendly as ever.

At the laundry I met up with Lois who I haven’t seen since Quartzsite and we spent some time getting caught up.  At Happy Hour, we met up with Leland and got caught up. We hope to see him and Brenda in Deming tomorrow.

There were other folks who looked familiar to me and I know I have met somewhere in our travels, I just don’t remember where – I probably will in a few days – LOL!

So tomorrow if the wind has stopped we will be on our way west. 

Enjoy today!

Miles Traveled: 149 Miles

Texas: US-62; US-82

New Mexico: US-82; US-285; Lakewood Road

November 16, 2015 Travel thru Texas

We woke to rain and fog this morning but packed up and headed west anyway.

Here we go:

This looks like an interesting place:

We stayed on US-380 most of the day.  Once we passed Denton, Texas the towns were few and far between.  The topography went from rolling hills to flat and then back to rolling hills again.  We went thru farms then oil rigs then both then each – :

How about this BIG guy – we saw him from a long way off:

What a cutie, isn’t he.

It is amazing to us to see so far with the flat land.  So when we saw this Texas Longhorn, he was about 2 miles away.  He was HUGE when we got close to him.

I mention the “flat land” because this past summer we had three separate visits from our RV friends (six people total) and one of the first things they said to us was “there are so many hills here”.  I had never really thought about it because after being our west, our hills are very minor.

We also met a woman from Plano when we were in Cumberland Gap NP and she said she felt claustrophic when she was in the east.  She was use to this area where you can see forever whereas many areas in the east are surrounded by trees – never looked at it that way.

Oil fields surrounded by cows and farmland:

Cool looking small towns:

Many of these building remind me of the little towns that are set up in a model train city.  But in real life so sad to see these beautiful buildings shut down.

More pictures along the way:

In this area, the smell of oil was very heavy:

West of Post, Texas there were acres and acres of cotton.  Some fields were harvested, some in the process, and some that just looked like snow:

Flat and Beautiful:

We use the ALLSTAYS app and also the DaysEnd Directory (part of Escapees) and there are so many free or “cheap” city parks on US-380.  There are also so many “picnic areas” where one could stay overnight.  We found a little city park in Brownfield Texas that has 12 spots with electric and water and that is where we are tonight.

It was VERY WINDY today and Andy did a great job of getting us here safe (Thank you honey – )

We set up, had supper, and then our phones told us that there was a tornado warning.  One mistake we made was not finding the shelter nearby.  The storm passed thru with much lightning, rain, and wind and now all is good.

Stats for Today

Miles Traveled: 341 Miles (Long Windy Day)

Routes Traveled:

Texas: FM-1385; US-380; SR-288; I-35; US-380; US-62; Park Road