ON THE MOVE TO MISSION, TEXAS

Wednesday, Oct 3 – We had a nice drive from Albuquerque, NM, to Lubbock, TX, today. We stuck mostly to state highways avoiding the interstates. We usually cross Texas via I-10 but that gets pretty old very fast! We'll drop South tomorrow to the San Antonio area, again using state highways.

Gorgeous sunrise this morning.

We are staying at the Lubbock Elks Lodge. We stayed here several years ago on our tour of Texas. As a matter of fact, we are in the same site....#1. They have 10 FHU back-in sites. They are gravel located on the South side of the lodge parking lot. Excellent park.

Looking left.

Poor Marsha! She was so fired up to see the Cleveland Indians in the Wildcard game. Sadly, the Tribe lost. She said she will be rooting for Boston to win it all.

Thursday, Oct 4 – We continued our cruise down the back roads of Texas. SR 83 & 84 were our most traveled routes today. There certainly wasn't much traffic on these roads...nice. Texas has exceptionally nice back roads.

It was interesting to see how things changed from Lubbock where cotton is king, down into the West Texas oil fields and then reaching Sweetwater, TX, where there are 1000's of windmills. That's one reason why Texas is growing.....jobs galore!

We sped straight through San Antonio during the mid-afternoon with no problem. Once south of San Antonio, we were greeted with the butterfly migration. John, aka “Shoeless Joe,” assured everyone in his blog that he blazed a path leaving 1000's of dead butterflies in his wake. Well John, you didn't blaze a wide enough trail because there are 1000's more dead on the highway and 100's on the front of our truck and RV.

We are in the Bar M Campground, Pleasanton, TX,  in the only site they had open. This park has been open for a year and is completely full with pipeline workers. We grabbed the only site available, and it is only open for tonight....good luck! The manager said we are only the 5^th one-night stay they have had this year. Everybody must be making money around here.

The Park is very clean and the owners are wonderful people.

Looking Right…gated park

Looking Left

We'll continue South tomorrow on Texas SR 281 to the Rio Grande Valley. This will be our third day driving across Texas. L-O-N-G drive days too! It will be nice to sit in Mission, TX, for a few weeks.

Blogger is in a funk. I tried to change the description of the header photo, but Blogger won't save it. Nor will it save the update on the weather widget. Here is what the header photo description should say…

The picture at the top of the blog is a photo of the sun rising outside Lubbock, TX.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!

BEAUTY ON THE ROCKS AND AROUND THEM

Wednesday, October 1 – On Sunday, we attended one of our favorite churches, Legacy Church. It is in an adobe style dome with matching adobe structures for the office, youth center, and porches. A very unique, southwestern but modern building.

The Balloon Fiesta begins this weekend. On the way to church, we noticed about a dozen balloons in the air.

 

Our good friends, Jane/Joe and Donna/Norm, that we've spent considerable time with in Mission, TX, the last couple winters arrived on Sunday. They are here to volunteer at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta.

Monday morning we all headed to Piedras Marcadas Canyon for a short hike.

Piedras Marcadas Canyon means “canyon of marked rocks.” We were here to see some petroglyphs. Although urban development is quite near, after a short walk, we found ourselves far away from the city…at least mentally. The Canyon is home to the densest concentration of petroglyphs in the valley with an estimated 5,000 or more documented images.

The flat sandy trail that winds through the canyon is as easy trail over a mile back into the middle canyon. There are many petroglyphs, some even with signs to identify their location. There is a little rock scrambling involved. We all came through with only minor scrapes and bumps.

We enjoyed our hike for several hours with our good friends.

Donna, Norm, Jay, Jane, Marsha, Paul

Beauty around the rocks.

There is a plant called the Devil's Claw that hasn't bloomed in over nine years. Due to all the rain in this area, we had the wonderful experience to see the "claw" shaped pod on the plant.

After the hike we returned quickly to “urban life” by stopping at a nearby Costco's for some re-supplying and a quick lunch. It was no hour drive out to this hike.....ha ha!

Later Tuesday evening, we met up with some additional friends, Betty/Jay, Sandy/Tome, and Sandy/Dave, for a lively happy hour at the campground clubhouse. The twelve of us had a good time catching up with each other's travels and remembering old times. A good time was had by all!

Tomorrow we are headed to Lubbock, TX, for an overnight stay at the Elks. We have been there before and really enjoy this Elks park.

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day!

HISTORIC OLD TOWN ALBUQUERQUE

Friday, September 27 – We visited “Old Town” Albuquerque this morning.

We enjoy window shopping in the small shops and doing some people watching. It's fun to see what small shop owners in different parts of the country offer up for sale. Obviously, in this area, there is an abundance of Native American Art and a large Hispanic influence.

 

San Felipe de Neri Church

Again, we walked away empty handed. It's funny, even though we really like the Albuquerque area, when we've been to a place previously (We were here in 2010.), it's just not as interesting the second time around. How's the saying go....”Been there, done that.”

Thanks for stopping by. Hope to see y'all back real soon. Have a great day