January 17, 2017. Close call!

CAMPGROUND:. Alaska RV Park.  We've stayed here before.  One of the best in the US, as far as commercial parks go.  Nice, big sites.  Full hook-ups.  Cable, wifi.  Beautiful showers and bathrooms  Great library and laundry room.  Very nice hosts.  They guide you to your site.  Nice picnic tables on concrete slab.  $30/night.  10 starts

LOCATION:  Alpine, Texas.  West central part of state.  Not far from Big Bend National Park

WEATHER:  Nice in AM; lousy in PM.  Highs in Alpine 38!  :-(

 

Hueco Tanks State Park, near El Paso, is just beautiful.  The words Hueco Tanks mean water holes.  The rocks here are full of small holes that store water.  In Indian days, this place was an oasis in the desert as the holes stored water long after the surrounding areas dried up.    

We had to get in line for a hiking pass at 7:30 AM.  The park only allows 80 hikers at a time, including 10 from the campground.  We campers waited for the office to open at 8:00.  Most of the others were young people planning to climb the boulders.  They all carry "crash pads".  These guys all have a certain look about them.....tall, thin, wild hair, 20-somethings.  

 

The weather was crisp and windy.  We hiked about 2 hours admiring the rocks.  We saw a jackrabbit and tracks of javalina and deer.  

This is one of the larger water holes. We packed up at about 10:00 and hit the road east.  We were able to stay off interstates.  The scenery is pretty boring.  This was in one town we passsed through. 

In fact the road was so monotonous that George fell asleep at the wheel.  Usually, I am watching the road, ready to gasp at anything bad, but this time I was reading.  All of a sudden, we were in the ditch on the opposite side of the road.  Thank goodness there were not any cars coming toward us.  Thank goodness the ditch was relatively flat.  And thank goodness there was not a bridge or a culvert.  Unfortunately, this is the second time this week that this has happened.  I'm going to start driving more.  

 

So, I took over the wheel, and inevitablly, the previously boring highway turned challenging.  More turns.  The sun suddenly disappeared and a big cloud just lowered itself over the highway.  The sky turned black and we entered a dense fog.  We watched the thermometer plummet to the 30s.  

 

We drove through the quirky town of Marfa where we have stayed before.  In the gloomy weather, it looked like a ghost town.  We made it to Alpine.  We. Had planned to spend a few nights here but will only stay one.  This is partly due to the weather which is predicted to be the same cold and dreary wintery mix for the next few days, and also because the RV park is almost full and we got the last site and it is not available tomorrow.  So, we will head farther south and east.

 

I took advantage of the beautiful showers and felt like a million dollars afterwards.  I worked on this blog.  Our internet hasn't been great for the last few days, so I haven't been able to post.  This should catch me up!     DINNER:  The VERY last of the rotisserie chicken I bought last week.  I had frozen pieces of chicken breast for sandwiches.  Instead, I made chicken cheesy quesadillas.  Really good.  We are getting a bit tired, though, of meals with tortillas.  The package of tortillas we bought in Mexico is gigantic.