I left my brothers house the day after I received the power supply (PS) I needed for the used LCD monitor I bought on eBay. As soon as I plugged it into the PS and turned it on, I could see defects in the screen display. Damn. Then I went back to the documentation I had about the product to see if I’d missed something in the description of the monitor or in the pictures the seller provided. There was no mention of the blue blotches that were large and obvious on the screen. And both were on the right side of the screen but the pictures provided by the seller only showed close up pics of the left side. Hmmm. Interesting. I had time to shoot off a complaint email to the seller and got on the road next morning by 9am.
I took the shortest route to Fort Stockton Texas with a stop in Benson Arizona. I pushed it that first day since I was fresh and drove until around 9:30pm or so with a couple stops to stretch my legs. I parked the rig across two, three parking slots used by truckers at a truck stop. I felt safe doing that since when I got there the place had 50 to 100 empty slots and I wanted to park in a way that would minimize the parking lot lights getting into the rig and disturbing my sleep. Next morning at 6am I get up and find I’m blocked in by two semis. I slept right through their arrival. After breakfast and some coffee, I seesaw the rig back and forth a few times before I can make it out. A couple hours later and I pass a large wind farm. It was the first time I stopped to take a picture or two. The first day was over familiar ground so I didn’t bother to take more pictures of the same places I’d passed and taken shots of before.
A giant wind farm just inside Texas:
More wind farm:
That night I stopped in Fort Stockton, Texas and spent the night. Next morning at around 10:30, way out in the boondocks, the weather began to change and I liked the patterns of light in the clouds so I stopped here and there and got a few shots:
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This part of the trip was really out there in the country (I headed south from Fort Stockton on US285), I only passed two or three small towns and a handful of farms. Most of the farms I did see were falling down and had the look of better days long gone. Not to say that there weren’t any newer farms or ranches, there were, but they were just well off the road mostly.
Out in the boondocks:
The remnants of a pacific hurricane showed up:
I liked the look of these strata. Millions of years of deposits right there exposed:
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Anyway, at around 2ish that day, on my 3rd day of travel, I get about 60 miles from my next stop, Hondo Texas, and I call one of the RV parks there in town and ask if they have cable TV. I want to watch the Seahawks play and hope that cable will at least give me the choice to watch it. “Sure we do”, he says. When I get there and hook up to the TV style cable sticking out of the ground, all I find is one channel. Walk over and talk to the guy that has already taken my money and ask about cable, “Nope”, he says, “We don’t have cable”. When I point out I had called and asked about it, he starts backtracking and pretending he didn’t really know whether they had it or not. Jackass. Lying Jackass. And the place cost me $20 for the night. No laundry, no cable, and bathrooms (filthy) without doorknobs and doors you have to jamb with logs to keep closed! Well, I called two other parks and they didn’t have cable either, I was tired, and it made no difference at all anyway so I stayed there.
Here’s the catfish pond:
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My rig there, no other guests, hmm, wonder why:
Nice old tractor:
The office. Don’t stay here unless you can’t find anywhere else. I’m told that there is an Escapee’s park 8 miles east of Hondo, but I didn’t visit it. They say it has all the amenities.
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Next day I moved to another park. Again, $20 per night, no laundry, no cable, no trash bins…etc. Stay out of Hondo, Texas. Not RV friendly. The parks I stayed at were the Hondo Catfish Lake & RV and Countryside Mobile Home & RV. Both ask too much money. If they were $8 per night, maybe. But not worth $20, at least not in my experience.
The day I drove to Hondo, I noticed that the voltage meter on the dash was reading higher then normal. Still in the OK range but high. Around an hour later, the voltage dropped to well below normal. Symptom of a bad alternator. So I shut everything off that might use the battery and limped into Hondo. Next morning I move to the second RV park in town and ask if they know any RV repair people in town. I make some calls and no one seems to want to work on it. So, the day after that, I leave town and head on south to a much bigger town, McAllen, running my genset the whole way so as to keep the batteries topped up since it charges them all. I got down here in the late afternoon, stopped in a parking lot and called around to find an RV park worth visiting.
I’m now at a nice park just to the west of McAllen in Mission, Texas called the Twin Lakes RV. It does have bathrooms, showers, laundry, and free WiFi. I’ve done some work on the alternator and should have it fixed in a couple days. I take my time with these things.