Texas Road Trip

We left Las Cruces to begin our journey across the "vast wasteland" of West Texas, it is beautiful in its own stark way, stunning vistas, and the best part, not many folks cluttering up the landscape. As we moved farther east we started seeing lots of oil patch activity, every RV park jammed full of working folks rigs and every service companies yard with a few rigs set up there. Rumours has it they can even get pipelines built in this country without it being a ten year process doomed to failure.

We got to Ozona, Texas and tried to get into the local RV Parks but as I said they were jammed full of working stiffs so we headed just east of town to the Circle Bar Truck Stop. We found a spot there away over in a corner, out of the way and got set up. The place was empty when we arrived but by the middle of the night we were joined by about 50 purring Cats, all keeping their drivers warm while they slept away the night. Brenda had a hard time sleeping but my old camp habits kicked in and I slept like a baby. If I just had of had a few guys slamming doors it would have been perfect. Not many places have 50 odd white noise machines to help you drift off.

We got going yesterday morning and headed for our penultimate destination, the Blazing Star RV Park in San Antonio, where we are going to spend a week or so visiting with our friends Deb and Rod Kendall. They have come by Dogpound North a couple of times on their triennial visits to the Salmon streams of Alaska so it was time we returned the pleasure. We spent the afternoon chewing the fat and then headed out to one of their favourite Mexican restaurants in the area, Las Palapas Alamo Ranch, for some good Mexican food. Always good breaking bread with old friends, and even better if you can score a whole bag of bunuelos on the way out of the restaurant. But now it is time for me to wander off and find myself a feed of Huevos Rancheros or maybe just another couple of the bunuelos. Stay tuned.

Texas Bound

We left Las Cruces Monday morning and threaded our way through El Paso, just after the morning rush hour. It was a little hectic but no tie-ups so of short duration anyway. Lots of pollution drifting down the valley there, funny how that wall doesn't stop any of that. We weren't lucky enough to see any trees as we drove across West Texas, we were hoping to see if the new forest raking protocol has been implemented but I guess that will have to wait until we are out of the desert, even though we did notice there were fire bans in most of the county's we traversed. #MakeAmericaRakeAgain

We are spending the night near Ozona, Texas, enjoying the hospitality of Exxon and the local tire shop. We did call around to the local RV Parks but they are jammed full of oil patch guys, seems to be a boom happening in these parts. We have traveled a little over 3700 kilometers on this journey so far and I did notice one strange thing.

It appears that Alberta, where they have the third largest petroleum reserves in the world, and Texas which certainly has more than its fair share have by far the highest prices for fuel. Strangely enough Arizona, which to my knowledge, doesn't produce enough petroleum to fuel a Coleman Stove and the far south of New Mexico have the lowest prices. Apparently having petroleum and refining capacity is no indicator that your prices will be good. Against all logic transportation has little impact on the price of fuel.