This is the first time we have had internet service for a week. I will not try to bring you up to date in this one blog, however, I must say that we have left the Lone Star Corral. We certainly enjoyed our 6 weeks at
the Escapee park very much and will miss our old and new friends as well. We will also miss the good food we found in Hondo and Sabinal as well as the fellowship with out friends the Drew's.
We finally got away on Sunday about 11am and headed west out US90 toward El Paso, TX. The weather had been cooler than we really liked, lows in the 30's and high in the 50's and 60's. Hopefully we will find warmer weather as we get farther west, however there are some high altitudes we have to endure and thus cool temperatures, but that are things you have to endure, just find a place to hook up your electricity and turn on the heaters. Generally that is enough, but sometime we turn on the furnace to quickly warm it up in the morning. Surely we will find the land of warmth and sunshine soon.
The photos are of the entrance to the Lone Star Corral in Hondo, TX. This is a place we enjoy very much, actually more than any of the other Escapees Parks we have visited, so far. We will let you know if we find one we enjoy more.
Having a relatively late start on the day, we made it as far as Sanderson, TX. We stayed at the same park as last year, only we had full hook ups, rather than in the overflow area. All the guy wanted was the $20.00. He was not interested in names, license plate numbers, etc. Just pay him the money and get parked. A very quiet night, with few trains and little traffic on the road. A bit cool again, however we were at an altitude of 2790' from the 825' at the Lone Star Corral. On the way, we stopped at Langtry, TX and a visit to the Judge Roy Bean museum. This was operated and maintained by the state of Texas. Very nice with nice gardens, and a replica of the opera house he had built as well as the original saloon that he used as his court house where he made the law. His was the "Law West of the Pecos". Lots of artifacts, many actually used by Judge Roy Bean.
Monday, we headed on west toward Ft. Davis and the McDonald Observatory. When we arrived at Ft. Davis we went to the campground we had picked out in the Passport book, however when we arrived, we were informed that they did not honor any discounts as the bank had taken over the campground and the gal there was a bank employee. We went on to another campground we found in the Passport book the Prude Ranch. It is a few miles out of town in the mountains toward the observatory. Is a dude ranch with all kinds of activities, horse back riding, jeep tours, shooting range, rodeo type activities, swimming pool and two campgrounds. The place was closed down for the winter, other than the campgrounds. We were the only one there until a class C came in about dark. The fellow came over and wanted to know if they could stay and pay in the morning when the office opened. We assured him that that would be the thing to do. We later met them at the observatory.
Tuesday, we woke up to a heavy frost, everything was white, however we had reached an altitude of over 5,000' and it felt like it. We drove on up the mountain to the observatory and watched a film on astrology and then enjoyed a talk by an astronomer about the sun and sun spots. We looked at the sun through one of the telescopes and checked the outer edge for flayers. A quite interesting program. We did not take the tour of the telescopes as it was cold, outside as well as inside the domes. They keep the floor of the telescope domes at about 40 degrees due to the precision makeup of the equipment. We returned to the Prude Ranch and hooked up the van and headed back down the mountain and headed back south to Marfa, TX and US90 and on west to Van Horn, TX where we fueled up and found a nice campground not to far from I10 and on the other side the RR tracks which parallel US90 from San Antonio west and maybe east of San Antonio. You can always depend on a RR track or an interstate highway next to the campground, maybe both.